Advent
of ICT in Nigeria: ABU’s Excellent Global Performance II
The Huawei Global ICT competition
started at national level, proceeded to regional and then ended at global
level, which was the final in a series of competitions spanning over a period
of one year (May 2018 to May 2019).
Winners at the national level qualified to participate in the regional
level and the winners at regional levels obtained tickets for the final
competition at the global level. Thus, from the national competition, the
winners advance to the regional finals. The winners of the regional finals are
then invited to the join the global finals in China.
For the purpose of Huawei competition,
Africa is divided into two regions; Maghreb region, (a major region of North
Africa that consists primarily of the countries Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia,
Libya, Mauritania and other African Arab) and sub-Sahara Africa where Nigeria
belongs. In Sub-Saharan region alone, about
28,000 students from universities and colleges across took part in the Huawei
ICT competition.
As discussed in the first part of this
article last week, six overall best students emerged winners of both categories
of the Huawei competition at the national level. Surprisingly, all the six
overall winners came from the same university, the famous Ahmadu Bello
University Zaria. Three of the six students; Muhammad Mustafa Maihaja (400
level computer engineering student), Shuabu Usman Abbas (400 computer science
education student and Abdulkadir Babagana Musa (500 level electrical
engineering student), each scored 100 percent (1000/1000 points). The other
three students; Kamaludeen Umar (500 level electrical engineering), Abdulqudus
Adebayo Temi (400 level communication engineering) and Fahad Danladi (500 level
computer engineering) scored 98.5 percent, 93.5 percent and 91 percent
respectively.
The selected students were divided into
two groups; Team A and Team B for effective representation. Team A and B
represented the country at the Huawei African Regional Competition that took
place in Johannesburg, South Africa. The event was held from 8th to
11th March 2019. Team A from Nigeria won overall African Regional
ICT competition in South Africa and qualified as the best team to represent
Africa at the Global Final in China in the Network Services track. In similar
vein, Team B came first in the second category to represent Africa Cloud
Services track. The outcomes of the
Huawei ICT African Regional competition made the teams from Nigeria, Tanzania,
Kenya and Angola winners of Sub-Saharan Africa to represent the region at the
final competition in China. The teams joint 22 teams from across the world to
compete for the global champion. The Nigerian Teams deserve unreserved
commendation for their sagacity in exhibiting their talents and innovative
capacities despite their environmental challenges.
The Huawei ICT Competition is an
extension of the Huawei ICT Academy, which establishes mutual cooperation
between Huawei and universities across the world. The cooperation aims to
improve the ICT education at the university through training of teachers,
learning material, curriculum development, and advancement of ICT to address
myriad of challenges to global development. While all universities are welcome
to participate in the ICT Competition, only the universities that participate
in the ICT Academy program, or agree to enroll into the program, can advance to
the finals.
The 2019 ICT Competition Global Finals
took place on 25 and 26 May at the new Huawei campus in Dongguan, close to the
Huawei HQ in Shenzhen. 49 teams from 39 universities and polytechnics in 30 countries
travelled to Dongguan where the competition took place. Understandably, out of
the 39 Institution of higher learning, 12 represented China. Each team consists
of 4 members either from different universities or all from the same
university. On Saturday the teams were giving 8 hours to work on challenging
tasks by demonstrating their ICT skills. The tasks were divided into three;
cloud computing, networking or innovative track. Based on their preferences,
each competitor chooses one of the three tasks; either the Cloud Computing,
Networking or Innovation track.
The 2019 competition was reported to be
the most challenging as testified by one the invited Global ICT experts, Hank
Stokbroekx, he wrote in his blog “This year the tasks were particularly
challenging as could be seen from the occasional expression of frustration from
the participants. There was certainly significant pressure for the students
(competitors) to complete the tasks on time, and they had to dig deep in order
to make it” (https://blog.huawei.com/2019/05/31/students-hone-their-skills-at-huawei-ict-competition/). He further said “The
next day was the award ceremony, but before the students would find out who the
2019 winners were, there were encouraging speeches and a panel discussion with
experts from around the world” perhaps to alleviate the tension. After the
“formalities” were done it was time for the competitors to find out how well
they performed the previous day. “While the enthusiasm and excitement in the
room continued to increase, the winners of the 3rd, 2nd and 1st prizes were
invited to the stage to receive their award”. Cheers and applause escorted each
winner from everyone in the room, making it a true celebration of global
happiness. It was an exciting event, with so many enthusiastic students from
across the world simultaneously competing with each other and supporting each
other. This was in addition to exchange of contacts among the competitors for
future personal engagements.
The results of the final competition
covered the three tasks; Cloud Computing, Networking and Innovation tracks. The
result for the Networking Track indicated that teams from Malaysia and Algeria
took the first position while teams from Spain, Pakistan and China took the
second position. The third position went to Teams from Nigeria and Iraq. The
first position for cloud computing went to teams from Peru and China Gullin
University while the second position in this category went to teams from
Singapore, Egypt and China Nanjing Institute. In the same category of cloud
computing, the third position went to four teams from Bolivia, United Kingdom,
Russia and Bahrain. On innovation track, the first position went to one team
from China Shanghai University II while the second position went to teams from
China Tianjin and China Shanghai University I. The third position on the same
category of innovation track went to teams from China SASTECH and China Beijing
University.
The Huawei ICT competition, a global
event is certainly generating so much interest among the youths, the leaders of
tomorrow. The competition explores and exploits their innovative potential in
using ICT to increase system efficiency through effective and result oriented
communication. No wonder, since 2015 when the competition started, the number
of participating countries, universities and students has increased
exponentially. In 2015, there were less than ten participating countries in the
competition, which exponentially increased to sixty-one countries in 2018.
Again, within the same period, the number of participating universities and
colleges increased from 300 to over 1,600 in 2018 with corresponding increase
of more than 100,000 participating students.
Before ending this piece, it is
important to answer last question I posed in the first part of the article, what are the implications of Nigerian
participating and performance in the ICT competition? First, the competition
provides hundreds of Nigerian students opportunity to enhance their ICT skill,
which is very significant for the development and industrialization of Nigeria
and indeed the African continent. Today, ICT is a sine qua non and essential
ingredient for the industrialization and advancement of all developed and developing
countries. What does this success means to ABU?
Professor Bashir Muazu, the director of Iya
Abubakar ICT center who, all through diligently led other ICT gurus to prepare
the teams for the competition said, “The competition brought out ABU as a
veritable source of world class talents in IT and 21st century
network technology. This is very important considering that recently Huawei
overtook Ericsson as number one telecommunications solution provider in the
world.” He further said, “the performance of the ABU students and their
instructors brought global recognition to the nation and placed Nigeria in a
higher pedestal of ICT innovations”. Based on this performance, Huawei
facilitated partnership between ABU, Chinese Southern University of Science and
Technology (SUSTech) and UNESCO–ICHE (International Centre for Higher Education
Innovation) in China, which led to the signing of tripartite MoU. Indeed, the
nation will be the highest beneficiary of this partnership. Nigeria needs to
celebrate ABU and other participating universities by providing special grants
for acquiring the necessary infrastructure, facilities and capacity building for
the development of ICT in the country. Bravo ABU Team and keep it up.
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