Huawei South Africa has partnered with the department of communications & digital technologies (DCDT) to deliver a tailor-made 5G course for the department’s women staff.

The training is an extension of DCDT’s Women’s Month initiative that aims to expose female employees to various technologies and solutions that will enable the digital transformation envisaged by the fourth Industrial Revolution, commonly referred to as “4IR”.

Deputy minister Pinky Kekana attended and addressed delegates on the importance of skilling and re-skilling of women in the ICT space. Kekana said: “In our effort to build a capable 4IR army, we strongly believe in the ongoing development of our employees. We want to learn from leaders in the ICT sector and be trained by them. It is important for us, as women, to understand what 4IR technologies are and what changes they will bring to our lives.”

Huawei chief operating officer Christina Naidoo also stressed the importance of women taking a bigger role in ICT as we embrace the digital era.

“The technology space is essentially about innovation — creating and developing new solutions to improve people’s lives. We will only be able to do this optimally when women are intimately involved in the innovation process.”

The group of 50 women, ranging from administrative to executive levels, underwent training in 5G technology and business use cases. They also attended talks on the Internet of things, cloud and FTTx and were presented with a certificate from the Huawei Learning Centre.

Department of communications acting director-general Nomvuyiso Batyi said: “DCDT is committed to ensuring that there is digital inclusion, especially taking account of the interests of women. This training is some of the initiatives by the minister, Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams, to ensure that employees are equipped with the necessary skills to develop policies and legislative frameworks suitable for South Africa.”

Huawei has committed to training 6 000 students and industry professionals in the 4IR technologies of 5G, AI, cloud and big data with online and face to face training platforms.

For more information, please visit Huawei online at www.huawei.com, or its South African website. Alternatively, find Huawei South Africa on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google and YouTube.