The Huawei "Seeds for the future" program for young talents was held in Rome this year. The four best students from Serbia, from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering in Belgrade and the Faculty of Technical Sciences  Cacak, won third place at the prestigious "Seeds for the Future" competition in Rome. It is the program for young talents of the company Huawei, which brought together 145 best students from 23 European countries, together with 10 students from Tsinghua University in China. The five-day interactive education in Rome was also the first live gathering of young talents, after several years of organizing the program online.

 

 

The students were welcomed by the Senior Vice President of Huawei Europe, Radoslaw Kedzia. "Nurturing ICT talents is especially important at the time when we are navigating the complex path of the digital age. Europe is at the forefront of technological progress and it is imperative that we invest in the education and development of our young professionals. By nurturing their skills and providing them with the right tools and opportunities, we ensure that Europe remains a leader in the global digital landscape," Kedzia pointed out. Launched in 2008, Huawei's "Seeds for the Future" young talent program for information technology students has so far gathered more than 15,000 students from around the world. As a part of the program, students had the opportunity to stay in Shenzhen and get to know the technologies developed and applied by the world's leading IT company. Digital skills and digital literacy are key to the development of the digital economy, and a strong talent base has proven to be a key driver of digital transformation and economic growth. The main goal of the program is to enable students to gain practical first-hand experience in one of the world's largest technology companies and to impart knowledge of the digital skills they need to remain competitive in the labor market and support the development of the economy and society as a whole.

 

At this year's "Seeds for the Future" program, students had the opportunity to participate in interactive workshops and panel discussions, improve their digital skills. Young talents could also learn more about innovation, digitization, sustainability and entrepreneurship. The event also presented the joint achievements of talented future ICT experts and leaders, who previously attended training programs organized in their countries.

 

Nataša Ilić and Aleksa Marković, graduate students in the Information Technology study program at the Faculty of Technical Sciences in Čačak, say that they had the honor of participating in this prestigious European competition and perfecting their digital skills.

"We also had the opportunity to hear valuable advice from industry experts and representatives of the academic community. During the five-day education, we were introduced to advanced technologies such as 5G and artificial intelligence, gaining a certain level of new knowledge about ICT and also gaining valuable insight into the operations of one of the world's leading technology companies", Nataša Ilić points out.

 

 

"The program was organized through a five-day interaction plan. The first day was scheduled for a conference about the business itself, led by a team of IT experts, how to start it, what you should pay attention to when starting your own business, and finally what they used and applied when establishing their own business. After that, there was a presentation of students from 23 countries. When the planned activities were completed, a Global Village was organized where each country presented itself and some authenticity related to it. The next day, emphasis was on detecting a global problem for which we would later look for potential solutions. On the same day, lectures were held on AI, (why it is good to use, what are the advantages and disadvantages) as well as on 5G technologies. The following day, we started looking for potential solutions for the detected problem, by sorting them into good and bad ones. From the fourth day, we focused much more on solving the specific problem and preparing the presentation that we needed to present in front of the mentors, receiving feedback from them, in order to improve the complete work for the competition that followed. On the last day, the competition was organized by dividing the teams into five groups, where each group had its own judge. After presenting in front of the judges, they chose two teams from each group, which would go on to the final competition. At the end, all ten selected teams were presented in front of the entire jury and other participants. Each team had four minutes to present the problem and the solution, describe why their solution was better than the other ones, as well as to create a small business model according to which the project would be developed, with the financial resources needed for the actual implementation of the idea. After the presentations, each of us had the opportunity to vote for the team whose solution we liked the most. Then we had free time to visit the sights of Rome. In the evening, a gala dinner was organized where the winners were announced. Together with the students from Slovenia, we worked on the development of the idea for floods protection, which brought us placement in the first round of the best ten teams, and then third place", Nataša and Aleksa describe their impressions in detail.

 

 

"Seeds for the Future" is one of Huawei's most important social responsibility programs aimed at nurturing local ICT talents and young leaders, and promoting the development of digital communities. As a part of the "Seeds Alumni" program, Huawei gathers all new and former participants of the program around the world. Thus, the company continues to work with all current and former students to promote digital transformation and organize various activities to build relationship among alumni and enhance their impact around the world.

 

 

 

"The program is a significant experience that, in addition to acquiring skills and new knowledge, brings with it new acquaintances, contacts and friendships. We had the opportunity to learn something more about other countries, their cultures, customs, share and exchange business experiences and thus upgrade ourselves. We also want to thank the company Huawei, which gave us the opportunity to participate and acquire certain knowledge in the field of information technology, as well as our Faculty of Technical Sciences, which has been following the latest trends for years and enables us to keep up with the contemporary time", our students emphasize.

 

The Faculty of Technical Sciences Cacak congratulates Nataša Ilić and Aleksa Marković on their success. Their experience will be an exceptional motivation for younger students to follow the path of leadership and success.