Huawei Tackles Asia Pacific’s Shortage in High-Quality Digital Workforce through ICT Talent Ecosystem Development

In the digital world where everything is connected, the ICT industry depends heavily on highly skilled resources. Our recent white paper on the industry reveals that, by 2025, 85% of enterprise applications will be on the cloud, 86% of global companies will adopt Artificial Intelligence (AI) and data utilization rates will skyrocket to 80%.

Despite a booming labor market, Asia Pacific is currently faced with digital workforce shortage. If not effectively addressed, potential talent deficit in the region may hinder business development across industries.

As a global ICT provider, we are committed to bridging the ICT talent gap. This is why we announced the long-term plan to develop a talent ecosystem to help countries in Asia Pacific meet the ever-increasing demand for highly-skilled digital workforce.

Leveraging on decades of experience and expertise, we will tackle ICT workforce challenges in APAC through three programs: certification system and standards; Huawei ICT Academy and Huawei ICT competition.

To drive digital transformation, enterprises hunt talents with both powerful brains and practical skills. Through the talent ecosystem strategy, we plan to train a large number of professionals in advanced network technologies, by setting global talent standards that can be used as proof of professional qualifications.

Huawei Certification provides an industry-leading ICT development standard and a complete architecture for certification, covering 11 ICT technical fields. Over the years, we have certified more than 260,000 ICT professionals worldwide, including 19,000 in Asia Pacific. These industry-recognized certifications help students and ICT practitioners become more competitive in their careers.

At Huawei, we firmly believe that a successful talent ecosystem development depends on an extensive university-enterprise cooperation and a well-thought-out talent cultivation model. In 2013, we launched the ICT Academy, a school-enterprise cooperation project that involves higher education institutions and industry-leading enterprises.

Over the past 7 years, the program has been helping universities cultivate ICT talent that meets industry requirements though ICT courses and hands-on training. The Academy also introduces Huawei's ICT technologies to students and encourages them to participate in Huawei certification that will give their career a big boost.

To date, Huawei ICT Academy has been deployed in 72 countries around the world, including 103 ICT Academy in the Asia Pacific region.

In order to improve self-learning and problem-solving abilities, Huawei’s international ICT competition is a great way for students to increase their knowledge, meet new people and boost their confidence. Through cooperation with governments, enterprises and universities, we held the first annual Huawei ICT Competition in 2015 for college students worldwide. The last competition in 2019 was held across 61 countries, involving more than 100,000 students from more than 1,600 universities and colleges, including 7200 students from Asia Pacific region.

Under the digital inclusion initiative TECH4ALL, we aim to globally develop 2 million ICT professionals over the next five years to match high demand for skilled workers.

Huawei will cooperate with partners and universities to actively invest in digital talent development, help countries in the Asia-Pacific region build an ICT talent ecosystem, and build a fully connected and intelligent world.

On August 4, 2020, Huawei Asia Pacific’s Enterprise Business Group will host the Asia Pacific ICT Talent Forum 2020. At this event, a new ICT talent development plan will be released. We would like to invite you join us as we discuss long-term strategies to build ICT talent ecosystem in Asia Pacific and the industry’s roadmap.

https://e.huawei.com/my/special_topic/event/2019q4/2007-apac-ict-talent

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About the Author:
Mr. Cao Haichen (Tony)
President, Enterprise Business Group, Huawei Asia Pacific

Mr. Tony Cao is the President of Enterprise Business Group, Asia Pacific region of Huawei Technologies. In his current capacity, he is responsible for the management and development of overall enterprise business of the company in the region. Mr. Cao has more than 20 years of experience in the telecommunications industry. Since joining Huawei in 1999, Mr. Cao has served various managerial positions including the company’s President of Southeast Asia Enterprise Business Group, General Manager in Hong Kong and Argentina.