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As part of its ongoing commitment to growing South Africa’s ICT talent base, and ahead of World Youth Skills Day on 15 July, Huawei, this month, announced the 2022 recipients of its Bursary Award Programme.

World Youth Skills Day celebrates the strategic importance of equipping young people with skills for employment, decent work, and entrepreneurship. These are all essential components that the Huawei Bursary Programme helps young people in achieving.

The bursaries, which come with stringent requirements, are awarded to top-achieving students studying ICT-relevant subjects at Huawei’s partner universities and are designed to help ensure that recipients have the skills they need to become future innovators and technology thought leaders.

This year Huawei awarded 44 bursaries to students from six universities.  By the end of the year, it hopes to have awarded bursaries to a further 11 students, bringing the total to 55.

Launched in 2019, the bursary programme has to date sponsored approximately 184 students to the value of R23.5 million.

Citing legendary statesman and South Africa’s first democratically elected president Nelson Mandela’s 1996 speech at the inauguration of the Academy of Science of South Africa, Daniel Jiang, Human Resource Director, Huawei South Africa, spoke about why Huawei is so committed to developing youth ICT talent. In that speech, Mandela said:

“On your shoulders rests the challenge of giving science a face that inspires our youth to seek out science, engineering and technology.’’

“As we move towards the Fourth Industrial Revolution and more than two decades later, Mandela’s words still ring true,” Jiang said. “Huawei South Africa has several initiatives to empower and upskill young South Africans so that they can positively contribute to the local digital economy.”

“This is a long-term investment for Huawei and is part of our ICT talent ecosystem programme to develop and mature our young generation of ICT practitioners into world-class experts,” he added. 

“As a company, it is an honour to invest in future technology innovators and thought leaders,” he said. “It is also rewarding to see young, ambitious people investing in their futures.” 

Jiang also thanked the tertiary institutions Huawei partners with and at which the bursary recipients study.

“Special thanks and appreciation to all the universities for playing a pivotal role in developing these remarkable students,” he said.

Mohammed Bismilla, Head of the Huawei Bursary Programme, and recognized among the most influential recruiters by SAGEA for the third consecutive year running, echoed those sentiments.

“Your institutions play a significant role in nurturing future greats,” he said before announcing that Walter Sisulu University (WSU) and North West University (NWU) had been added to the list of tertiary institutions partners.

“Huawei is seriously invested in South Africa’s youth,” he added. “Our bursary programme is one of the mechanisms we use to ensure that South Africa’s top ICT talent are supported to achieve their personal ambitions & contribute to the greater ICT sector, which will form the future economy of our country.” 

He further pointed out that participants in the bursary programme are offered the chance to participate in Huawei’s graduate programme, which looks to take on between 60 and 70 graduates a year, who are then placed in different parts of the business. 

One beneficiary of both the bursary and graduate programmes is Amanda Mbehle. Now a product manager at Huawei, she was selected for the bursary programme while studying an Honours degree in Information Science in 2018 and joined the graduate programme in 2019.

“Huawei has always embraced an active, open, and diverse talent development culture,” she said. “We want to give talented, young people as many opportunities as possible”

Another beneficiary of the graduate programme is Mpho Modise, now an assistant product manager at the company.

“As a graduate coming into the workforce, you have to work hard and gain your colleagues’ trust,” he said. “But over time, your teammates will realise the potential you have and trust you with more projects.”

He also identified Huawei’s culture of innovation and the effort it puts into making all team members feel appreciated as highlights of his time working for the company to date.

Jeffrey Mashele, one of the 2022 bursary recipients, provided insight into what the award means to him. Originally from the small township of Pienaar, near Nelspruit in Mpumalanga, Mahsele is completing an undergraduate degree in computer science and information technology (IT) at the University of KwaZulu Natal.

“Having the bursary has already relieved me from having to worry about university fees and other financial issues that students face in tertiary education,” he said. “This has given me a chance to fully dedicate myself to my studies. The bursary will also provide me an opportunity to join Huawei and I believe the organisation is an ideal environment for me to enhance my knowledge and skills which will get me closer to achieving my goals.”

Another recipient is 21-year-old Libhongo Mko, who hails from the East London township of Mdantsane and is currently enrolled at the University of Cape Town for a degree in Computer Science and Business Computing.

“I have a vision of developing my community to have an affordable stable network connection since we are currently faced with bad network connectivity,” he said. “I believe that the Huawei bursary will help me in achieving my goals as the company has network engineering positions which is my dream job and provides a platform for people to learn new skills.”

“The opportunity afforded to me through the Huawei bursary enabled me to finish my degree on time, when I financially had no other means to do so,” said fellow bursary recipient and University of the Witwatersrand student Gabriella Ndhlovu. “With Huawei’s involvement in the field of 5G networking and the fourth industrial revolution, I am able to grow my knowledge and apply my own aspirations in this field.”