Huawei invites Australian ICT undergraduates to China

John Lord AM, Chairman Huawei Australia and Professor David Lloyd, Chairman ATN.

Tech students at Australian universities will be able to travel to China under a partnership announced between Huawei and the Australian Technology Network of Universities (ATN).

Under the three-year partnership, undergraduate students attending ATN universites can apply to participate in the Chinese mobile device and networking company’s international program, “Seeds for the Future”.

The ATN and Huawei plan to pick 10 students each year from the network, which includes Curtin University, the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), the Queensland University of Technology (QUT), the University of South Australia (USA) and the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT). Each university will have two spots in the program.

Australian students in the program will join a global network of undergraduates and visit Huawei’s headquarters in SHenzhen and R&D centres and learn about Chinese culture. The program will be fully funded and administered by Huawei in collaboration with the ATN.

The program is usually held for two weeks in July, a Huawei spokesman said.

The Seeds for the Future program has been running since 2008. To date, more than 2000 students worldwide have participated.

“The ATN is proud of its strong ties to industry and through this program our students will get multinational industry experience within the ICT sector, while learning how to be effective in a multicultural business environment,” said ATN chairman David Lloyd.

Huawei Australia chairman John Lord said the program “helps develop talent in Australia, promotes a greater understanding of the ICT sector and encourages participation in the international ICT community.”

It’s not the first time Huawei has welcomed Australian students to its China headquarters. In 2013, Huawei sent 11 Australian ICT undergraduate students to China for a three-week education program.

To enter the Huawei program, students must submit an essay explaining their interest in modern China and what they hope to get out of their participation in the program.

Adam Bender covers telco and enterprise tech issues for Computerworld and is the author of dystopian sci-fi novels We, The Watched and Divided We Fall. Follow him on Twitter: @WatchAdam

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