HUAWEI’S Women in Tech digital skills training programme, a three-day course showcasing the value of Cloud for SMMEs, has spiked an interest in participants in adopting Cloud technology.
The annual programme aims to help women advance their skills and use new technologies to grow, improve and digitise their businesses, thereby positioning them well in the digital economy.
This year, the highly sought after programme offers free online training in Cloud Computing, Digital Marketing and Leadership Development.
According to an initial survey amongst the women delegates of their knowledge of the uses and application of cloud computing, on a scale of 1 to 4, there was a resounding 0 or 1 response.
But by the end of the third session, the score rose to 3s and 4s. There were commitments by many to join further Huawei training and accreditation opportunities.
Vanashree Govender, Huawei’s Media Relations and Communications Manager, “After the success of last year’s inaugural women in tech training we were excited for this year’s edition, receiving a fantastic response. Whilst Huawei brings expertise and infrastructure to the digitisation of businesses, South Africa faces is a skills deficit, women in particular are most affected and this training is aimed at bridging that digital gender divide, and we hope it will give them an edge in the digital economy.”
“After the success of last year’s inaugural women in tech training, we were excited for this year’s edition, receiving a fantastic response,” said Vanashree Govender, Huawei’s Media Relations and Communications Manager.
She added: “Whilst Huawei brings expertise and infrastructure to the digitisation of businesses, South Africa faces is a skills deficit, women in particular are most affected and this training is aimed at bridging that digital gender divide, and we hope it will give them an edge in the digital economy.”
Delegates were drawn from across several business sectors, proof that there is an appetite amongst female entrepreneurs for knowledge of how to grow their small enterprises into larger, thriving businesses.
“Using the illustration of the total cost of ownership of an on-premises data centre, I was able to show the value of Huawei’s cloud hosting packages for these businesses and for their clients,” said Sandi Sobahle, Huawei Cloud, Senior Manager Business Development, who presented on Day One.
He unpacked what, why and how cloud computing could be relevant to different business models.
Siphiwe Matore, Huawei Cloud, Senior Manager Solutions Architect, presented on the scalability of cloud computing with the emphasis on Huawei’s ‘pay as you go’ model.
“Growing businesses require growing technology, and that is what this course was designed to illustrate. It demonstrated that a small business could entrust the migration, upgrade and maintenance of its data delivery, storage and retrieval to a cloud provider, leaving them to focus on their core expertise,” said Siphiwe Matore, Huawei Cloud, Senior Manager Solutions Architect.
Matore presented on the scalability of cloud computing with the emphasis on Huawei’s ‘pay as you go’ model.
Matshidiso Jabane, Huawei Cloud, Partner Development Manager gave the delegates more information about the company’s technical and commercial support, their training and certification programmes and the Huawei R100 million Cloud Spark acceleration programme for tech start-ups and SMMEs.
This is set to provide support to more than 1000 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) over the next three years.
“The cloud is already part of our everyday lives, even if people don’t realise it. These three days of training de mystified cloud computing and gave women the confidence to confront and embrace the future and incorporate cloud computing into their respective businesses,” said Jabane.
Added Govender: “By the end of the final session, the women were networking, exchanging ideas and email addresses, and so we hope that in addition to a greater awareness of the meaning and value of cloud computing, many new relationships and business connections will be made through this training.”
“What stood out for me is that there’s investment in both security as well as infrastructure that provides assurance to ourselves and clients,” said Kgomotso Motshidi of black female owned consulting company The Zora Group.
“We fully envisage providing managed services as well as digital migration for our clients,” she added.
Mala Makan-Giasi, Airtime Account Manager commented: “This has been most insightful. I work in a full-on cloud environment at Telkom, so now at last I have a frame of reference to talk from.
“I plan to be more involved with cloud solutions and ideas for my customers, for their efficiency, ease of business and security.”
Huawei’s Women in Tech training continues with sessions on digital marketing and leadership development, but getting down to the basics of cloud computing and how to leverage tomorrow today provided some 100 women with food for thought and a reason to keep moving their businesses forward.