Qatar team win grand prize in Huawei ICT Competition

A team of three students from Qatar secured the grand prize in the Cloud Track at the finals of Huawei ICT Competition 2023-2024 Middle East and Central Asia held in Manama, Bahrain, on Thursday.
The students are Hadieh Abdulmajeed and Mohamed Mouemel Abdallahi (Qatar University), and Saba Wynne (University of Doha for Science and Technology).
The winning teams were felicitated at a grand closing and awarding ceremony. Hosted under the patronage of Sheikh Nasser bin Hamad al-Khalifa, Bahrain King’s Representative for Humanitarian Work and Youth Affairs, and in partnership with Bahrain’s Ministry of Transportation and Telecommunication and the University of Bahrain, the ceremony was held at the University of Bahrain.
This year, the grand prize for the Network Track went to a team of students from Pakistan, and the grand prize for the Computing Track was given to students from Kazakhstan. All the winners received their trophies and prizes from Shaikh Nasser bin Hamad al-Khalifa, 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.
Addressing the event, Sheikh Nasser al-Khalifa said:"We commissioned the Supreme Council for Youth and Sports, the Ministry of Youth Affairs, the Ministry of Labour, 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 Yi congratulated all the winners and said: “Developing ICT talent is essential for the continued development of digital economies across the Middle East and Central Asia. 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.”
The awarding ceremony was attended by Jameel bin Mohamed Ali Humaidan, Minister of Labor, Bahrain; Mohamed bin Thamer al-Kaabi, Minister of Transportation and Telecommunications, Bahrain; Ayman Tawfeeq Abdurrahman Almoayyed, Secretary-General of Supreme Council for Youth and Sports, Bahrain; Ni Ruchi, the Ambassador of China to of Bahrain; And Dr Fuad Mohamed al-Ansari, President of the University of Bahrain, alongside other senior officials in Bahrain and, Huawei and industry leaders in the region.
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.
A total of 22 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, the 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.
The programme aims to narrow the digital skills gap in the region by arming students with technical and practical skills in the latest technologies like 5G, Artificial Intelligence, Cloud, and more. The regional finalists will now participate in the global finals of the Huawei ICT Competition, which will take place in May 2024 in China.