July 2018


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UWI students work & learn in China

UWI students meet with Prime Minister Rowley and other officials on Saturday, May 19 at Huawei Headquarters in Shenzhen, China. Back Row (from left): Mr. Zhaobo, General Manager, Huawei Technologies (T&T) Ltd; H.E. Song Yumin, Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China to the Republic of T&T; Mr. Stephen Ma, CEO Huawei Caribbean region; Mr. Detlef Eckert, Huawei Global Government Affairs Dept; Hon. Dennis Moses, Minister of Foreign and CARICOM Affairs; Dr. The Hon. Keith Rowley, Prime Minister; Hon. Stuart Young, Minister in the Office of the Prime Minister and the Attorney General and Legal Affairs; Mr. Steven Yi Xiang, Huawei Member of the Supervisory Board and President of the Regions’ Management Department; H.E. Steven Seedansingh Jr., Ambassador of the Republic of T&T to China; Commodore Hayden Pritchard, T&T Chief of Defence Staff; Mr. Wang Chunxiang, Vice President of Latin America and Caribbean Public Affairs and Communication. Front Row (from left): Students of the Seeds for the Future from The University of the West Indies and the University of Trinidad and Tobago.

Five undergraduate UWI students were recently in China on a two-week Huawei-sponsored work-study programme called Telecom Seeds for the Future. While there, they met with Prime Minister Keith Rowley during his recent state visit to that country, and entertained him with their own rendition of “Portrait of Trinidad”, a calypso by the Mighty Sniper, which the PM joined in singing.

The Telecom Seeds for the Future programme develops skills and talents in the information, communications and technology field, and helps bridge the gap between classroom learning and real-world work experience.

The participating UWI students came from two UWI departments: Computer Science and Information Technology; and Electrical and Computer Engineering. The students were: Nicholas Mitchell, Qarun Bissoondial, Tristan Sankar, Rachel Peters and David Orr.

The T&T State delegation met with the UWI students at the opening ceremony for the Seeds for the Future T&T programme. Prime Minister Rowley briefly spoke to the students, acknowledging the importance of ICT to the future of T&T. The students then delivered two delightful performances – a traditional Chinese song they learned while in Beijing and a local rendition of the calypso Portrait of Trinidad by the Mighty Sniper, with one of the students accompanying on steelpan. The performances delighted the audience, particularly the Prime Minister, who sang along to the calypso and gave the students a rousing round of applause at the end.