Youth unemployment is at an all-time high in South Africa, with it sitting at 62.4 percent most recently.
A dearth of adequate digital skills has long been highlighted as a reason for this, and to the private sector’s credit, several organisations have stepped up in recent years to assist in training and upskilling to ensure relevant market-ready skills are entering the market.
One of those organisations is Huawei South Africa, which has for many years partnered with a number of government departments on digital skills training and industry-readiness programmes.
In fact, it took this week to highlight what strides it has made in this regard. To that end, Huawei says it has engaged an estimated 37 000 participants over the past two years through its aforementioned initiatives.
“This work is closely aligned with South Africa’s digital development priorities, as outlined in the South Africa Digital Infrastructure Investment Study 2025 by the Development Bank of Southern Africa and the National Planning Commission, which sets out the investment and policy conditions needed to support inclusive digital transformation through 2035,” Huawei explained in a release to Hypertext.
“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. 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,” added Christina Naidoo, chief operating officer of Huawei South Africa.
Some of the initiatives that have resulted in that impressive number of 37 000 include, its annual Women in Tech initiative, which is handled in partnership with the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies (DCDT), as well as the Department of Employment and Labour and the Department of Small Business Development. Women in Tech 2025 has trained more than 300 women in South Africa since 2021.
Another important initiative is DigiSchool, which targets primary school learners, and reached 6 200 participants in 2025. Added to this is 4IR training and the Huawei ICT Academy, which reached a combined 7 082 participants, as it aimed to open pathways into areas such as AI, networking, and cloud computing.
Sticking with the Huawei ICT Academy, it has been established in 47 TVET Colleges, 25 universities and universities of technology, seven private colleges, and two training organisations to date. This has seen a substantial number of learners in the tertiary education space given the chance to pursue opportunities in the local technology space.
“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,” the company highlighted.
This year, one of Huawei’s newest initiatives is Code4Mzanzi, which was announced in February. It is a, “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.”
There is always more to do when the country’s youth unemployment rate is as high as it is, but Huawei South Africa is certainly doing what it can when it comes to skills development, and over the past two years, has quickly grown a sizeable ICT talent ecosystem.
“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,” concluded Naidoo.
Source : www.htxt.co.za
