For a couple of remarkable young women, exposure to sought-after technological skills isn’t just a chance to improve their own career prospects – it also allows them to act as role models and bring about positive change in their communities.
Two young women, Ntombifuthi Mwale and Samukelisiwe Dube, are both beneficiaries of Huawei’s bursary programme which offers students, from disadvantaged backgrounds, an opportunity to flourish and accomplish their aspirations and academic goals while also ensuring they are equipped to enter the workplace. The programme is open to second, third, and fourth-year students studying across a broad range of fields, including those studying towards degrees in Computer Science and Information Systems.
Ntombifuthi Mwale, 23, was born and grew up in Ivory Park, a township located in Midrand, where she still lives with her grandmother, mother, two uncles, and five siblings.
“Most people living in Ivory Park,” she says, “are unemployed or working class.”
Despite those circumstances, she obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Johannesburg in 2021. Although she started working straight after obtaining her degree, she realised that she wasn’t done with studying. Fortunately, being accepted into Huawei’s Bursary Programme gave her the opportunity to go back and pursue her Honours degree.
Mwale has big aspirations for herself and for her family.
“My biggest goals are obtaining my Honours, working in a well-respected organisation, and saving enough so that I can build my mom a house,” she says.
She also wants to inspire others.
“Being the first graduate in my family, I want to use my achievement to inspire my siblings and the youngsters in my neighbourhood to pursue their education,” she adds. “By being a light of knowledge in my town, I hope to bring about a revolutionary shift.”
Samukelisiwe Dube has similarly high-minded aspirations. Born and raised in Johannesburg and currently living in Boksburg, Dube is studying Information Science at the University of Pretoria.
“I believe that this bursary will not only kickstart the career that I strive to have within ICT, but it will also help me grow in the skills I need to be an active citizen in the information and knowledge society that we are moving towards globally,” she says.
Both these young women also recognise how important the ICT skills they’re developing through their studies are. That’s true not just of their own career prospects but for South Africa’s ability to achieve the kind of transformation necessary for the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR).
“In the context of South Africa, 4IR can promote economic expansion, job transformation, boost productivity, and raise its citizen’s standards of living,” says Dube.
The 4IR skills she’s building now means that she, “will be able to educate my community about digital inclusion and the use of technology.”
For Dube, 4IR comes with immense promise for the broader continent, too.
“The Fourth Industrial Revolution, as a global movement towards a greater technological standing, has the ability to thrust Africa into a better position in terms of its global technical standing,” she says. “The advancements that result will bring about a new and dynamic environment that deals with new threats but also new possibilities that need to be delved into further. I believe that I will be able to assist in pioneering knowledge that has never been dealt with.”
Given the gender gap that exists across the full spectrum of digital skills (for example, sub-Saharan Africa has one of the widest mobile internet gender gaps in the world, with just 37% of women and 74% of men across the region able to access it), the ambitions of these two young women should be lauded. They are, after all, studying in a field that’s still dominated by men, with women accounting for just 32% of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) graduates in South Africa.
As Mohammed Bismilla, Huawei’s Head of Emerging Talent explains, the company is committed to helping close this gap through initiatives such as the bursary programme.
“Huawei is heavily invested in ensuring that South Africa’s youth have the skills needed for the country to compete in the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR),” he says. “We could not credibly claim to be serious about that investment if we didn’t aim for gender parity in our bursary and graduate programmes, which looks to take on between 60 and 70 graduates a year, who are then placed in different parts of the business. Of course, organisations that embrace diversity at all levels are also more innovative and successful, meaning we’d be doing ourselves a disservice if we weren’t committed to real representation.”
By firmly grasping the opportunities available to them, the bursary recipients will act as role models for those who follow them. In doing so, they will help to transform not just their own communities but South Africa as a whole.
It just goes to show what can happen when someone is given a chance to fulfil their true potential.
