March 24, 2022 at 9:30 a.m. – Khon Kaen University by the College of Computing held an MOU signing ceremony between Khon Kaen University and Huawei Technology Thailand Co. Ltd. Assoc. Prof. Charnchai Panthongviriyakul, M.D., President of Khon Kaen University signed on the part of Khon Kaen University, and Mr. Kevin Cheng, President of the Huawei Technology Enterprise (Thailand) signed for the company. Signing as witnesses were: Assoc. Prof. Sirapat Chiawchanwatana, Ph.D., Acting Dean of the College of Computing, Khon Kaen University and Khun Worawit Jampasri, Senior Vice President for educational and medical industries of the Huawei Technology Enterprise (Thailand). The ceremony took place at Sarasin Room, Sirikunakorn Building, Khon Kaen University.
Assoc. Prof. Sirapat Chiawchanwatana, Ph.D. explained, “The MOU between Huawei Technology Thailand Co. Ltd. and Khon Kaen University occurs from the needs of the College of Computing of Khon Kaen University to transform the instruction, using a new paradigm that will educate the graduates with knowledge and competency according to the requirements of work places in the business and industrial sector, especially the digital industry in Thailand. The Government has initiated a project to prepare new generation of graduates to respond to the requirements. The University itself has a developmental direction and strategies to transform all aspects. One of the major strategies is Education Transformation, in which the teaching and learning will be transformed from the teaching to learning paradigm, with the life-long learning approach where professional skills and important skills for the future are taught, including up-skill, re-skill, and new-skill for all age groups. The College of Computing has participated in the Huawei ICT Academy project with Huawei. At the beginning, the College sent instructors to train and take the tests for Huawei HCIA certificates in many programs such as Datacom, Routing & Switching, Wireless LAN, Security, and Cloud Service. In addition, the students of the College have attended a program called, the Seeds for the Future, which was a project that developed students to become new-generation graduates who will propose their ideas through the use of computing technology to solve different social problems. The program led to a world-level competition, Tech4Good. In 2021, a student from the College of Computing, who joined with students in other universities won the first prize at the Gold Award level. The cooperation in student and staff development, technology transfer, and other coming activities in the future has led to the signing of MOU that will last 3 years as of the date it was signed.”
Assoc. Prof. Charnchai Panthongviriyakul, M.D., President of Khon Kaen University said, “One vision of Khon Kaen University is to become a “world class research and development university” that produces quality manpower for the country. The cooperation with Huawei Technology Thailand Co. Ltd. is for providing lifelong learning programs that emphasize professional skills and important future skills through the methods of Upskill, Reskill or New-skill to people of all age groups. The digital or computing skill will be emphasized, for it is the today Global Mega Trend that will principally drive forward the national developmental agendum. Khon Kaen University is aware and realizes the technological trend that can be related to Cybersecurity, AI, Internet technology, Cloud Computing, Blockchain, Defi, NFT, or Metaverse. Additionally, there is the integration of Computing Science for construction of intelligence with other sciences such as medicine, agriculture, architecture, social, arts, etc. including the newly professional skills in the future.”
Assoc. Prof. Charnchai Panthongviriyakul continued, “From a period of collaboration with Huawei Technology Thailand Co. Ltd., concrete outcomes have been achieved in many aspects: 1) in transferring Huawei technology, 2) in the training the trainer programs with our lecturers being trained and taking the Huawei HCIA tests for certificates, 3) in developing and preparing students to be the “Seeds for the Future” who can answer the problems of the future world, and other activities that benefit Khon Kaen University people as well as the socio-economic situation of the new-era Isan. Huawei technology has been evidently expanded in terms of the values, which bring benefits to the society as a whole. With these reasons, the MOU between the company and Khon Kaen University is signed today and will last 3 years from today.”
Assoc. Prof. Charnchai Panthongviriyakul added, “The collaboration project between Huawei Technology Thailand Co. Ltd. and Khon Kaen University will be in the form of training. Huawei has also given important equipment to Khon Kaen University to assist in training. The training programs will be run together. The students and personnel after training will take the test for certification that will enable them to apply for a job more successfully. The training programs are reliable in terms of the quality and competency of trainees who will be potential to work for different organizations. It is a good chance that we are able to collaborate with Huawei and we hope that there will be more joint projects to come in the future.”
Mr. Kevin Cheng, President of the Huawei Technology Enterprise (Thailand) said, “I’m pleased to sign this MOU officially with Khon Kaen University. Thanks to Khon Kaen University for this activity. As a representative from Huawei, I’m excited with the chance and hope that we will grow together. This MOU demonstrates clearly the vision of Khon Kaen University to transform itself for the new digital era by placing technology as the core for development of instructional methods and life-long learning. With our many years of experiences in ICT industry, we will support in foundation technology and development of the competency of capable students.”
“Huawei has intensively worked with educational industry, universities and institutes in order to build an ecology of strong personnel. We have developed and certified newly capable people and built relation with them, showing their values and competency. The target is to develop the new digital skills for the society in order to manage the challenges from the supply and demand in the future. These operations Huawei have performed are aimed towards the success of ICT industry and the adding of values in a wide circle. Huawei ICT Academy is a collaborative project between schools and successful world organizations. Until today, Huawei has collaborated with over 1,600 colleges and universities to establish Huawei ICT institute that broadly disseminates advanced ICT knowledge. By broadly operations, we mean the missions of Huawei have grown for a long time in adding values to all lives via communication and by bringing digital to everyone, every home, and every organization so that the world of intelligence will be completely linked. Huawei, under this collaboration, will support Khon Kaen University in the newest ICT innovations to promote certification for lecturers and students. I believe that this will widely benefit the community. The people will have higher capacity and can use this to manage the challenges of new ICT. The MOU today will add to the values of the ecology system of capable people and the ICT industry that is growing in Thailand.”
News / Photos: Watchara Noichompoo
