Huawei ICT Competition: Igniting the Spark of Genius in University Students Worldwide

On May 26, 2024, the Huawei ICT Competition 2023–2024 Global Final concluded with a momentous triumph for Algeria. The nation's participating students were honored with a congratulatory message from President Abdelmadjid Tebboune. In a tweet from his official account, he congratulated the award winners, stating, "I am very proud of our dear students for having won first place worldwide in one of the IT categories at the 'Huawei ICT Competition' organized in Shenzhen (China), and the Grand Prize for Information and Communication Technologies. Congratulations to Algeria on this new generation of scientists who are paving the way for a prosperous future for our country. My most sincere greetings and thanks to you all."

In a similar vein, the team from Türkiye achieved remarkable success by winning the Grand Prize in the Innovation Competition. Kaan Başkurt, the Turkish Consul General in Guangzhou, attended the award ceremony and presented the prize to the Turkish team, saying, "Congratulations to our students and their esteemed professors! We are proud of our team!"

Adding to the sense of ceremony, Kuwait's Network Team students received similar acclaim. Following their win, the local telecom provider Ooredoo illuminated the Ooredoo Tower with a spectacular light show, congratulating the Kuwaiti team on their third-place finish in the Global Final (see Figure 1). Ooredoo also pledged internship opportunities for one of the team members.

Much praise poured in for the winning teams from Algeria, Türkiye, and Kuwait, with representatives from their respective embassies giving a thumbs-up, high-ranking officials welcoming them at airports, and prime ministers meeting them – all showcasing each country's encouragement and appreciation for ICT talent.

For young ICT students worldwide, this may well be an unforgettable highlight in their lives.

On May 26, 2024, the Closing & Award Ceremony of the Huawei ICT Competition 2023–2024 Global Final was held in Shenzhen. This 8th edition of the Huawei ICT Competition saw a record number of participants, with over 170,000 students from more than 80 countries and regions, representing over 2,000 colleges and universities. After rigorous national and regional rounds, over 470 contestants of 161 teams from 49 countries and regions reached the Global Final, competing for various awards. Notably, 19 teams from 9 countries – Algeria, China, Nigeria, Pakistan, Poland, the Philippines, Tanzania, Türkiye, and Uganda – were awarded grand prizes in both the Practice and Innovation Competitions at this year's Global Final.

Practice Competition: An 8-hour hands-on challenge of patience and teamwork

The Huawei ICT Competition consists of the Practice Competition and the Innovation Competition, with a three-tier advancement system of National, Regional, and Global Finals. Each team is composed of three students and one instructor.

This year's Practice Competition attracted over 160,000 students from around the world, a 39% increase from the previous year. After the National and Regional Finals, a total of 134 teams from 44 countries and regions made it to the Global Final.

This year's Practical Competition had four tracks: Network, Cloud, Computing, and Ascend AI. It examined the contestants' theoretical knowledge, hands-on skills, and teamwork abilities in the field of ICT.

The Network Track assessed knowledge in data communications, security, and WLAN. The Cloud Track focused on knowledge in cloud, big data, and AI. The Computing Track examined knowledge in openEuler, openGauss, and Kunpeng application development. The newly introduced Ascend AI Track covered knowledge in four technical domains: AI algorithms and applications, practices in the MindSpore development framework, full-stack Ascend AI platform, and Ascend AI application practices.

The Global Final was an 8-hour practical exam that followed the difficulties of the highest level of Huawei Certifications – Huawei Certified ICT Expert (HCIE). Students from all over the world gathered in Shenzhen to compete in both theoretical knowledge and hands-on skills.

As the technical support team for the competition, Huawei's Learning & Certification Services Dept assigned technical experts to design thought-provoking and practical topics based on the latest ICT and development trends. These topics tested the technical skills and problem-solving abilities of the contestants. To ensure the process was fair, just, transparent, and authoritative, a professional team of assessors conducted evaluations for the Practice Competition.

At the Practice Competition venue, teams from around the world competed intensely. The 8-hour lab exam tested not only the contestants' practical skills, but their endurance, concentration, and teamwork. Only through repeated training and close collaboration during the preparation phase could they hope to achieve something remarkable in the competition (see Figure 2).

The team from the Guilin University of Electronic Technology won the Grand Prize in the Cloud Track of this year's Practice Competition. Reflecting on the experience, team member Chen Chonglin said, "Looking back on the competition, we raced against time, collaborated closely, and showcased our relentless daily training to its fullest extent, presenting a perfect culmination of our university journey. This honor recognizes our efforts and affirms our team spirit and innovation. It inspires me to pursue excellence and explore new frontiers."

The team from the Poznań University of Technology (PUT) won the Grand Prize in the Network Track of this year's Practice Competition (as shown in Figure 3). Team member Arkadiusz Niedziela said in an interview, "Through the Huawei ICT Competition, I have really improved my skills. Along the way, I've earned multiple Huawei certificates and broadened my academic horizons. The intensive training has elevated the skills of our team to a new level. This experience has made me better equipped for my future career."

The Organizing Committee of the Huawei ICT Competition designs the competitions to promote learning through competition and stays abreast of the times by introducing new tracks to the Practice Competition. This means talented young people are given opportunities to engage with the latest trends in ICT, which sparks their interest in cutting-edge technologies.

Past ICT talent development primarily focused on networking. However, the rise of ecosystem-based sectors like computing, cloud, and AI has created new areas of vast growth potential, leading to an increasing demand for talent. The introduction of the Ascend AI Track in this year's competition aims to nurture and discover talent in Ascend AI technology. In the future, the competition will continue to steer the event by enabling talented competitors to focus on new tracks. This will help cultivate versatile professionals who not only understand network fundamentals, but are also well-versed in computing, cloud, and AI.

As the Huawei ICT Competition continues to take place each year, participating students' knowledge and practical skills continue to improve. Statistics show that the average score for all teams in the 8th Huawei ICT Competition was 562 points, an increase of 105 points over the 7th edition. Among the teams in the China Region, the average score reached 670 points, exceeding the 600 points required for the HCIE certifications.

After this year's competition, the Organizing Committee worked with Huawei's Learning & Certification Services Dept to publish a series of tutorials on exam question analysis for the Huawei ICT Competition. These tutorials contain past exam questions and detailed interpretations for the Network, Computing, and Cloud Tracks of the Practice Competition. They are designed to help students and teachers be better prepared for the next Huawei ICT Competition.

Innovation Competition: Inspiring ideas in ways bolder and more imaginative than ever

The Innovation Competition aims to cultivate innovative ICT talent, complementing the applied ICT focus of the Practice Competition. This year, the Innovation Competition centered on emerging technologies such as AI, IoT, big data, HarmonyOS, and Huawei Cloud. Contestants were tasked with addressing real-life challenges, integrating industry applications, and using cutting-edge ICT to develop solutions with both social and commercial value, while designing fully functional projects.

Aligned with the ethos of the Practice Competition, the Innovation Competition's tracks were designed to actively guide college and university students in innovating in emerging technology fields. Over the past two years, with the emergence of foundation models like ChatGPT and Sora, an intelligent world is unfolding faster than ever. AI will be increasingly linked with various aspects of our lives and work and become a key driver of future development.

This is why the 8th Huawei ICT Competition introduced the AI Innovation Track to encourage students to continually create and innovate with emerging technologies. This year's Innovation Competition attracted over 2,000 students from 38 countries worldwide. Through intense national and regional competitions, 27 teams from 16 countries were shortlisted for the Global Final, where they showcased their projects and competed on a global stage.

The Innovation Competition was conducted through presentations and panel assessments. After each team showcased their projects, assessors evaluated the projects based on five criteria: creativity, system complexity, technical complexity, societal benefits, and functionality. They asked questions, provided professional suggestions, and completed comprehensive assessments (see Figure 4 and Figure 5).

The Hangji Team from Tongji University won the Grand Prize in this year's Innovation Competition for their Aircraft Engine Damage Detection System Based on Snake-shaped Robots showcased on stage. The project uses a range of Huawei Cloud technologies, including the ModelArts AI development platform, to train machine vision AI models for blade damage detection and classification, and the Huawei Cloud data visualization application to enable remote control of internal damage detection for aircraft engines.

The GrocPOS Team from Pakistan also won the Grand Prize in this year's Innovation Competition for their Visually-Controlled Intelligent Point of Sale (POS) Solution Based on Mobile Applications. Their solution uses the Huawei Cloud database, KooGallery, and storage, as well as MindSpore. It uses a smartphone camera to quickly and accurately identify three to four grocery items at a time. This solution streamlines the checkout process and is significantly more efficient than traditional barcode scanning. It can be used by local stores to modernize their operations for greater economy and convenience. The team members expressed their hopes to promote this solution in the retail industry in Pakistan.

The Turkish team Edusyntech, which was also a Grand Prize winner in this year's Innovation Competition, focused on improving education for children with reading disabilities. Their DysTherapy application uses platforms and technologies such as MindSpore, ModelArts, Huawei Mobile Services (HMS), and Huawei Cloud to meet diverse learning needs by providing quality personalized educational content based on each child's reading level and cognitive ability.

There were many more innovative projects that also focused on real-world challenges in various industries and demonstrated commercial and social value.

Tech innovation with a human touch: Championing green and inclusive development

In addition to the Grand, First, Second, and Third Prizes, this year's Huawei ICT Competition Global Final also featured a series of honorary awards: the Green Development Award, TECH4ALL Digital Inclusion Award, and Women in Tech Award.

The Green Development Award recognizes contestants who focus on environmental protection and social sustainability by means of technology, applications, and skills. The TECH4ALL Digital Inclusion Award rewards contestants who make digital tech more inclusive and accessible, especially for vulnerable groups. The Women in Tech Award recognizes outstanding female participants in the competition to encourage more women to take part in technological innovation, promote ICT industry growth, and contribute to social development.

The Atlas Guardian – Smart Agriculture Inspection Robot project from the Charging Forward ICT Team of the Central China Normal University not only won the Grand Prize in the Innovation Competition of this year's Global Final, but received the Green Development Award. Wang Rong, one of the team members, said, "Digital and intelligent agriculture has become a major trend. We designed this project to address real pain points and social needs. Our smart agriculture inspection robot can navigate and patrol autonomously, and the robot's sensors can collect environmental information on crop growth and detect the health status of corps. When crop diseases are detected, the app sends a warning to the user."

The WildConnect Team from the Cebu Institute of Technology in the Philippines and the SJTUInsight Team from Shanghai Jiao Tong University won the TECH4ALL Digital Inclusion Award.

The WeiCare Heart Disease Detection App project from the WildConnect Team can warn users about the risk of heart disease using a smartwatch, reducing the adverse consequences of delayed diagnosis and treatment. It is expected to be widely used in the medical and healthcare industry.

The MindSpore-based Left-behind Children Learning Assistant project from the SJTUInsight Team can provide online education resources for educationally underdeveloped areas and left-behind children (children who remain in rural regions of the country while their parents leave to work in urban areas), and has been put into use by schools in Eryuan County in China's southwestern Yunnan province and other places.

These two projects, one promoting health and well-being and the other promoting equity and higher quality and balanced development in education, both embody digital inclusion.

Ritchie Peng, President of Huawei's ICT Strategy and Business Development Department, expressed his feelings about these projects, "The Huawei ICT Competition's innovative projects not only focus on application innovation, but resonate with the spirit of tech for good. The recognition of these projects at the competition is not only due to their relevance, but their social value and inclusivity."

The Women in Tech Award was won by four teams of all female members from Uganda, Morocco, Malaysia, and Kenya (see Figure 6). Explaining the reason for setting up this award, Vicky Zhang, Huawei's Vice President of Corporate Communications Dept, said, "We hope that women winners from the competition can encourage more women to join the ICT sector, and help them benefit from the digital world. We are delighted to see that more and more teams consisting of all women have participated in the Huawei ICT Competition in recent years."

Towards new ICT frontiers together

Eugene C. Busico, the instructor for the WildConnect Team from the Cebu Institute of Technology in the Philippines, said in an interview, "Being exposed to the Huawei ICT Academy and participating in the Huawei ICT Competition proved to be an immensely valuable journey for our university. There's a very big gap between academia and industry. Huawei provides a unique pathway to connect our students and faculty to state-of-the-art ICT."

In fact, as mentioned by Eugene C. Busico, many universities around the world have courses that are more focused on theory and are not relevant enough to market demands. That is why the Huawei ICT Competition and the Huawei ICT Academy program, as new models for talent cultivation and university-business collaboration, onboard university graduates with innovative ideas and knowledge on the latest industry trends. The competition helps to lay a solid foundation for them to pursue further academic development or commence their professional careers. This is one of the reasons why the competition is so popular.

As one of the important talent cultivation initiatives of the Huawei ICT Academy program, the Huawei ICT Competition, after years of effort, has been officially included in the Ranking Lists of National Competitions for College Students published by the China Association of Higher Education (CAHE). It has become one of the most relevant and influential science and technology competitions oriented to universities. Outside China, the Huawei ICT Competition has been included in UNESCO's flagship projects for key partners of the Global Skills Academy, and its international influence continues to grow.

The Huawei ICT Academy, a school-enterprise collaboration program, has been in operation for over a decade since its establishment in 2013. As of now, Huawei has worked with more than 2,700 colleges and universities worldwide to establish Huawei ICT Academies in more than 110 countries and regions, and these academies have trained over 1 million students.

As the Project Director of the Huawei ICT Competition, Sun Gang, Head of the Huawei's ICT Talent Partner Development Dept, holds high expectations for the event. He explained that the theme of the Huawei ICT Competition is "Connection, Glory, Future". The event has three goals: First, to build a bridge for global connection and networking, promoting the integration of education, talent, industries, and innovation. This will foster learning, teaching, innovation, and employment through competition. The second goal is to provide a stage for glory, and offer a global platform for budding students as well as enhance the influence of teachers and institutions in the industry. The third is to create a future-oriented ecosystem that integrates education with economic, social, and industrial development, promoting digital transformation using AI, cloud computing, big data, and other ICT applications. This will encourage countries to increase their investment in ICT talent ecosystems, accelerating global digital transformation and upgrade.

Promoting digital skills and inclusion has always been the vision of the ICT Talent Partner Development Dept. As Zhou Hong, President of Huawei's Institute of Strategic Research, said at the Closing & Award Ceremony of this year's Global Final, "Digital technology should benefit everyone. Huawei hopes to join hands with more ICT youth to build an intelligent, connected world through technology and innovation. Together, we can reach for the stars and beyond."

There is an old Chinese verse, "With the wind, the great roc bird rises high, soaring ninety thousand li in the sky." In an increasingly digital future, innovation and creativity know no bounds. Huawei hopes that all ICT youth around the world will soar on the wings of the Huawei ICT Competition, scale new heights with their knowledge and skills, give full play to their dreams and aspirations, and contribute to an intelligent world.