Huawei makes massive ICT talent push in SA

Huawei is building one of South Africa’s country’s most visible ICT talent ecosystems, with nearly 37,000 participants reached in the past two years through digital skills training and industry-readiness programmes.

Huawei says the programme is closely aligned with South Africa’s digital development priorities outlined in the South Africa Digital Infrastructure Investment Study 2025. The study, conducted by the Development Bank of Southern Africa and the National Planning Commission, sets out the investment and policy conditions needed to support inclusive digital transformation through to 2035.

Within that framework, digital skills, affordability and institutional coordination are recognised as critical enablers, reinforcing the need for a stronger pipeline of local capability as South Africa sharpens its focus on economic growth.

“Huawei’s operations and investments in South Africa are aligned with national priorities, which is why digital skills and talent development have become such an important area of focus for us,” said Christina Naidoo, chief operating officer of Huawei South Africa. “We are working with government, academia and the wider innovation ecosystem to help build the capability the country needs for inclusive and sustained digital growth.”

A key part of that effort, she said, has been ensuring that the digital economy feels accessible to those who have historically been underrepresented in it. Through engagements linked to Girls in ICT and through its annual Women in Tech initiative, Huawei has placed women’s participation at the centre of its approach.

Women in Tech 2025, co-hosted with the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies, the Department of Employment and Labour and the Department of Small Business Development, built on a programme that has trained more than 300 women in South Africa since 2021, with that year’s cohort receiving advanced training in 5G, AI, cloud and leadership.

Speaking at that Women in Tech event, DCDT director general Nonkqubela Jordan-Dyani said: “Access is not yet equal, but technology can be far more useful when we apply it purposefully. We have seen this in our country. We can’t achieve this vision on our own, which is why collaboration with partners like Huawei is so important.”

DigiSchool, targeted at primary school learners, reached 6,200 participants in 2025, helping build early familiarity with technology and widening exposure to digital tools and learning. That foundation extended through 4IR training and the Huawei ICT Academy, which reached a combined 7,082 youth participants, opening pathways into areas such as AI, networking, cloud and innovation.

Focus has shifted towards the support of the TVET ICT curriculum transformation, geared to helping strengthen the relevance of technical education in a country where the need for market-ready skills has become increasingly urgent.

That urgency has also been recognised at national level. Speaking at the launch of the CIDB Centre of Excellence at Walter Sisulu University last week, Higher Education and Training Minister Buti Manamela described South Africa’s “contradiction between skills shortages and unemployment” as “one of the most urgent challenges we face”. His remarks highlighted the growing emphasis being placed on industry-linked technical education as part of the country’s response to youth unemployment, skills mismatches and economic modernisation.

The Huawei ICT Academy has been established in 47 TVET Colleges, 25 universities and universities of technology, 7 private colleges and 2 training organisations.

Huawei’s talent ecosystem extends beyond training into employability, enterprise development and innovation. Through Huawei’s LEAP (Leadership, Employability, Advancement, and Possibility) Programme, designed to bridge the digital skills gap in Sub-Saharan Africa by providing comprehensive training and resources, the company has reached over 18,000 participants in South Africa in 2025 alone, while also training customer engineers, partners and subcontractors to strengthen technical capability in the market.

That momentum is now carrying into newer platforms designed to activate South Africa’s next wave of digital builders. One example is Code4Mzansi, a new Huawei Cloud developers competition run with the Department of Small Business Development and academic partners including UCT, UJ, UP and Wits. The competition drew 353 teams and 1,041 participants, bringing students, startups and young developers into a live environment where they could build, test and refine solutions using Huawei Cloud tools, mentorship and product support.

“Healthy competition is an important part of building talent for a growing digital economy,” said Naidoo. “When students and young developers are challenged to solve real problems, they sharpen technical skills, build confidence and learn to innovate under pressure. That is how digital talent grows stronger, and how countries create the kind of capability needed to compete, build and lead in the global digital economy.”

Girls in ICT Day

Meanwhile, Huawei South Africa’s annual Girls in ICT Day gave young women practical skills in areas lile AI, coding, and digital entrepreneurship. The day also celebrated their role in the digital economy, not only as future participants but as young innovators who can help shape what comes next.

Hosted by Huawei South Africa in partnership with UN Women, the event welcomed students from Gauteng and Limpopo, who are part of UN Women’s African Girls Can Code Initiative (AGCCI), alongside members of Huawei’s Graduate Programme.

Themed “CTRL + SHE: Where She Takes Control of the Future,” the programme gave participants a closer look at what a career in ICT can look like, combining an Innovation Centre tour with keynote addresses and direct engagement with women working across the technology and education sectors.
Opening the day, Vanashree Govender, senior PR manager for media and communications at Huawei South Africa, said the event was designed to create space for students and young graduates to engage with each other and with women already working in ICT.

“This day serves as an important reminder that the future of technology will be stronger and more relevant when more young women are part of shaping it.”

Christina Naidoo, chief operating officer of Huawei South Africa, spoke about what the graduate programme has built since its launch. More than 350 graduates have entered the industry through the programme since 2017, with women comprising half of that intake. She told attendees: “Know that you belong here. You belong in the labs, the development teams, and the boardrooms where the big decisions are made.”

Naidoo also positioned Huawei’s wider skills development work, saying that through initiatives lile the graduate programme, ICT Academy, and Code for Mzansi, the company reached more than 15,000 students in 2025 alone.

Dr Hazel Gooding, deputy representative at UN Women South Africa Country Office, addressed the relationship between AI and inclusion.

“If left unchecked, AI will not automatically advance equality,” she said. “It can just as easily entrench inequality, reproduce bias, exclude women from its benefits, and amplify the very inequalities that we are trying to dismantle.”

She said this is why women and girls must be present not only as users of AI, but in the rooms where it is designed, governed, and deployed. She cited the African Girls Can Code Initiative (AGCCI) as evidence of this work in practice, and how young women in the programme are already building digital solutions to problems affecting their communities.

Dr Gooding also drew attention to technologically-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV), raising it as a direct consequence of unchecked digital spaces and a reason why responsible technology use must be part of how young women are equipped.

“Technologically-facilitated gender-based violence is being used to attack women and girls online. This is a serious issue and one that we cannot ignore.”

Queen Ndlovu, CEO and founder of QP Drone Tech, had the audience in awe of her achievements. She calls herself a serial entrepreneur, innovator and maverick in business. She has high hopes that her drone business will reach “Unicorn” status soon. She spoke with passion about her never-say-die attitude. Even with no background in ICT, she knew drones would play a role in the digital economy, which was way back in 2017, and she spent 6 months in China researching the technology.

“If a door is closed, it isn’t locked—keep trying. If you don’t like what’s behind it, pivot with purpose. Study the market, take the risk, and move with intention,” she said.

Her perspective reinforced one of the day’s strongest themes, that careers in technology are often built by stepping into unfamiliar spaces and making a path through them.

Nosipho Zwane’s moment on stage gave one of the clearest examples of the day’s spirit in action. A graduate programme alumna and now an Access Network Product Manager and Solution Architect at Huawei, she had sat in that same audience the previous year as a graduate. This year, she was one of the speakers.

She used her own journey from graduate attendee to speaker and technical professional as a direct example of what can happen when young women actively pursue the opportunities in front of them. She told attendees: “CTRL + She isn’t just a slogan—it’s a call to take command. Own your voice, your growth, and your impact. Take up space and trust your potential. You belong here. “

Another memorable moment came from Kgoetsimang Mulaudzi, a learner and coder from the UN Women’s African Girls Can Code Initiative (AGCCI), who shared how coding and robotics have shaped her confidence and growth. For Mulaudzi, coding is “the language we use to turn ideas into instructions,” while robotics is “coding that you can touch.”

She said learning to code helped her engage more confidently with maths and science. Encouraging other young women, she said: “To those who come from rural areas and feel like, as girls, you cannot make it into the tech world, which is dominated by men, I am saying that you can do this. You got this.”

As Dr Gooding told the audience on the theme of CTRL + SHE: “CTRL is that key that you press when you want to take command. And SHE, well, that’s exactly who should be in command of our future.”