As South Africa sharpens its focus on economic growth, digital inclusion and future-facing skills, Huawei is building one of the country’s most visible ICT talent ecosystems, with nearly 37,000 participants reached in the past two years through its digital skills training and industry-readiness programmes.
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. Within that framework, digital skills, affordability and institutional coordination are recognised as critical enablers, reinforcing the need for a stronger pipeline of local capability.
“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,” said Christina Naidoo, Chief Operating Officer of Huawei South Africa.
“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.”
A key part of that effort has been ensuring that the digital economy feels accessible to those who have historically been underrepresented in it. Through engagements linked to Girls in ICT and through its annual Women in Tech initiative, Huawei has placed women’s participation at the centre of its approach. Co-hosted with the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies, the Department of Employment and Labour and the Department of Small Business Development, Women in Tech 2025 built on a programme that has trained more than 300 women in South Africa since 2021, with that year’s cohort receiving advanced training in 5G, AI, cloud and leadership.
Speaking at that Women in Tech event, DCDT Director-General Nonkqubela Jordan-Dyani said, “Access is not yet equal, but technology can be far more useful when we apply it purposefully. We have seen this in our country. We can’t achieve this vision on our own, which is why collaboration with partners like Huawei is so important.”
What has been critical to Huawei’s approach is ensuring that this ecosystem is inclusive across different levels of education and access. DigiSchool, targeted at primary school learners, reached 6,200 participants in 2025, helping build early familiarity with technology and widening exposure to digital tools and learning. That foundation extended through 4IR training and the Huawei ICT Academy, which reached a combined 7,082 youth participants, opening pathways into areas such as AI, networking, cloud and innovation.
Focus has shifted towards the support of the TVET ICT curriculum transformation, geared to helping strengthen the relevance of technical education in a country where the need for market-ready skills has become increasingly urgent.
That urgency has also been recognised at national level. Speaking at the launch of the CIDB Centre of Excellence at Walter Sisulu University last week, Higher Education and Training Minister Buti Manamela described South Africa’s “contradiction between skills shortages and unemployment” as “one of the most urgent challenges we face”. His remarks highlighted the growing emphasis being placed on industry-linked technical education as part of the country’s response to youth unemployment, skills mismatches and economic modernisation.
The Huawei ICT Academy has been established in 47 TVET Colleges, 25 universities and universities of technology, 7 private colleges and 2 training organisations.
Huawei’s talent ecosystem extends beyond training into employability, enterprise development and innovation. 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.
That momentum is now carrying into newer platforms designed to activate South Africa’s next wave of digital builders. One example is Code4Mzansi, a new 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.
“Healthy competition is an important part of building talent for a growing digital economy,” concludes Naidoo.
“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.”
