1. Home
  2. Connect
  3. Partnering with Us
  4. Enterprise Academy
  5. Partnerships
  6. ICT Fintech
  7. Huawei Business Sustainability Enterprise Challenge

Enterprise Academy

 

Partnership with Huawei addresses the decarbonisation challenge facing society

Industry / University collaboration 

Global technology leader Huawei may be best known for its innovative telecommunications products and services, but it is also a key player in the renewable energy space. In particular, the company’s highly advanced solar photovoltaic (PV) inverter and battery energy storage products are in wide use by organisations in every sector across the globe. 

Huawei is continually seeking new applications and use cases for this technology and, in April 2024, approached the TU Dublin Enterprise Academy with a view to partner with the University and assist in exploring new innovative uses for their technologies.  

Huawei have been operating in Ireland for the past 20 years, serving over 3 million people and supporting more than 860 direct and indirect jobs. TU Dublin is one of Ireland's largest providers of Business education nationally and Huawei has a long-standing association with the University. Having been involved in many successful collaborations it was a natural step for Huawei to approach TU Dublin through its Enterprise Academy.  

A key role of the TU Dublin Enterprise Academy is to facilitate and encourage engagement between enterprise, students and the University. Working with enterprises across all sectors and business types, the Enterprise Academy brokers relationships with TU Dublin faculties and schools to create flexible, scalable, accredited educational solutions that address sector-specific skill needs. 

“It is through industry-academic partnerships like this that we bridge the gap between what students learn in the classroom and the skills they’ll need in the workforce, opening doors for their future” said Luke McDonnell, head of PR with Huawei Ireland. 

”TU Dublin took the time to understand Huawei’s challenges and designed a student programme that addressed them directly. With clear objectives in place, the team delivered exactly what we needed. This partnership truly shows the power of collaboration and innovation in solving real-world business challenges.” McDonnell added. 

 

Developing Critical Skills Through Enterprise Challenges 

The result of the early discussions was a proposal to run an Enterprise Challenge. Enterprise Challenges are designed to work in conjunction with enterprise partners on real and urgent problems and TU Dublin, with its long tradition of practice-based learning, part of the core remit of technological universities, is uniquely well placed to work with enterprise partners on them.  

An applied learning approach helps learners develop critical thinking, collaboration, and practical skills while solving real-world business problems. It offers hands-on experience, bridging the gap between academic knowledge and practical skills. In this case groups of students would work on research projects on the use of solar PV and battery energy storage in different settings and present their findings to Huawei. 

“Enterprise challenges are a useful way of embedding the development of softer skills in areas such as problem solving, innovation, team working, creative skills, critical thinking in the curriculum,” says Enterprise Academy Educational Developer Niamh O’Hora.  

For the industry partner in this case, Huawei is a world leader in solar PV and battery storage solutions the challenge asked the students to develop business cases for new uses for the technology. For the university’s part, it gains the valuable experience of collaborating with an innovation driven company like Huawei. 

“We can future-proof graduates for tomorrow's jobs by embedding innovation, globalisation, transversal skills and sustainable impact throughout at the heart of the learning experience,” O’Hora explains. 

 

Engaging partners to scaffold the solution 

The Enterprise Academy collaborated closely with Huawei to co-create the Business Sustainability Enterprise Challenge and identify suitable academic partners in TU Dublin to support the project. 

The School of Marketing and Entrepreneurship and the School of Management, People and Organisations with their common Business Sustainability module emerged as the ideal choice. These schools then offered this optional accredited module to their students.  

The challenge put to the students was to build a business case for an industry in Ireland where Huawei can implement large-scale solar PV and battery installations. It was a specific requirement that project recommendations must align with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). 

“The response from the students was really amazing,” says O’Hora. “175 students participating from three different programmes in the two schools as well as exchange students from EA Normandie. That’s what the Enterprise Academy is all about; collaboration and bringing people together.” 

 

Co-designing solutions with academic and enterprise faculty 

Partnership was key to the project’s success. “It really was a co-creation process,” Dr Lesley Murphy, a lecturer in the School of Marketing and Entrepreneurship and one of the academic partners involved in the project, notes. “My role was to ensure we got the right learning outcomes and to ensure that the students had the appropriate scaffolding to be able to complete the project.” 

That included providing a grounding in the technology. “For example, if students were coming in cold to the energy industry and hadn't looked at solar PV before, it may have been very complex topic for some. What we did was give them more background information.”  

At the beginning of October, the Enterprise Academy invited Cagatay Altintas, Huawei Business Development Manager to TU Dublin to introduce students to Huawei, its operations, concepts of the circular economy and the goal of full life-cycle environmental impact reduction. His lecture covered how and why organisations should be transitioning to Solar and PV energy, the direct and indirect benefits to organisations increasing the consumption and production of renewable energy can have, and how investment in integrating digital and energy power electronic technologies can promote green transformation in industry.  

That was followed by workshops and clinics with the students to help with queries they might have. Bringing stakeholders together to create a project adds real value to students at the end of the day.” The Enterprise Academy role was critically important, she adds. “Having the Enterprise Academy involved freed me up to do my job which is lecturing, teaching and encouraging the students to learn. I really enjoyed developing the project and watching the students work on it.” 

While the academic staff are used to research challenges, the Enterprise Academy provided the toolkits and templates to enable them to work with enterprise partners. We also helped organise events like the masterclass for student participants given by Huawei as well as the presentation event at the end of the project.” says O’Hora. 

 

Research and investigation into the potential impact of industry adoption 

Accounting and Finance student Aidan Mooney took part in the Enterprise Challenge module with a team of fellow students. “It was definitely an enriching experience and sharpened my understanding of sustainability and the integration of renewable energy into industry.” 

The team researched the medtech and pharma industry as a contributor to emissions. “In terms of implementing Huawei's solar PVs and battery systems, they have a vast amount of space in their industrial complexes and large areas of roof space. We contacted many companies, and one responded and said that some of their roofs weren’t designed to hold a lot of weight, but Huawei do offer lightweight PV solutions.” 

The potential impact of the industry adopting these solutions is enormous. “Medtech and pharma operations tend to have loads of outside space around the plants,” he explains. “The plant might be 10,000 square metres but it must be on a couple of acres so that the neighbours aren't impacted.  There could be space for solar PV around the perimeter. If we can implement solutions across the industry that would make progress on the Sustainable Development Goals as well and that would be absolutely fantastic.” 

That was the most rewarding part of the project for him. “Huawei coming in and setting the foundations and then working on a research case to provide solutions, or at least an insight into how we can progress reducing emissions and having somewhat of a real-world impact - even if it's just a case study – it was great.” 

 

A highly successful outcome 

On December 10th 2024, the 175 TU Dublin students presented their innovative business cases for the use of Huawei solar PV power generation and battery storage in a range of private and public sector settings. The student teams showcased their work through poster presentations which were evaluated by a judging team from Huawei. Prizes were awarded to projects covering the healthcare, dairy, food processing, and retail sectors. 

The project was an unqualified success, according to Luke McDonnell, head of PR with Huawei Ireland. “This was a great collaboration between Huawei and the TU Dublin team. ”The novel ideas and solutions presented by the students were impressive and some had real commercial viability, he adds.  

“It is through greater industry-academic collaboration on programmes like the TU Dublin Sustainability Challenge where we are working together to solve real-world challenges great things can be achieved and its shows how digital technologies can play a role in helping Ireland reach its 2030 carbon reduction targets. That is why Huawei was proud to partner with TU Dublin to deliver this challenge because it addresses an important issue and more importantly it shows how innovative digital technologies will play a central role in tackling climate change.” 

 

A model with wide application for enterprise and society 

“We do a lot of great things at TU Dublin” says Dr Murphy. “Collaborative projects like these demonstrate to enterprise how we really are working at the intersection of theory and practice.” 

“This challenge-based pedagogy project, spearheaded by our team at the Enterprise Academy in partnership with Huawei, showcases the transformative power of learning collaborations. By harnessing the potential of PV/battery technology, 175 passionate learners, under the expert guidance of faculty, conducted a critical analysis demonstrating how enterprises can champion environmental sustainability in conjunction with economic viability. This project highlights the huge potential of our future talent pipeline in driving a sustainable and prosperous future.,” says Enterprise Academy head, Dr Claire Mc Bride. 

 

The Award-Winning Teams 

Prizes were presented to the following projects: 

 

 

Get in touch 

If we can help your business to build your future talent pipeline, contact the Enterprise Academy today. www.tudublin.ie/enterprise-academy.

Contact: Peter Lynch, Senior Engagement Manager for the ICT FinTech