The University of Nairobi ICT department in collaboration with the Advancement Office and Huawei offered the  Huawei Certified Network Associate (HCNA) certification training to 25 UoN students and staff from 5^th – 30^th November 2018. This is just the beginning of a series of training that will seek to validate the skills and knowledge networking professionals require for basic maintenance and configuration of small to medium-sized networks.

The training covered Ethernet technologies such as Link Aggregations, VLAN, RSTP and STP and their implementation on Huawei switches, TCP/IP technologies, and basic IP network connectivity. With the HCNA certification, trainees are expected to demonstrate, design and implement a basic understanding of small and medium-sized networks and this includes general network technologies.

Engineers who have HCNA certification are expected to develop simple networks then integrate storage, security, cloud, voice and wireless technologies into these networks so that they can support a wide range of applications.

Huawei launched the HCNA Training and Certification based on its many years of experience in developing great insight into ICT industry developments and ICT talents. The University of Nairobi is proud to partner with Huawei in building the ICT Skills of staff and students and looks forward to a fruitful collaboration with Huawei.

Huawei also sponsored the “Huawei ICT Competition Southern Africa 2018-2019” on November 21 in which UoN students participated. The second runners up, Wanjohi Gachoki came from UoN outdoing over 4,000 participants from over 40 Universities in Kenya. The competition focused on computer telecommunications and networking and was tailored to create a platform for ICT students to grasp practical and technical skills and learn on top range ICT career certifications globally for them to align their careers and tap into opportunities in leading ICT companies.

During the Huawei ICT competition awards ceremony held on November 26, 2018, UoN was awarded the ‘Best ICT Academy in the Huawei ICT Competition’ award and George Ndegwa from the UoN ICT Department won the ‘Best Lecturer in the Huawei ICT Competition’ award.