Forging an Era of Intelligence with the Three Trees Talent Model

As the digital economy thrives, the role of ICT talent is growing in importance.

According to the White Paper on Global Digital Economy (2022) released by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT), the output of the global digital economy increased by US$38.1 trillion in 2021, a 15.6% increase over the previous year. The global digital economy now accounts for 45% of GDP. Intelligence is transforming society, and the urgent need for intelligence across industries and innovation in ICT capabilities are accelerating intelligent transformation worldwide.

Societal digital transformation requires skilled ICT professionals in a range of industries. The EU aims to increase the percentage of people across EU member states with basic digital skills from 57% in 2018 to 65% by 2025. To achieve this, the EU will need to train around 10.9 million people in digital skills.

The China ICT Talent Ecosystem White Paper estimates that by 2025, there will be a shortage of 21.35 million ICT workers.

There is already a global consensus on the importance of cultivating digital talent. The latest version of the UK Digital Strategy states that the UK will emphasize digital infrastructure, creativity, and intellectual property, as well as digital skills and talent. Germany's Digital Strategy 2025 includes digital skills, digital transformation, and digital talent cultivation. China's 14th Five-Year Plan and Long-Range Objectives for 2035 proposes plans to step up efforts to make China a cyberpower and accelerate the nation's progress towards Digital China. This requires the country to foster more world-class strategic technological talent and leaders.

The Three Trees model

For over a decade, Huawei has been exploring collaborative ways to develop ICT talent and has proposed the Three Trees model for developing a talent ecosystem (Figure 1).

Teachers and students: To meet different schools' requirements for fostering innovative and application-oriented ICT talent, Huawei ICT academies around the world bring the latest ICT knowledge and skills to teachers and students, build a talent ecosystem for teachers and students, and strive for equal access to quality education.

Industry practitioners: To address industries' needs for ICT talent, Huawei provides talent development services to help train professionals specializing in management, services, and technologies. These professionals play a vital role in digital-intelligent transformation, service innovation and efficiency enhancement, and digital infrastructure development. Well-trained professionals can enhance the vitality of organizations and help industries go digital and intelligent.

Lifelong learners: To improve the general public's digital skills and competitiveness in the job market, Huawei provides a leading talent cultivation system and certification standards to help professionals grow through extended education, thus building a talent ecosystem for lifelong learners.

4 approaches to overcoming challenges with ICT talent cultivation

The widening gap between talent demand and supply is a key challenge for developing ICT professionals. We anticipate breakthroughs in talent cultivation approaches for four reasons:

First, digital technologies are evolving every day. Enterprises need talent that can keep up with industry developments. As a result, we expect the focus, methods, and content of ICT talent cultivation to change.

Second, colleges and universities are facing greater pressure to equip fresh graduates with both theoretical knowledge and practical skills that will allow them to find a job and excel at it, so they are exploring more innovative approaches to talent cultivation.

Third, enterprise digitalization requires a large number of ICT professionals and improved input-output efficiency in talent cultivation.

Fourth, the rapid growth of emerging ecosystems, such as those related to openEuler and HarmonyOS, can only be sustained by a workforce with a large number of industry professionals.

To address the increased demand for ICT talent and drive breakthroughs in talent cultivation, Huawei has laid out four approaches: forming talent alliances, incorporating talent standards, improving talent capabilities, and communicating talent value. With these approaches, Huawei aims to build a platform that enables a robust ICT talent ecosystem that overcomes challenges in talent cultivation.

Approach 1: Forming talent alliances to develop a talent cultivation platform

In a world where all things are connected, no individual or enterprise is a silo. Huawei is sharing its technologies and expertise and working with partners to develop a platform that enables a robust ICT talent ecosystem.

1. Collaboration with colleges and universities through the Huawei ICT Academy project

Colleges and universities are key platforms for talent cultivation, so it is important to collaborate with them to ensure young talent has access to the industry's latest developments and requirements. In 2013, Huawei launched its ICT Academy, a university-enterprise collaboration project that brings the latest digital technologies to colleges and universities around the world to transform students into ICT professionals. By the end of September 2023, Huawei had built ICT academies in collaboration with more than 2,600 colleges and universities in over 110 countries and regions worldwide, training over 200,000 students per year.

Huawei has established ICT Academy Support Centers (IASCs) to help the academies consolidate the results of collaboration and improve the quality of talent cultivation. By the end of June 2023, Huawei had established 22 IASCs in 18 countries, which support the operations of more than 400 ICT academies.

2. Boosting higher education with national education authorities

Huawei works with national education authorities to bring the latest technologies and resources to colleges and universities around the world. In China, we participate in the Ministry of Education's (MOE) University-Industry Collaborative Education Program. So far, we have initiated 705 projects, which support teachers at 229 universities to develop courses, teaching materials, and MOOCs to help universities enrich ICT talent.

Huawei worked with the China Scholarship Council on the Experiencing China — Intelligence Makes the Future program to improve the innovation capabilities of international students studying in China. In Mexico, Huawei's ICT courses were made a compulsory part of the national teaching certification by the Secretariat of Public Education in 2022, which is expected to accelerate the development of 140,000 teachers in the country.

3. Providing ICT training with local labor and human resource authorities

Huawei also works with ministries of labor and other human resource departments in different countries to provide ICT training for local communities and promote employment. In Macao, China, the government has recognized Huawei's certification by including it in its Professional Certification Incentive Program for Information Technology Talent. In the UK, Huawei has partnered with the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) to encourage youth to learn about the prospects of a career in digitalization by improving programming skills and creativity as part of its Tech4Good initiative. In Colombia, Huawei's certification has become a recognized enterprise certification that will help the country cultivate 50,000 ICT talents within three years.

4. Promoting digital inclusion with UNESCO

Huawei has cooperated extensively with UNESCO in digital transformation for higher education and talent cultivation. Huawei offers access to its cloud technologies to support the operation of the International Institute of Online Education, a non-profit online education platform where Huawei also provides 14 leading ICT certification courses for free to help teachers improve their technical skills. Huawei also participated in the 3rd World Higher Education Conference (WHEC2022) organized by UNESCO. At the conference, Huawei launched its Seeds for the Future scholarship program, and signed MOUs with 11 ICT academies and educational organizations across Europe, Asia Pacific, and Africa to jointly cultivate ICT talent for the future. Leading up to MWC Barcelona 2023, Huawei announced that it had joined the UNESCO Global Alliance for Literacy (GAL). It was the first private company to become an associate member of the GAL.

Approach 2: Incorporating talent standards to improve the quality of talent cultivation

Ongoing learning is essential to keep up with the rapid evolution of ICT. To facilitate lifelong learning, Huawei is incorporating its certification standards in talent cultivation. By providing diverse and systematic learning and teaching materials, Huawei is diversifying talent cultivation paths and increasing both the quantity and quality of talent.

1. Promoting Huawei certifications with an industry-leading ICT talent development system and certification standards

Huawei's professional ICT certification system is based on the company's "platform + ecosystem" strategy and a new ICT architecture with cloud-pipe-device synergy. This system provides three types of certification: ICT infrastructure, basic software and hardware, and cloud platform and services. By September 2023, more than 820,000 engineers worldwide had been certified by Huawei, and over 26,000 were named Huawei Certified ICT Experts (HCIEs). These engineers are a valuable resource pool for accelerating the intelligent transformation of industries.

2. Developing Huawei ICT Academy courses to help colleges and universities develop talent

To support the operations and talent development of the Huawei ICT Academy, Huawei provides courses for ICT academies worldwide, including general, practical, and specialized courses. By the end of September 2023, we had launched 33 courses in Chinese and 19 in English. For example, Yunnan Technology and Business University (YTBU) worked closely with Huawei to reform their talent development system, develop curricula, train teachers, and set up training rooms. By the end of 2022, nearly 3,000 YTBU students had passed Huawei certification, and the MOE ranked the university in the top 50 universities in China for graduate employment.

3. Publishing specialized textbooks to help reform universities' talent development models

Under the guidance of organizations like the Teaching Steering Committee for Computer Science and Technology and the editorial board for the Next-Generation Artificial Intelligence Textbooks Series, Huawei experts, university lecturers, and professional editors at the publishing house worked together to write textbooks. To date, more than 40 textbooks on emerging digital technologies, such as big data, IoT, and AI, have been developed. Notably the textbook series for the Huawei "1 + X" vocational skills certificate, co-authored by Huawei experts and university lecturers, was included in the MOE's list of nationally planned textbooks for vocational education in the 13th Five-Year Plan. Since it was first published in 2020, more than 230,000 copies have been sold. Huawei is also working with the Pilot Software Engineering Schools Association to jointly develop a series of software engineering textbooks, which are expected to be published by the end of 2023. In addition, Huawei has published five Huawei ICT Academy textbooks in English in the Open Access (OA) model.

4. Developing a course-competition-innovation integrated talent training model through innovation camps

Huawei has organized a range of innovation training camps through talent centers at its ICT academies. So far, we have worked with more than 80 top universities around the world. Our training model is a joint effort between industry and academia. It integrates courses, competitions, and innovation practices, and provides training on both theoretical knowledge and practical skills. This will help colleges and universities train more students by improving their technical competencies, practical skills, and innovation capabilities.

In Singapore, Huawei launched the first AIoT innovation training camp outside China, where students learned about AI and IoT and put that knowledge to the test, designing Smart Glasses for patients with Alzheimer's. This project won the Grand Prize in the Innovation Track at the 5th Huawei ICT Competition Global Final.

We are also launching regional university alliance innovation training camps in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the Yangtze River Delta region, Central China, and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. These camps aim to benefit more students from different backgrounds and nurture talent.

5. Launching a "1 + X" vocational certification to cultivate application-oriented ICT talent

For application-oriented universities and vocational colleges, Huawei focuses more on developing students' innovation and application capabilities. Huawei is cooperating with educational authorities in reforming the teaching system. Huawei participated in the pilot of "1 + X" certificates for vocational education in China. Four certificates, including network system construction and O&M and the development of intelligent computing platforms, were included in the pilot program. By the end of June 2023, more than 700 universities had incorporated Huawei's "1 + X" certificate courses as part of their teaching systems, and more than 31,000 students had earned "1 + X" certificates.

Approach 3: Upskilling talent to boost the digital-intelligent transformation of enterprises

Huawei uses a variety of methods to improve ICT literacy and practical skills and forge sustainable competitiveness.

1. Running training sessions that give teachers theoretical knowledge and practical skills

Teachers are key to educational reform. Huawei continues to invest in training teachers, optimizing training content, and improving the format of training sessions in partnership with universities and colleges to cultivate teachers with both theoretical knowledge and practical skills. The trained teachers can run courses about Huawei's latest technologies, and foster ICT talent with the skills that the industry currently needs.

Over the past two years, Huawei has focused on the Huawei ICT Academy University Tour – School Seeds Program to prepare next-generation application-oriented and innovative ICT talent for careers in the industry. In 2022, 34 teacher training sessions were delivered, and 1,553 teachers from 508 universities were trained.

2. National ICT talent cultivation programs that foster young talent

Huawei is cultivating young talent around the world through its national ICT talent development programs. In Egypt, Huawei and the Egyptian government jointly initiated ICT Talent Pool (ITB) to provide ICT training for young Egyptian students and help realize Egypt Vision 2030. By the end of July 2023, 82 Huawei ICT academies had been established in Egypt, 1,000 ICT academy teachers had been trained, and nearly 10,000 students had earned Huawei certifications. In Indonesia, Huawei worked with the local government to launch the Digital Talent Scholarship (DTS) program to improve the quality of ICT talent. In Nigeria, Huawei and the federal government have jointly launched the Digital Enablement for 1,000 Nigerians initiative. By the end of 2022, Huawei had delivered 16 training sessions in Nigeria and trained more than 930 people. In Tunisia, Huawei established 62 ICT academies, and nearly 2,000 students were trained in 2022 alone. Huawei was awarded the Republic of Tunisia's Prime Minister Medal for its contributions to the country's talent development and ICT industry.

3. Talent cultivation services to help industries go digital and intelligent

To help enterprises nurture talent, Huawei has launched digital learning platforms that provide both online and offline courses to create a one-stop experience for learning, testing, practicing, and certification. Enterprises can use these platforms to cultivate diversified ICT talent. In the financial industry, Huawei has assisted CITIC Bank's credit card center in training key employees. In the transportation and manufacturing industries, Huawei has established strong partnerships with customers such as Wuhan Metro and FAW-Volkswagen to promote ICT literacy amongst industry professionals and improve intelligent management capabilities.

Approach 4: Communicating the value of talent

Maintaining an atmosphere conducive to talent development is essential. By publishing talent white papers and holding activities like the Huawei ICT Competition, HCIE Nights, and Talent Ecosystem Summits, Huawei communicates the value of talent and fosters an encouraging atmosphere for talent development.

1. Publishing talent ecosystem white papers to establish and grow local talent ecosystems

To help countries formulate talent development policies, enterprises assess talent needs, and individuals identify focus areas for learning, Huawei has published talent white papers in many countries to offer insights into ICT trends and talent requirements, talent development paths, and successful talent development practices. In 2022, Huawei and EY released the China ICT Talent Ecosystem White Paper, which explores ways to accelerate ICT talent development and improve the utilization of ICT skills. We have also released talent white papers in Europe, parts of Africa, and the Middle East to foster local talent ecosystems.

2. Holding the annual Huawei ICT Competition

Huawei has held the annual Huawei ICT Competition since 2015 to improve college students' ICT knowledge and hands-on skills, and develop their innovation and creative capabilities using new technologies and platforms. The competition has grown each year, both in size and influence, and is included in China's National Ranking List of College Student Competitions. The influence of the competition outside China has also grown, and it recently attracted attention from senior government officials including the President of Pakistan and the Vice President of Uganda. The 7th Huawei ICT Competition, which concluded in Shenzhen in May this year, attracted more than 120,000 college students from over 2,000 colleges and universities across 74 countries and regions. The competition not only helps to promote learning, education and development through competition, but offers students the opportunity to add to their CVs and find better jobs after graduation.

3. Organizing Huawei ICT alliance job fairs to coordinate ICT talent supply and demand

Through its ICT talent alliance job fairs, Huawei matches students with enterprise employers. Through the Baige Program in China, Huawei improves trainees' abilities to adapt to job requirements and refers them to Huawei's ecosystem partners, thereby streamlining the talent supply chain.

Huawei is committed to building a robust ICT talent ecosystem, improving the ICT skills of society as a whole, and promoting sustainable social and economic development. Let's work together to create a vibrant and inclusive intelligent world, unleash the full potential of digital and intelligence, and allow more people worldwide to benefit from digital technologies and the digital economy.