On August 25th, Huawei Kenya launched a new initiative, UniTech Talk, a regular lecture series for university lecturers, students and tech enthusiasts to share the latest technologies, industry trends, development policies and insights.
During the pandemic, the technology sector has played a critical role in minimizing disruptions to the economy and creating new opportunities for economic and social development. Kenyans and Kenyan businesses all across the country are using technology now more than ever before which will help jumpstart the digital economy in the country.
The UniTech Talk series will help position the Kenyan ICT industry to take advantage of the latest technologies, providing more awareness, knowledge and insights on where the opportunities are and the technical capabilities to grasp them. The series complements the ICT Academy programme that partners with universities and training institutes to provide advanced, in-depth globally certified programmes to hundreds of lecturers and thousands of students a year in Kenya alone.
The inaugural UniTech Talk was introduced by the Huawei Kenya CEO, Will Meng, and kicked off with the Huawei Kenya Chief Technology Officer Steven Zheng who gave a presentation on ICT Industry Trends and Insights. The talk covered various topics, from how ICT is helping fight the pandemic and stimulate economic recovery amongst different industries to 5G, Artificial Intelligence (AI), cloud, Edge Computing, and ecosystem development.
550 university students from undergraduate, graduate to PhD level, attended the lecture.
“Technology has greatly improved quality of life. We believe that better knowledge and skills are critical for Kenya to take advantage from the digital economy. We are increasing our investments in training Kenyans and we hope that the lecture will arouse participants interest in ICT to develop and contribute more to Kenya,” emphasized Huawei Kenya CEO Will Meng in his welcome remarks.
Steven Zheng, CTO of Huawei Kenya, highlighted the opportunities new technologies can bring to different industries: “We believe that many industries are being completely transformed by technology and that this creates a huge opportunity for Kenya: transportation, manufacturing, energy and healthcare especially; we encourage businesses in Kenya to digitize fast and grasp new opportunities.”
During the lecture, there were over 500 comments in a very lively discussion amongst the participants with many questions about 5G and a great deal of appreciation for the lecture.
One student said: “We are looking forward to more talks, not only for 5G but also other technologies.”
A second said: “The lecture has been educating and engaging.” Another said: “This is really 👍 Huawei. Getting more presentations to enhance our knowledge is a good way of giving back to the community. Very grateful.”
Announcements of the next in the series will be made on Twitter and on Facebook. Meanwhile, ICT students are encouraged to sign-up for the 1-week long Seeds for the Future online training programme in September organized together with the ICT Authority. Applications are currently open until August 29.
