Panashe Muinzani, Munashe Magidi and Naledi Ntsane achieved 10^th place overall and 1^st position in SA in the cloud computing category, in the Huawei ICT Global Competition 2019/2020.

Cape Peninsula University of Technology students Panashe Muinzani, Munashe Magidi (3^rd year, Information Technology), and Naledi Ntsane, (2^nd year, Mechanical Engineering), competed in the HUAWEI, Global Challenge ICT competition with over 10 000 students from South Africa, to emerge victorious.

The Huawei ICT Competition 2019-2020 covered over 70 countries worldwide, with 150 000 contestants from more than 2 000 universities and colleges. Due to the world-wide, covid-19 pandemic lockdown, students competed online in a three-level competition system in Innovation and Practice Competition.

CPUT’s students competed in the ‘Practice Competition’ category. They were prepared for the National Competition round by CPUT Mentor and IT/Computer Science Lecturer, Mr. Waldon Hendricks.  “They had to endure a four-hour, topic based exam, that focused on testing basic theoretical knowledge and practical skills”, said Mr. Hendricks (himself a novice researcher into Big Data and AI).

This big global brand, HUAWEI, is all about technology and enriching students with skills. HUAWEI provides free access to online self-paced learning that is now used by over 10 000 registered learners in South Africa.

After an outstanding performance in the cloud computing category of the Huawei ICT competition, three of CPUT students (Panashe, Munashe and Naledi), were selected for the Sub-Sahara Regional phase of the competition, alongside University of Limpopo students, and 12 other countries.

In the final outcome, CPUT achieved 10th position overall, and came joint 1^st place in South Africa together with the University of Limpopo, for the ‘Cloud Track’. Students win data and tech equipment to bolster their online access to lessons.

“As a Huawei ICT Academy administrator and lecturer, I’m so proud of our CPUT students’ achievements. Despite lockdown and not being on campus they made it to the finals in their own environments, without fear and even setting milestones they had to conquer to get to the finals.

Mr. Hendricks believes that students should not be confined to working in silos at universities. He said that, “having a second-year mechanical engineering student from CPUT participate in an IT competition is ground-breaking, and proves that we as educators at higher education institutions, can change the learning path to do different things, across faculty”.

ACADEMICS DETAILS:

Mr. Waldon Hendricks

Cape Peninsula University of Technology

IT and Computer Science Lecturer

Novice Researcher into Big Data and AI

Huawei ICT Academy Administrator for CPUT/TVET Colleges in Cape Town

Email: HendricksW@cput.ac.za