BY DARGIE KAHSAY
Chinese owned multinational technology corporation, Huawei has been performing activities to change the innovation ecosystem across the world. Huawei has been arranging annual competition among global higher education institutions. Its seventh round of competition happened in Shenzhen, China from 24 May to 28 May 2023 and Ethiopian students took the third place.
Gathered from five different higher education institutions, nine Ethiopian University students joined the global final competition after wining various national and regional tournaments. Three teams, each with three members participated in the global final ICT competition and won the third rank in the tournament that saw 146 teams from 36 different countries of the world as Huawei Ethiopia reported it recently.
Two teams each with three members participated in the practical networking track which encompasses datacom, security, WLAN, big data, storage, artificial intelligence (AI), Open Euler and Open Gauss. While the other team of students, all the three from AAiT, featured in the innovation track with their own innovation titled “Geez Character Classifier”. The students which they compute at the practical networking track and at the innovation track won the third ranking during the competition from the 146 teams.
The students are happy on what they accomplish during the tournament and they said that beyond the ranking they secured, the experiences they got during the tournament and it was very interesting for their future endeavors in the technology sector.
Segni Desalegn is a fourth year Software Engineering student at Addis Ababa Institute of Technology (AAiT) and was one of the participants in the global final ICT competition. He was member of the team computed at the innovation track with his team members who are also his classmates. Segni and his friends created an application, Geez Character Classifier, a project that was presented for their class project assignment.
After they presented the project at class, their instructor was impressed by the project and encouraged them to invest on it and he told them to apply for the Huawei ICT competition in the innovation track, Segni told The Ethiopian Herald. After they registered online to participate at the competition, they were selected to take a preliminary exam and they successfully passed the theoretical exam.
Passing preliminary steps and the national competition easily and successfully, they compete at regional tournament with students of Northern African region. Geez Character Classifier project ranked first at the regional tournament and the team finally proceeds to the global final competition. Segni stated that following a successful presentation at the innovation track at the 7th Huawei ICT competition in China, the project won the third level computing with global students projects presented at the contest.
“The application project we created for class purpose won the third rank at the global competition and we are happy for the accomplishment during the tournament,” Segni stated. The idea of Geez Character Classifier application, according to Segni, is AI application that can recognize Geez numbers, an Ethiopian number. Naol Tadesse, a fifth year Electrical Engineering student at Addis Ababa Science and Technology University (AASTU) was also participated at the competition with two Adama Science and Technology University (ASTU) students in the networking track, in one team.
Naol applied to participate in the competition online and took an online theoretical exam. He attended at the national contest and computed with other 62 students at the national competition in the networking track. Then he was one of the 15 students qualified for the regional competition. He said that the regional competition was a one hour theory and four hours long practical lab exam by team.
According to Naol the lab exam at the regional level was network configuration. “In networking track we were three teams at the regional contest from Ethiopia and two teams became capable for the global competition,” Naol said. During the global competition, the exam was an eight hours practical laboratory (lab) exam and the teams from Ethiopia in the network track also won the third rank. “It was a great achievement for us and we are happy to complete this ranking in this global competition where hundreds of students from over 36 countries were competed,” Naol added.
Both Segni and Naol said that they learnt a lot from the competition especially in the ICT networking technology. “The project we presented at the competition was a project we created for class assignment,” Segni said adding that “it is a surprise to see the project ranked third at the global competition.” According to Segni to win at the competition, his team was continued researches on the project throughout the tournament that helps them to develop their knowledge and skills in the sector.
In addition to the continuous researches and readings to develop their project, as they attended different projects presented by students from different parts of the world, participating in the tournament was a great lesson for them in addition to the recognition they received, Segni stated.
“Ranking third in the global competition by itself is a great achievement for us,” Naol for his part stated adding that the experience, the knowledge and skills they got from the tournament is beyond the ranking. “I learnt a lot from the tournament in ICT networking about datacom, security, WLAN, networking and connecting computers, how to connect headquarter with branch offices through network and other basic skills from the competition,” he stated.
According to Naol, as they passed various steps to reach the final competition, they worked as a team and shared the experiences they have, the skills they learnt at their classes and they shared for each-other the practical experiences they have in labs. This helped them to develop their knowledge in the sector.
Naol also said: “we got the opportunity to discuss with students of different countries of the world and shared experiences about technology. From the beginning, we traveled with Mali students from Addis Ababa to China, to the tournament. We learnt a lot from other students experiences.”
The students said that as they visited Huawei’s headquarters, it helps them to know the technological developments of the world and initiate them to develop their researches and innovations. “They used their mind to reach this level and it initiated me to continue investing in the technology,” Naol underlined.
With limited labs and access to practical technologies, the students from different universities achieved this level at the global contest. This shows that Ethiopian students have the capacity, skills, knowledge and ability to compute at the international level and it is important to develop access to technology for students at all levels. Technological competitions at school, zonal, regional and national levels would help students to develop their technological skills and promote innovations at all levels.
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD FRIDAY 16 JUNE 2023
