Wiringafrica

Chinese enterprises are actively developing network infrastructure in Africa while helping train local ICT professionals

China’s rapid increase in the number of Internet users is attributed not only to its big market, but also to its good policies, including coordination between the market and the government.

Masego Dibetle, an information and communications technology (ICT) student at Tshwane University of Technology in South Africa, looks utterly delighted. Over the last two weeks, the 20-year-old has met with world leading experts in her field of study and visited state-of-the-art laboratories during her first trip to China.

So delighted, in fact, she is even considering applying to join Huawei, the Chinese global information and communications giant which sponsored and organized her study trip, once she graduates.

In November 2016, Dibetle and nine other South African university students with ICT education background came to China to attend a two-week training in Beijing and Shenzhen in south China’s Guangdong Province where Huawei is headquartered. During the training, they had the chance to marvel at cuttingedge ICT technologies such as 5G, LTE and cloud computing, as well as receive professional training from Huawei experts.

Such training was made possible by Huawei’s “Seeds for the Future,” a project aimed at helping Africa groom ICT professionals, promote skills transfer and develop its ICT industry. This trip may be only a small step in the direction of closing Africa’s gap in information technology, but for Dibetle, it has been a life-changing experience. company signed a cooperation agreement with South Africa’s Department of Telecommunications and Postal Services, and committed itself to training 1,000 South African ICT personnel in the next five years.

ZTE is another company engaged in raising the level of ICT education in Africa. At the China-africa Internet Cooperation Forum of the Third Session of the World Internet Conference, held on November 17, 2016 in Wuzhen, Zhejiang Province, Hu Xuemei, Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of the Middle East and Africa Region at ZTE, said his company had entered into a partnership with Equatorial Guinea and established a studio classroom to train local ICT personnel.

With Chinese communication equipment companies investing significant efforts in cultivating local professionals in Africa, significant hurdles remain. The lack of a better network infrastructure in particular prevents ICT professionals from fully playing their function in the industry.

“Digital professionals and skills are among the most important foundations to address the digital divide, and we need to be more proactive in terms of human resources development and networking,” said Wang Xiujun, Vice Minister of the Cyberspace Administration of China, at the China-africa Internet Cooperation Forum.