Huawei-Buet ICT Academy launched to develop tech talents
The authorities want to kick off the academic activity as soon as possible initially with at least 100 students
Tech giant Huawei and Bangladesh University of Science and Technology have jointly launched a non-profit education programme – Huawei-Buet ICT Academy – to equip young learners with industry-fit skills and develop an ICT talent ecosystem.
At the academy, the learners will be provided training and learning solutions to meet the needs of the ICT sector.
The launching ceremony was held in the Buet Council Building on Wednesday. Now the authorities want to kick off the academic activity as soon as possible initially with at least 100 students.
Professor Md Rubaiyat Hossain Mondal, director of the Institute of Information and Communication Technology at Buet, told The Business Standard, "After completing the admission process, we will start our class. This may take several weeks."
There will be 83 certification programmes on 19 different subjects such as routing and switching, 5G, storage, artificial intelligence, intelligent computing, cloud computing, security, WLAN, and big data.
In the end, students will be given three types of grade certificates – associate, professional, and expert – based on their achievements.
The course and certification will be coordinated by Huawei Authorized Information and Network Academy (HAINA).
Professor Rubaiyat said, "ICT Academy will strengthen the linkage between academia and industry, offer cutting edge ICT training, and contribute to developing skilled manpower in Bangladesh."
At the programme, State Minister for ICT Zunaid Ahmed Palak said, "Our current export revenue from the ICT sector is $1.4 billion and our target is to earn $5 billion from this sector by 2025. We will also make Bangladesh a smart country by 2041 based on ICT."
To this end, more cooperation, collaboration and partnership among government, academia and private sector is crucial, said Palak and thanked Huawei for coming forward.
"Furthermore, we have talked with Huawei about expanding the academy and they agreed," he added.
After the successful run of the ICT academy at Buet, they will set up the academy at five more universities in the country, continued the state-minister.
Huawei has more than 1,500 such ICT academies in more than 90 countries around the world.
Huawei Technologies (Bangladesh) Ltd CEO Pan Junfeng said, "In 2013, Huawei initiated ICT Academy, a school-enterprise cooperation project. Huawei is happy to extend this project to Bangladesh as well."
This academy will strive for excellence through a collaboration of the young learners with academics and industry experts, he added.
BUET Vice-chancellor Professor Satya Prasad Majumder said, "ICT Academy will contribute significantly to the existing curriculum of Buet as well as help the aspiring learners to develop themselves by acquiring hands-on experience and get insights about the industry."
