Huawei has announced a plan to develop the ICT skills of 100,000 people in Sub-Saharan Africa. During the company’s recent ICT Competition Awards Ceremony, Huawei announced a new digital skills program named LEAP. LEAP is an acronym for; Leadership, Employability, Advancement, and Possibilities.

The LEAP program aims to help 100,000 people further develop their skills in ICT over the next three years. It may be somewhat related to the company’s recent deal with SA’s department of labour. Even so, LEAP intends to upskill Africans in various ICT-related fields.

Huawei LEAPs ahead

According to a World Bank report from 2019, over 230 million jobs in Africa will require some sort of digital skillset by 2030. Huawei‘s LEAP program, coming when it does, could be just what the Department of Labour ordered.

LEAP will be rolled out according to the company’s investment plans — so on Huawei’s terms, basically. Huawei intends to create some 3,000 ICT courses across sub-Saharan Africa. Over 1,200 instructors will be hired specifically to run these programs. The idea is to build training centres, innovation hubs, mirror labs, hardware installation bases, and most importantly, ICT academies. These will join the already large number of ICT academies (300) that Huawei currently operates in Africa.

Huawei SA CEO Leo Chen said, “Digitisation is deeply rooted in people. Because we digitise for people and by people. When roots are deep, there is no need to fear the wind.”

“Through the programme, we strive to cultivate more youth leaders in ICT, who can explore more possibilities for themselves, their families, community, and ultimately their nations.”

At the moment there is no official detail from Huawei on when, or how exactly, its LEAP initiative will be implemented. Given the three-year time span, it’s reasonable to assume we’ll start seeing proper movement by the end of 2022.