Intel Security's EMEA chief technical officer Raj Samani's move into ICT was not an obvious one. In his youth, although there was always a computer in the house, he didn't have a thorough understanding of ICT career opportunities.
"It's not like today where having a career in IT is well-known and understood. It wasn't until I saw a course advertised that I realised that perhaps this was something someone would pay me to do."
Samani accepted a place on the course, moving away from the traditional degrees and says he never really looked back after that. "Since then, I have studied a lot. I did something like 30 professional exams after my master's degree, building a lab at home and working almost every weekend for years to devour every piece of information I could get my hands on. This really helped me become as technical as I could, and I enjoyed it."
At this stage, however, he realised he was very deficient in particular areas, namely public speaking. "I summoned up every ounce of courage to speak at a conference, and began to write as well. I'm still pretty proud of my first paper. For me, career progression for me has been much about working on areas that I feel need development."
A conscious decision
Speaking about how he decided to become involved with IT security, Samani says the choice was easy, because it was an area he enjoyed. "At the time there wasn't really an industry focused on IT security, so I had no idea that this was something I could do. I wrote my thesis on building a bastion host within a large enterprise, but at the time this was more something I wanted to do, rather than something that I was directed to. It was a conscious decision to focus on something I enjoyed regardless of what the salary could be."
At the time, he says, there were more profitable paths, but he did think of focusing on something that would be more financially beneficial. However, his decision was made upon speaking to his wife and agreeing it was better to do something you enjoy doing.
Samani's love and frustrations with his job have a common denominator. "It is relentless. There is no breathing space, there is always something happening, and changing. The adversary is getting better and better, and security professionals have to always be on the top of their game. It's something I love, but equally something very frustrating."
Making a difference
A defining moment in Samani's career was being told at university by one of his lecturers that he would never really succeed in the ICT industry. "Even today we meet obstacles or prejudices all of our life, I feel that people can only hurt us if we let them. It is this approach that I take into everything I do, overcoming these hurdles made me who I am today."
Would he have done anything differently? "No. We learn nothing from success only from failure, and it is these failures that make us into who we are today."
He sums up his career in a sentence: "In everything that you do, ask yourself one simple question. Is this actually making a real difference in the development of a safer digital society? If you cannot answer affirmatively, then the likelihood is that it isn't worth doing."
This carries through to what Samani feels are standout moments in the local ICT space. "SA for me is a real technologically emerging economy. An example would be the use of technology to protect rhinos from poaching. This is innovative and something that says something about SA: in that it is a unique part of the world with the most remarkable wildlife, but also is so tech-savvy."
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