Bangladesh ICT competition, powered by Huawei and the Bangladesh Computer Council, will move to the second round this week.

The top 127 students from the country will take part in this round for the next 15 days.

Around 1,000 4th year students from around 30 universities of Bangladesh took part in the competition's first round, which started in January this year.

After that, the participants went through training on a designated web portal of Chinese telecom giant Huawei and sat for a test to qualify for the second round.

Also read: 500-plus students compete in Bangladesh ICT Skills Competition

Now, 127 students, selected based on their consistency during training and exam results of the first round, will join the second round.

In this round, students will enrol in online courses from HCIA (Huawei Certified ICT Associate), and later, they will have to take part in an exam to qualify for the third round.

The third and final round of the competition will be the national final. Selected participants from the second round will form teams of three students and one faculty from every participating university.

Instructors from Huawei headquarters will train the contestants, who will have to pass a simulation test. The top three teams will be announced as winners.

In addition to the laptops or Huawei mobiles, Huawei smartwatches, or smart bands as prizes, the champion team will take part in the Huawei ICT Competition regional final and global final competition.

If the Covid-19 situation improves, they will also visit Huawei headquarters in Shenzhen. They can also get a chance to work with Huawei Technologies Bangladesh in the future.

The competition is considered in two parts – "Practical Competition" and "Theory Competition."

This year's contest will cover network switching, routing technical areas; new technology such as big data, AI, and cloud (artificial intelligence) will be introduced.

Also read: Huawei's largest cybersecurity, privacy protection transparency centre launched

ICT state minister Zunaid Ahmed Palak said, “Bangladesh ICT Skills Competition is specially designed for 4th-year students who are studying engineering, and it is good to see a big bunch of those optimum students going through this program, arranged by Huawei and BCC. I believe, at the end of the competition, the students will gain a comprehensive understanding of the ICT field and acquire more practical and advanced knowledge about global ICT.” 

He also appreciated Huawei Bangladesh, BCC & involved universities to make this competition meaningful and open up the ICT knowledge door for students.

Zhang Zhengjun, CEO of Huawei Technologies Bangladesh said, "The sole focus of the Bangladesh ICT Competition is to fortify the digital backbone of Bangladesh by helping cultivate the local ICT talents."