Huawei concluded its 2024-2025 Middle East and Central Asia, ME&CA ICT Competition with a glittering Regional Finals Awards Ceremony in Riyadh, coinciding the 10th anniversary of Huawei ICT Academy in the ME&CA. The event recognised exceptional performance across Cloud, Network, Computing tracks and innovation competition, celebrating the achievements of students and instructors from regional institutions.
In celebration of the 10th anniversary of the ICT Academy, a series of awards were presented to partners, instructors, and students. King Saud University, the University of Bahrain, Bahrain Polytechnic, and Al-Khawarizmi Institute of Science and Technology, received the Best Partner Award among others recognised and appreciated for their continuous efforts and innovations in driving digital transformation.
This year’s Huawei’s ICT Competition has seen unprecedented participation, with over 31,000 student registrations from 640 regional universities and colleges in 19 countries. The competition featured 290 participants in the Innovation Track and 30,900 participants in Practice Competitions, competing across multiple tracks, including Cloud, Network, and Computing.
Participants underwent comprehensive assessment through written exams and hands-on lab work, while the innovation track featured both online and onsite defence rounds. It has also garnered support and endorsement from UNESCO, along with over 40 regional ministries, operators, and industry partners.
This year, a team of students from Jordan won the grand prize for the network track, while two student teams from Lebanon secured the grand prize in the Cloud and Computing Tracks. In the Innovation Competition, a team from Qatar emerged victorious, claiming the Grand Prize for their project Be My Sense.
The first prize category was shared among several teams: a Saudi team for their project NABEEH, an Uzbekistan team for Volta, and a Pakistani team for PRISM. Second prizes were awarded to a Kazakhstani team for Plantos, a Jordanian team for 3asheqHuawei, an Iraqi team for EcoGuardians, and another Saudi team for CS2R.
This milestone event builds upon Huawei’s decade-long commitment to ICT talent development in the region. Through partnerships with 106 ICT academies managed by six ICT Academy Support Centres, IASCs, the programme has trained over 300,000 students and certified over 35,000 professionals.
This extensive network of 2,000+ qualified instructors continue to play a vital role in developing the digital workforce needed to support the region’s technological advancement.
The event was attended by a distinguished gathering, including Ibrahem AlNasser, Deputy Minister for Future Jobs and Capabilities at the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology; His Excellency Chang Hua, Chinese Ambassador to Saudi Arabia; His Excellency Dr Adel Al-Zunaidi, Deputy Governor of the Technical and Vocational Training Corporation, TVTC; His Excellency Zhan Tao, Director of UNESCO IITE; His Excellency Sherzod Shermatov, Minister of Digital Technologies of the Republic of Uzbekistan; and Dr Suliman Almazroua, CEO of the National Industrial Development and Logistics Programme.
In addition to these accolades, the team behind NABEEH from Saudi Arabia received special recognition, winning the Most Popular Team award after securing the most votes from attendees.
Muhammad Zubair, Consultant at the Al-Khawarizmi Institute of Computer Science, was awarded the inaugural Grand Prize for Instructors, a new category introduced this year at the Huawei ICT Competition finals.
