Huawei started its yearly educational programme "Seeds for the Future" for Uzbek youngsters. With the help of the Ministry of Digital Technologies, 15 Uzbek students from seven institutions will go to Qatar in September this year to study in IT fields alongside project participants from 15 Middle Eastern and Central Asian nations. The Ministry of Digital Technology sponsored the launch ceremony for the educational project "Seeds for the Future," which is part of Huawei's global corporate social responsibility commitment to nurture talent. For the ninth time, Uzbek students will collaborate with students from other countries to enhance their digital abilities, share information, promote awareness of the ICT industry, and create a digital community of young talents. This year, in addition to students from Uzbekistan, 175 students from universities in 15 Middle Eastern and Central Asian countries will participate in the project, including Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Oman, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Azerbaijan, Mongolia, and Kyrgyzstan.
The project launch ceremony was attended by the Minister of Digital Technologies Sherzod Shermatov, the leadership and teaching staff of local universities with IT areas, representatives of Huawei, and one of the TOP-10 global Ambassadors of the Seeds for the Future project, Inha University graduate Nodira Tillaeva. The application period for participation in the initiative began in June of this year for students from 11 Uzbek universities. According to the selection findings, 15 students performed well in the final interviews. Senior students from Tashkent University of Information Technologies, Inha University in Tashkent, Amity University in Tashkent, and Tashkent University of Science and Technology took part in the program. "After three years of running the Seeds for the Future program locally in Uzbekistan in a hybrid format, the project now offers an opportunity for local talent to improve their ICT knowledge by combining education with travel abroad." We hope to motivate young people to explore the potential of the digital world by collectively developing an open ecosystem of ICT talent in Uzbekistan and nations in the Middle East and Central Asia, with the cooperation of regulators and higher education institutions. "We congratulate the 2023 program participants and hope to benefit from the educational process and cultural exchange with participants from other countries," said Mr. Chen Jiakai, Director of Huawei in Uzbekistan.
Participants will also design their own Tech4Good idea for entry to the regional competition during the Seeds for the Future program, which runs from September 2 to September 9, 2023. The competition's purpose is to engage young people in making positive changes in their communities by utilizing digital solutions to accomplish the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). If the Tech4Good proposal is successfully submitted to the judges, the participants will have the opportunity to advance to the second round, which will be hosted in Dubai, UAE, from September 10 to September 16, 2023. Winners of the Tech4Good accelerator program will be entitled to compete in the final global competition in China, based on the results of the program. "Seeds for the Future" is a global corporate social responsibility education initiative run by Huawei's Fagman division. Over 15,000 students from 139 countries have participated in the program since its inception in 2008. Previously, 50 Uzbek students took classes on the program in China, and 82 students participated in the online version of the program in 2020-2022. In 2017, four Uzbek participants from the "Seeds for the Future" initiative attended the international conference "One Belt, One Road" in Beijing.
