Upgrading the future

José Miguel Duarte Domingues won a place on Huawei’s flagship ICT student programme, Seeds for the Future, as part of which he visited Huawei headquarters in Shenzhen, China, with other students in July.

The future is always coming. From time to time there are inventions that alter the status quo. From cell phone technology to the Internet, there have been a number of inventions that have changed our daily routines. When interviewing Altice staff with fellow students about how artificial intelligence is changing the company culture, one interviewee told us: “Change is always coming, it is only a matter of choice, if we want to adapt and evolve or stay behind.”
This reminded me of our visit to the Huawei headquarters in Shenzhen in July, where we were told about the history and philosophy of the company Huawei is in the vanguard because, as a spokesperson explained to us, in order to get to the top, a company has to follow the top leader. Staying on top is more difficult, however, since when you get there, there is nobody to follow. This is why Huawei continuously strives to upgrade the future, whether this be in R&D or in education.
Education is the passport for the future. Every year, the best students in the ICT area from numerous countries are chosen by Huawei to experience a once-in-a-lifetime journey to Huawei headquarters in China through its Seeds for the Future programme. It provides immense value, not only of an informative nature, but also in terms of culture.
So unique and diverse were our experiences, it will be difficult to find another adventure like this one. The first week was dedicated to learning more about Chinese culture, starting with a tour of the Forbidden City, a place with so much history and beauty, and a visit to the Great Wall of China, one of the most impressive and oldest architectural feats in human history. We also received an intensive Mandarin course, taking our first steps into this rich and complex language.
Huawei believes that character is forged not only through studying, but also through culture, and they enriched us immensely through these experiences and many more.
The second week, we got a taste of Huawei’s telecommunications expertise and were shown the state-of-the-art in all its major lines of work in this new era that is 5G New Radio (NR). We also carried out some hands-on work ourselves. A visit to one of their laboratories was priceless.
As a budding electronics and telecommunications engineer myself, doing my thesis on 5G NR, it served as a major motivation to move towards the telecoms area.
I just want to thank Huawei again for the opportunity to learn and for their confidence in us, the students. This experience didn’t stop with our journey to China. It contributed to bringing us where we are today.