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In addition to announcing that its third data center availability zone will go live three years earlier than expected, Huawei SA (South Africa) also announced the launch of its $5.8 million (R100 million) Cloud Spark program, which will support more than 1000 small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) over the course of the next three years.
The “Everything as a Service” strategy used by Huawei Cloud, which is being embraced both nationally and internationally, was the basis for both of these announcements.
The “Everything as a Service” approach combines traditional cloud offerings like Infrastructure as a Service, Technology as a Service, and Expertise as a Service, according to Jay Zhou MD, Huawei Cloud South Africa, who spoke at the Huawei Eco-Connect event last week at the Sandton Convention Centre. Thinking, acting, and using an all-digital, all-cloud, AI-driven attitude are crucial components of this strategy.
He claimed that doing this is essential to face the future head-on.
He said, “Kids in remote areas will have the same learning experience as students in the city. In the future, sensors will replace our hands and feet and cameras will replace our eyes.
Investment in cloud computing has increased 32% in South Africa while spending on conventional IT infrastructure has decreased. According to Huawei SA, this expansion has enabled it to maintain the growth of its availability zones (AZs) in South Africa. After launching its first AZ in 2019, the third AZ will cut cloud latency in half to 20ms.
The “Everything as a Service” objective of Huawei SA Cloud, according to Huawei, must assist SMEs as well as corporations, the company claims. It started the Cloud Spark project in part because of this.
Cloud Spark Initiative from Huawei SA
A hybrid accelerator program for tech companies and SMEs is called Cloud Spark. Although there are important vertical focus areas, other SMEs outside of those areas are welcome.
All program participants will get financial, technical, training, and go-to-market support through Huawei’s cooperation with the Silicon Cape organization.
Several Huawei Cloud customers also spoke at the event about their interactions with the business.
Willem Groenewald’s view
Willem Groenewald, CEO of the Automobile Association of South Africa, who used Huawei SA Cloud to transform from a legacy organization into a digitally capable organization effectively able to improve road safety for South African drivers, passengers, and pedestrians, said, “What struck me about Huawei is that they are really invested in the business.”
Meanwhile, Altron SI CSO Ross Matthee noted that the company has shifted its own internal systems to Huawei Cloud in addition to using it for customer deployments.
“We’ve had a partnership with Huawei for ten years,” he stated. “With Huawei Cloud, the past year and a half have been on an accelerated course.”
In contrast, U-Learning is an online education service that has been operating since 2006 and has more than 10 million customers throughout the academic, corporate, and educational sectors worldwide. Its goal is to make smart education available in every school.
According to U Learning GM Christina Ng, “We deploy all of our platforms throughout Asia, Latin America, and Africa utilizing Huawei Cloud.”
Long-term, Huawei Cloud wants to maintain encouraging these success tales.
As Zhou put it, “We are going to create a smart ecosystem in South Africa for South Africa.”
The Huawei SA Spark program details
Due to immense challenges that startups face, such as figuring out go-to-market strategies, pursuing consumers, and fundraising rounds. Huawei is here to collaborate with startups and give you access to the tools you need to begin expanding rapidly. A startup’s success can be attributed to a variety of factors, some of which are:
- Financial Assistance: We offer cloud credits, subsidies for particular products, and discounts.
- Technical support: where help for cloud migration, access to the Huawei developer community, and chances for collaboration are all there to be utilized.
- Training and Resources: Free cloud accreditation as well as access to Huawei’s university and training programs.
- Support for GTM: Boost your exposure with our Go-China program, Huawei conferences, social gatherings, and media opportunities.
- Mentoring: Where you get paired with senior Huawei executives, subject matter experts, and venture capital firms, and gain specialized support through mentoring.
- Spark Fire: This is a special track created to assist you in developing and boosting brand recognition through “selling to,” “selling with,” and “selling through” Huawei.
Huawei Spark interest areas
Startups whose key competencies are based on the following technologies and skills are of interest to them – edge computing, SaaS, 5G, AI/ML, and Data & Analytics
They search for solutions and products in the following industries – transportation, media & gaming, education, BFSI, and the internet.
What is Spark Fire that Huawei SA is talking about?
It is a distinctive value proposition of the Huawei Spark program created to accelerate business growth and brand recognition. Within the Spark program, there is a unique track that permits certain participants to:
- By selling to Huawei, you’ll have the chance to offer us your solutions.
- Market with Huawei’s global sales staff, which has connections to 197 Fortune 500 businesses.
- Access 700 million Huawei mobile and cloud consumers worldwide by selling through the Huawei App Store and Cloud Marketplace.
Spark Fire is a six-month company acquisition program that aims to assist entrepreneurs in utilizing Huawei’s connections and resources to hasten their growth.