Winning student teams of the regional finals of the Huawei ICT Competition 2023-2024 Middle East and Central Asia (ME &CA) were felicitated at a grand closing and awarding ceremony on December 21, 2023, in Manama, Bahrain.
This year, the grand prize for the Network Track went to a team of students from Pakistan, while Qatari students secured the grand prize in the Cloud Track, and the grand prize for the Computing Track was given to students from Kazakhstan.
All the winners received their trophies and prizes from Highness Shaikh Nasser bin Hamad Al Khalifa, His Majesty the King’s Representative for Humanitarian Work and Youth Affairs, and Steven Yi, President of Huawei Middle East & Central Asia. All the participating students in the regional finals received internship opportunities at the Huawei offices in their respective home countries.
His Highness said, “We commissioned the Supreme Council for Youth and Sports, the Ministry of Youth Affairs, the Ministry of Labor, and the Ministry of Education three years ago to examine ways to reskill our youth, and we made it clear to our ministers that we in the military place great emphasis on lifelong training and education. I wanted to promote participants and improve their skills. I wanted high-intensity, high-impact, competitive training camps to help gain new skills, assess abilities objectively, and be ready to tackle new challenges and opportunities.”
“I was very pleased when Huawei was one of the first companies to respond to this vision and to introduce to us the Middle East and Central Asia competition, which was aligned with our direction. This is a fantastic start to an excellent long-term collaboration between the private sector and the public sector in preparing our youths for their future,” he added.
Steven congratulated all the winners, saying, “Developing ICT talent is essential for the continued development of digital economies across the Middle East and Central. At Huawei, we’re cognizant that the digital skills gap affects national economies and individual lives, and we’ve activated a number of ICT talent development programs and initiatives, including our successful Huawei ICT Competition.”
“Huawei is really grateful to our gracious host, Bahrain, for their world-class hospitality. The Kingdom of Bahrain has set an excellent roadmap for an open collaborative environment that promotes partnerships between public and private sectors and academia. I would like to express our gratitude to our partners from regional governments, organizations, and universities for their continuous support and contribution to the success of the competition,” Yi added.
The seventh edition of Huawei’s flagship ICT talent development initiative witnessed the highest level of participation since the competition’s launch in 2017. More than 27,500 students from over 600 universities across 21 Middle Eastern & Central Asian countries participated in this year’s Middle East & Central Asia Huawei ICT Competition. Twenty-two national final teams, consisting of 66 students and 20 tutors, from 11 Middle Eastern & Central Asian countries, including Bahrain, Pakistan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Qatar, Kuwait, UAE, and Oman, qualified for the regional finals. These national finalists participated in exams, field trips, and workshops in the Kingdom of Bahrain from December 19-21, 2023.
