Top Honours for UM, UTAR and UMS at the Malaysian Edition of the Huawei ICT Competition 2023-2024
YBrs. Dr. Muhamad Shakirin Mispan, Pengarah Pusat Keusahawanan & Pembangunan Pelajar Universiti Malaya (3rd from left) with Grand Prize winners for the Network Track category from Universiti Malaya.
[KUALA LUMPUR, 22 DECEMBER 2023]: Universiti Malaya (UM), Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR), and Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) were crowned national level champions of the Huawei ICT Competition 2023-2024 and will be representing Malaysia at the upcoming regional competition in 2024.
UM clinched the Grand Prize in the Network Track, UTAR in the Cloud Track, and UMS in the Computing Track at the fifth Malaysian edition of the competition which attracted the participation of 620 undergraduates from 11 local universities this year. The number of participants in the competition has tripled since its first local edition in 2018.
The winning students, who walked away with Huawei laptops, mobile phones, and Huawei MatePads, will be looking to make Malaysia proud at the regional and global competitions which will be held in Shenzhen, China.
Universiti Malaya Student Affairs Department Student Entrepreneurship and Development Center Director Dr Muhamad Shakirin Mispan pointed out that promising opportunities in the digital economy with rewarding remuneration awaited the right digital talents.
“To open the door to this future in an era marked by the digital economy, the right kind of education is key. I am pleased to say that the Huawei ICT Competition is exactly the kind of platform to promote the right type of education that could potentially steer your career journey,” he said in his opening speech at the awards ceremony.
Mr Zhang Fupeng, Vice President of Huawei Asia Pacific, said students empowered by the Huawei ICT Competition have shown remarkable growth, unearthing the promising calibre of talent that Malaysia has to offer to a future that will be driven by the digital economy.
“Huawei’s global ICT talent development efforts have benefitted approximately 2.2 million people in over 150 countries. We will continue the hard work required to keep the momentum going. In 2020, we set the goal of nurturing 50,000 Malaysian talents over a period of five years, across various business fields and technology sectors. Though that was the period the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted our lives, we were not deterred by it and are set to achieve that target, with 44,000 talents trained to date,” Mr Zhang said in his welcome speech.
Themed “Connection, Glory, Future”, the Huawei ICT Competition is a well-established platform that has seen the participation of over 749,000 students globally. The 11 universities that qualified for the national round at the Huawei ICT Competition 2023-2024 this year were:
i. Multimedia University (MMU)
ii. Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS)
iii. Universiti Malaysia Perlis (UniMAP)
iv. Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM)
v. Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR)
vi. Universiti Malaya (UM)
vii. Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM)
viii. Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM)
ix. Universiti Malaysia Pahang (UMP)
x. Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka (UTEM)
xi. Universiti Teknologi MARA (UITM)
As part of the Seeds for the Future initiative, Huawei’s flagship CSR Programme at the corporate level, the competition upholds the principles of bridging the gap between theory and practical skills, promoting innovation and creativity, and fostering collaboration between academia and industry professionals.