Staff Reporter
WINDHOEK – Huawei Namibia yesterday rewarded the five top performing information technology students at the Namibia University of Science and Technology (Nust). The five students, Thomas Shigwedha, Carlos Sibalatani, Hainana Oletu, Jackson Vatileni and Pelema Abraham each received a 4G router and a custom diary from Huawei.
As a global Chinese IT giant, Huawei has been steadily increasing its presence in Africa and Namibia is no exception. Huawei in Namibia has grown from contributing N$6.4 million in taxes in Namibia in 2008, to a whopping N$54 million in taxes paid to the state last year.
“Huawei believes, that with the coming of the fourth industrial revolution, the access to the Internet is fundamental to achieving this vision for the future, where everything will be connected. With our prize-giving donation, in recognition to these deserving hard working students, we believe that our small contribution as a start, will improve the quality of their further research in education in many ways,” said Elton Katangolo, Huawei Namibia’s Senior Manager for Enterprise Business Relations and Public Utility Sector.
Katangolo added that the fourth industrial revolution will further open doorways to a wealth of information, knowledge and educational resources, increasing opportunities for learning in and beyond the classroom.
“We know that as partners in education with the tertiary institutions, our tertiary institutions like Nust use online materials to prepare lessons, and students use it to extend their range of learning possibilities through enabling application tools that students access, and these internet devices are part of this eco-system of Nust eLearning tools,” Katangolo added. He continued that Huawei fully supports Nust’s Interactive teaching methods, because it enables lecturers to give more attention to individual students’ needs and support shared learning.
Said Katongolo: “Soon, Namibia, through its telecommunications operators and internet service providers, be it MTC, MTN Namibia, Telecom Namibia, Paratus Telecom or any other Namibian registered ISP, will unlock the lack of access to internet, and Huawei will be part of that enabling environment”.