Deputy Communications Minister Vincent Sowah Odotei has urged the youth to take advantage of the numerous innovations in the technological space to increase chances at gaining employment.

He was speaking at the launch of the Ghana Huawei Training Centre.

Mr Sowah Odotei said, ‘‘The skills that young people have is what increases their chance at gaining employment. Avenues such as the Huawei Training Centre will provide the opportunity to for them to acquire the skills to set them apart.’’

The centre will serve as an ICT Talent Ecosystem Program for Ghana at the Customer Service Innovation Center (CSIC) of the Huawei Ghana Headquarters. 

As part of this program, Huawei will be carrying out several ICT certification programs including the Huawei ICT Academy for university students and industry practitioners, providing industry-recognized certification HCNA, HCNP, HCIE, across extensive ICT technologies, such as Routing; Switching, Storage, Cloud Computing, Security, etc.

Mr Sowah Odotei lauded Huawei for opening the centre as this is in line with government’s map to the technological revolution.

‘‘This training is so important and crucial and it couldn’t have come in any other important time in the digital life of Ghana. Government is embarking on full digitization and formalization of the economy, and that is driven by technology. So it is important that such training programs are properly established.’’

The training will run from the 3rd to 19th of December, 2018  and will seek to develop Ghana’s ICT talent pool while giving industry the opportunity to enhance and polish their ICT skills to meet the increasing domestic and global demand.
 
The first class will commence with 21 trainees from Huawei’s local partners in Ghana including MTN Ghana, Vodafone Ghana, AirtelTigo Ghana, IPMC and National Identification Authority (NIA). 

The trainees will be taking the IP (Internet Protocol) HCNP (Huawei Certified Network Professional) Certification course which will see them become certified Huawei IP HCNP professional.
 
The Managing Director of Huawei Ghana, Tommy Zhou, explained that Huawei is launching the platform to demonstrate that the young ICT talents in Ghana have the potential to become world-class experts.

“Today, Huawei is reiterating its commitment to working even more closely with partners across the continent to better equip the next generation of technology leaders. By enhancing industry-academic cooperation, Huawei as an international ICT Company hopes to make its contribution to ICT development in Ghana to pave the way to achieving a Smart Ghana,” he said.