Huawei inspires young Dominicans to grow in the world of ICT
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The company firmly believes in the importance of science and innovation and contributes to developing digital talent in the country, as shown by its continued investment in resources, knowledge, technology and human capital.
Santo Domingo. Huawei, the leading information and communications technology company, arrived in the Dominican Republic in 2009, committed to advancing the country’s connectivity and digitalisation. This is reflected in its various social responsibility initiatives, such as the Wi-Fi Campus donation to the city of San Cristóbal and the collaboration of its ICT Academy with several educational institutions in the country.
It has also contributed to the digital transformation of government institutions and nonprofit organisations through donations of smart screens. In addition, it runs educational programmes focused on young people, such as the ICT Competition, a global competition that aims to assess the skills, knowledge and quality of the ICT industry’s future talent.
With its flagship programme, Seeds for the Future, it seeks to close the digital divide, promote equal access to connectivity across the region and train future professionals, as well as reduce the gender gap.
“As a company, we give young people who want to innovate and develop technology solutions to the problems around them the tools to do so. We believe in them, which is why we carry out these training initiatives that allow them to look beyond the present,” said Carolina Herrera, Public Relations Manager at Huawei Central America and the Caribbean.
One of the young Dominicans who has benefited from these projects is Katherine Rodríguez, an Industrial and Systems Engineering student who took part in the ninth edition of Seeds for the Future and describes her experience as transformative, feeling welcomed and inspired from the very first moment.
“What I liked most about representing my country is that we were one of the groups with the highest participation of women, 5 women and 5 men. I thank Huawei for its awareness of including more women in the technology sector; it’s an admirable initiative that is helping to close the gender gap in this field,” said Rodríguez.
Seeds for the Future embraces diversity of nationalities and inclusion as its core values, and has committed to a participation rate of at least one third for women students in the initiative.
The 20-year-old said she learned about the programme through an email sent by the Dominican Republic’s Government Office of Information and Communications Technologies (OGTIC), as she was in that organisation’s database after taking part in a competition it held.
Katherine concluded that, thanks to Huawei, she feels better prepared, as she now has the technical tools and interpersonal skills to continue with projects that have a positive impact on society, as she has done with TEA, an educational video game for autistic children, and KOSTAS, the project she developed during Seeds for the Future, which seeks to use technology to prevent sargassum.
Carolina Herrera of Huawei closed by inviting young Dominicans to keep growing in ICT and to take part in the programmes the company offers, so they can experiment with new emerging technologies and contribute their knowledge to their country’s development.