Johannesburg - One thousand young South Africans are to be trained in information and communications technology (ICT) in China over the next five years under a new investment made by Huawei, government said on Wednesday.
The Department of Telecommunications and Postal Services and Chinese electronics company, Huawei, signed an agreement which covers capacity building, ICT talent training and joint innovation on ICT in Johannesburg on Tuesday.
Telecommunications Services Minister Siyabonga Cwele said the cooperation on capacity building was aimed at sharing information, expertise, experience and technical assistance among the different structures operating in the field of telecommunications. Cwele said the youth would be trained in areas including telecommunication network security and optimisation, as well as telecommunication administration.
Other areas of training would comprise new technology for satellite navigation, the next generation network construction, cloud computing and big data network construction.
“This is expected to help enhance the department's strategies to implement our programmes, including the roll-out of broadband and lowering the cost to communicate,” Cwele said.
Cwele urged the youth who would be participating in the training in China to use the opportunity wisely.
“They must view it as a window into the future and must come back and develop ICT solutions that will answer some South African challenges,” Cwele said.
Meanwhile, Huawei also launched a R72 million innovation centre that aimed at creating 40 permanent jobs in addition to the 1 200 people already employed by the Chinese network and services company in South Africa.
Cwele said the Huawei centre would provide an opportunity for governments on the continent to consider standards that can be set for gadgets to be used on future mobile networks and for entrepreneurs to spot opportunities to develop gadgets and applications.
African News Agency