Huawei APAC Digital Innovation Congress, jointly arranged by Huawei and the ASEAN Foundation, has been organized recently in Singapore and held from May 19-20, 2022. Over 1,500 government officials, experts, researchers, partners, and analysts from more than 10 countries in the Asia-Pacific region have gathered there at the congress to explore the future of digital innovation and the digital economy.
The experts and thought leaders have shed light on different pertinent issues including ongoing advancements in ICT, speeding up digital transformation across industries, expansion of the digital economy as well as green and low-carbon development.
Mustafa Jabbar, Minister of Posts and Telecommunications Division, Bangladesh and ICT State Minister of Bangladesh Zunaid Ahmed Palak delivered speeches at the congress. Besides them, Ken Hu, Rotating Chairman, Huawei; Dr. Yang, Mee Eng, Executive Director, ASEAN Foundation and Simon Lin, President, Huawei Asia Pacific Region delivered speeches at the congress.
Mustafa Jabbar, Bangladesh’s Minister of Posts and Telecommunications, explained that Bangladesh’s communications industry has grown rapidly since the Digital Bangladesh Strategy was proposed in 2008. Mobile network coverage in the country has reached 98.5% at end of 2021, and the mobile phone user base has expanded from 40 million in 2018 to 180 million today.
Ken Hu, Huawei’s Rotating Chairman, said during his opening speech, “The Asia-Pacific region has long played an important role in global economic growth, and now plays an equally important role in digital innovation.”
Yang Mee Eng, Executive Director of the ASEAN Foundation, said, “Only a strong digital talent team can achieve an inclusive and resilient digital Asia-Pacific region. The Huawei APAC Digital Innovation Congress 2022 marks another critical milestone in the ASEAN Foundation-Huawei partnership to continue creating a talent development-focused learning ecosystem that will help address the digital skills shortage in the region.”
Simon Lin, President of Huawei’s Asia Pacific Region, gave a speech on the abundance of digital opportunities in APAC. He said, “Huawei is committed to becoming a key contributor to the digital economy in Asia-Pacific, and working with its customers and partners to build a better green digital life.”
In Asia-Pacific, Huawei has established partnerships with nearly 10,000 enterprise and cloud partners and plans to invest US$100 million in the Spark startup ecosystem. Together with its partners, Huawei has trained 170,000 locals on digital skills and plans to provide digital training to another 500,000 within five years.
Satvinder Singh, Deputy Secretary-General for ASEAN Economic Community, outlined progress towards the ASEAN Digital Masterplan 2025. He shared his views about how the pandemic has accelerated the pace of digital transformation. “In ASEAN, since the COVID-19 pandemic started, 60 million new digital consumers have been added, making ASEAN the third-largest internet base with nearly 400 million internet users. ASEAN digital revenue is expected to hit US$363 billion by 2025.” He pointed out, “Digital transformation requires stronger coordinated actions from multiple stakeholders, including the private sector to realize the full potential of digital transformations in ASEAN.”
A panel discussion and four industry sessions were also held during the event. During the sessions, Huawei released solutions for multiple campus scenarios, including simplified campus networks and FTTO/FTTM scenarios, and unveiled new products and solutions like GaussDB – a new cloud storage database – and DevCloud – a one-stop DevOps shop for more efficient software development.