Huawei has reiterated its commitment to developing talent within the Kingdom's Information and communications technology sector in line with the goals of Vision 2030. Having recently celebrated the first anniversary of launching its Saudi Talent Enabling Program (STEP), Huawei has reconfirmed the program's aim to benefit 10,000 local talents by 2023. The STEP program focuses on training, enabling, and promoting ICT talent within the Kingdom through three pillars: building a talent alliance, setting talent standards, and communicating talent value. There are a further nine initiatives within the STEP program pillars, several of which Huawei has already unveiled during recent years. These include Huawei's long-running Seeds for the Future initiative which has hosted more than 81 local students, and the Huawei ICT Skills Competition which has captured the interest of over 7,000 participants in Saudi Arabia. Huawei's Future Leaders Initiative has also upskilled over 250 local engineers, while the company's Huawei ICT Academy has established alliances with more than 10 institutions in the Kingdom. Moving forward, the company has also committed to promoting ICT talent insight, an emerging tech on-board training, a Huawei Partners and Customers Training Program, a HCIE Certification Salon, and continuing its Huawei ICT Job Fair — the second edition of which will be held shortly in Riyadh. Speaking on Huawei's commitment, Dennis Zhang, CEO of Huawei KSA, said: "There is a global shortage of ICT talent. Huawei is committed to addressing this around the world, and in Saudi Arabia in particular. Developing and empowering ICT talent will contribute significantly towards the realization of Vision 2030 which places a strong emphasis on the economic potential of the ICT sector. New talent is required to drive digital transformation on a national and industry-wide scale, which will contribute towards stable, continuous development for the Kingdom." Faisal Al Otaibi, HR Director at Huawei KSA, added: "Advanced technologies are already playing an instrumental role in moving the Kingdom towards its ambitious goals of increased global competitiveness and sustainability. The people of Saudi Arabia want to be equipped with the knowledge and skills to not only navigate the future digital economy, but to become its pioneers and leaders." Based on its comprehensive talent development strategy, Huawei hopes to continue working with entities from the public and private sectors to build a positive, open, and cooperative ICT talent ecosystem. The ICT sector is part of the foundation of national digital transformation under Vision 2030, making it more important than ever for concerted efforts towards developing talent that will power the industry.
