IFPB and Huawei: Developing Cloud Expertise

Reading guide: Cloud computing has become integral to the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) industry, but despite high demand there's a dearth of experience and expertise in the field. This is the challenge that IFPB and Huawei are addressing by providing training and offering certifications on the latest digital technologies.

Background: The Cloud Computing Shift

Up until recent years, when we thought about offering a service on the Internet, we needed to build a data center and rent a communications link from a carrier — an approach that was extremely expensive to deploy as well as to use to maintain these services.

Up until recent years, when we thought about offering a service on the Internet, we needed to build a data center and rent a communications link from a carrier — an approach that was extremely expensive to deploy as well as to use to maintain these services.

But the paradigm shifted: Several companies started offering the required infrastructure as a service at affordable costs, multiplying the number of services that could be provided in the cloud. Now, relatively few companies have their own data center, with the number of applications that use cloud computing growing exponentially. When we add technologies like 5G, big data, Internet of Things (IoT), and edge computing, we see a whole new ecosystem — one that's full of possibilities. In this context, cloud computing has become a crucial part of any enterprise's digital transformation strategy.

Challenge: Training Qualified Professionals

The number of experienced and skilled professionals with the experience and expertise needed to work in this scenario didn't grow as quickly. As a result, we now lack people who have the technical understanding required to work with cloud computing and the technologies related to the field. New roles, like cloud computing architect and cloud engineer, have emerged, and even established roles like software engineering and software architect now require cloud knowledge. Because of these developments, our colleges and universities that offer ICT graduate and undergraduate courses face new challenges as they strive to prepare their students for the labor market.

Cloud computing requires that we teach content besides deploying services or using the most important cloud platforms. It's necessary to help our students understand how to see the whole scenario — that we are developing service solutions and we need to map all the requisites and costs associated, and we are living in a smart, connected, and sensing world.

Connecting with an Innovation Ecosystem

Another priority is establishing partnerships with the cloud computing industry. In our experience, this kind of agreement helps the teachers get up to date with the most recent advances in the market and exposes the students to a professional environment before they finish their courses. There are many ways to do this: innovation projects, technical training, internships, competitions, and integrating Huawei courses into our curriculum are good examples at our institution. But it's most important to be connected to your partner's innovation ecosystem.

To achieve such synergy at the IFPB creates great opportunities, but is also a monumental challenge. We have 22 campuses, an innovation pole (also known as an innovation cluster), nearly 24,382 students at high school, technical, undergraduate, and graduate levels, 1478 professors, and 1076 employees for technical and administrative support. Several maker spaces and dedicated innovation labs — like Spacefab, Lampiao, and Assert — make the environment more attractive. We have many stakeholders at different levels that want to collaborate, but we needed a partner to develop our ecosystem and bring new growth opportunities.

We were looking for new partnerships to help us boost our innovation programs and upgrade our students' competitiveness in the job market. Huawei approached us with its talent ecosystem proposal and a vast portfolio of opportunities in many areas of strategic interest to the IFPB and ICT market. It seemed a perfect match for what we needed.

Working with Huawei to Develop Skills

Our partnership began in 2017, when our teachers went to Huawei Hangzhou Training Center in China for Cloud Computing training. I had worked with other cloud computing products in the past, and our first conclusion was that the Huawei products were promising. Later, we provided Huawei ICT Academy program at IFPB. This was the start of the integration of Huawei's innovation ecosystem into our institution.

After that, we started to prepare students for Huawei certification in different fields like routing & switching and 5G, and we have since trained more than 500 participants. We now offer the Huawei technical content as a special course in the Electrical Engineering undergraduate course at our João Pessoa Campus. In future, we intend to integrate the Huawei content into our computer science and telecommunications undergraduate, graduate, and technical courses at more of our campuses. We will also increase the number of areas covered, adding content about digital transformation and Industry 4.0, and we will encourage students to participate in the Innovation Track in the ICT Competition and prepare them to do so.

Clearly, our partnership with Huawei is an important one that brings many benefits to the IFPB. As our Innovation Pole Director, Erick Melo, said: "It is essential to have a partnership with one of the leading companies in the ICT market worldwide. It allows us to transfer parts of the technologies developed within the Huawei research centers to our students through innovation projects and the ICT Academy. Participating in Huawei's talent ecosystem also increases the competitiveness of our students in the face of new opportunities in the job market.

Michel Dias at Huawei's Global Training Center in Hangzhou

Preparing and Developing Champions

Huawei then presented the Huawei ICT Competition 2018–2019 to us. We scheduled a presentation about the competition with our students, and it was a great success. The students were excited, and many of them signed up. We launched the students' challenge and began focusing on how to get the students better prepared. To our surprise, we were the national champions in the Cloud Computing Track. The next phase — the Regional Final — would be held in Mexico City.

In the Regional Final, we finished in third place and failed to qualify for the Global Final in China. Our students were sad, but we explained to them that building a championship team requires hard work, resilience, discipline, teamwork, and patience. On the road to success, so many sacrifices are made and there are so many setbacks, so it's not surprising we are sometimes tempted to give up, especially when we're tired. But the way we look at these experiences makes a big difference. We had two choices: give up, which is the most comfortable way; or not let ourselves be overwhelmed and continue to pursue our dreams. This is the attitude that makes the difference. Together, we decided not to give up, to keep studying, and to try again the next year.

If we were working with mature and experienced professionals, this would seem challenging but feasible. But if we were working with young students in a worldwide competition, during a pandemic? This situation was the scenario of Huawei ICT Competition 2019–2020. It was a significant challenge, but we succeeded.

Winning the Grand Prize in Cloud Track in the ICT Competition Global Final

Weslley Santos and Edson Luis, who participated in the 2018–2019 competition, competed once again, as well as Mariana Barros, a younger and motivated student. We planned and started our participation, studying technical content and reflecting on working as a team. After three phases (national, regional and the global final), 1200 questions answered, several exam simulations, and a lot of hard work, we won the Grand Prize.

All of IFPB's academic community celebrated this prize, and we now use it as inspiration to motivate the students to believe that they can achieve any goal they desire if they work hard and stay focused. As a professor and tutor of the team, it was remarkable to see how our students grew  in maturity and outdid themselves. I have learned a lot from them.

With our Assert lab and our Innovation Pole now known for their skills in cloud computing and training and developing people, largely through Huawei training and competition, we're focusing on several innovation projects, and we're working with Huawei to prepare people for 5G and its revolution.

Faculty Point of View

It's essential to have a partnership with one of the leading companies in the ICT market worldwide. It allows us to transfer parts of the technologies developed within the Huawei research centers to our students through innovation projects and the ICT Academy. Meanwhile, participating in Huawei's talent ecosystem increases the competitiveness of our students in the face of new opportunities in the job market.