Co-written by
Nur Fathenah Haziqah Binti Haji Abdullah
Lim Huey Theeng
Farah Nadhirah binti Rusli
Muhammad Asyraf Sufi bin Dahlan
Siti Nursalwani binti Hj Osman
Seeds for the Future 2021 virtual opening ceremony was held on 4 December 2021 and was officiated by Yang Berhormat Dato Seri Setia Awang Haji Hamzah bin Haji Sulaiman, Minister of Education as the Guest of Honour. The ceremony was hosted by Huawei Technologies (B) Sdn Bhd and co-hosted by Universiti Teknologi Brunei (UTB).
As Huawei's flagship global corporate social responsibility program, Seeds for the Future has been held consecutively for 12 years since its first launch in 2008 in Thailand, and nearly 9000 students from over 500 universities in 130 countries and regions around the globe has participated in the program.
Before 2019, Seeds for the Future was an onsite program, inviting students to China to get to know the Chinese cultural and technology scenes. In 2020, the first online version was launched and open to all academic background students.
This year, 7 undergraduate students from School of Digital Science are selected to participate in the program. A total of 42 students are welcomed from different majors and institutions including UBD, UTB, Politeknik Brunei, Institute of Brunei Technical Education (IBTE) and Micronet International College.
Seeds for the Future program provide an 8-day online program that contains livestream and pre-recorded courses as well as a group project titled “Tech4Good”. During the program, students are able to interact with Huawei HQ team as well as other participants from Brunei, Singapore and Sri Lanka.
Participants are able to learn about Huawei, understand the latest technology trends such as 5G, Cloud Computing and Artificial Intelligence, discover the technology ecosystem in China, learn from experts and get a glimpse of the Chinese culture.
Prior to the start of the program, the students were selected to be in different groups, so that they can work together with other students from various higher institutions in Brunei on the “Tech4Good” group project. This project was focused on solving an issue in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). The “Tech4Good” group project allows participants to build a concept on how to influence technology to address social and/or environmental issues. Students are divided into groups to study, discuss during the program, and produce a 4 minute-presentation on Day 8. The teams with the best solutions were then decided and announced by the judges on the last day of the program. Working on the project exposed the students to many different perspectives, as the groups contained people with varying backgrounds. Due to that, communication and teamwork were required to ensure that the group was united to solve any problems or challenges that the group was facing at that time.
In addition to that, there were live-stream courses to develop the students’ leadership skills, expand their knowledge on innovative technology, receive feedback on the “Tech4Good” project, and discover more about Huawei (see Figure 3), as well as different cultures (e.g. China and Sri Lanka). Nonetheless, there were pre-recorded courses, which provided an in- depth insight of the latest technology such as 5G, AI and Cloud Computing.
Upon completing the program, participants are awarded with electronic certificate and free access to various courses in Huawei’s learning platform, they are also invited to join the global Alumni community for long-term idea-sharing and interaction.
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