KOTA KINABALU: Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) and Huawei Technologies Malaysia Sdn Bhd (Huawei Malaysia) have announced the opening of the ICT Academy Lab located at the Faculty of Computing & Informatics, UMS.
The setting up of the lab is part of the efforts to strengthen Malaysia’s digital talent ecosystem which is part of Huawei Malaysia’s efforts to nurture a rich ICT talent pool in line with accelerating Malaysia’s digital transformation goals.
The launching ceremony was held on April 17, with UMS represented by its Vice Chancellor, Prof Datuk Dr Kasim Hj Mansor, while Huawei Malaysia was represented by Vice-Chancellor of Huawei Asia Pacific Academy and Director of Huawei Malaysia Public Affairs and Communications, Oliver Liu.
Universities are known for students pursuing knowledge and innovation and to achieve this, the right tools and resources to facilitate the learning process are needed.
The ICT Academy Lab is designed to enhance the learning experience of the students which will help to train them in a real-world environment to acquire high level of Huawei certifications.
The lab is also equipped with Huawei’s smart classroom solutions in order to support university in teaching, holding workshops and technical discussions, sharing and exchanges with industry by using hybrid method.
Commenting on the collaboration, Kasim noted that the partnership aligns with UMS’ strategy of supporting the ministry’s policies on integrating Industry 4.0 elements in education.
“With the establishment of the Huawei ICT Academy Lab, UMS has implemented a range of successful programs in various ICT fields, such as telecommunications, Big Data, IoT, Cloud Computing and artificial intelligence.
“As of today, a total of 710 UMS graduates have followed the HCIA (Huawei Certified ICT Associate) Program, and 330 UMS graduates have been recognized as Huawei ICT Associates (HCIA) from the latest ICT fields, including Datacom, AI, Big Data, Cloud Computing, Storage, 5G and Security.
“With this achievement and the management efficiency of the Huawei ICT Academy, UMS has been awarded the ‘Outstanding Achievement Award’ four years in a row (2019-2022),” Kasim said.
Meanwhile, Liu said that Huawei is delighted to be a part of this wonderful effort by UMS to nurture ICT talent.
“I believe this initiative will help students improve their digital skills and become more competitive in this highly dynamic and demanding ICT industry as well as in the job market.
“Huawei aims to showcase and share our leading technology solutions and innovations with students and cultivate world class talent for Malaysia and the region.
“We hope this lab will be one of the main hubs for technology development for students,” he said.
Also present during the event were the Dean of the Faculty of Computing and Informatics, Assoc Prof Ts Dr Mohd Hanafi Ahmad Hijazi, UMS Chief Digital Officer Prof Ag Asri Ag Ibrahim; Director of Huawei Enterprise (East Malaysia), Jason Dengjie; Partner Development Director of Huawei Enterprise Malaysia, John Zhang, and Human Resource Director of Huawei Malaysia, Choh Yau Meng.
