CCIE Club Africa members meet for the second time

CCIE Club Africa, a joint project between Cisco and NIL Africa, is gaining traction fast, and since March 2013, the initiative has connected more than 100 CCIE-certified experts. Most of them are from South Africa, where NIL Africa is located, but there are also members from Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, Tanzania and Senegal. NIL and Cisco established the elite CCIE Club Africa to give the African CCIE community an opportunity to meet, network and share best practices. Part of these efforts are also the periodical events for members who met for the second time on 21 November at NIL's premises in Johannesburg.

NIL, which manages the club's activities, prepared a rich and interesting programme, presented by leading experts from NIL and Cisco. The keynote speaker was Ivan Pepelnjak, CCIE #1354 Emeritus and NIL's Chief Technology Advisor. He has been designing and implementing large-scale service provider and enterprise networks, as well as teaching and writing books about advanced technologies since 1990.

He is the author of several Cisco Press books, a prolific blogger and writer, occasional consultant, and author of a series of highly successful Webinars. With a great eye for interesting technologies and a deep understanding of trends, Pepelnjak delivered a very-well-accepted presentation on SDN and OpenFlow, which addressed hype and reality about these highly popular terms.

"I would like to thank NIL for an excellent CCIE event. The standard of the main speaker and the topic covered was refreshing, challenging and met my expectations for a CCIE event. You have truly set the bar very high, and it is going to take some doing to maintain or exceed this standard. The personal presence of a high-quality speaker like Ivan Pepelnjak also adds tremendous value to such an event. Combining this event with some entertainment for our spouses was a great idea. Professional chefs demonstrating and sharing decorating ideas and techniques in a fun way was much appreciated," said Pieter Bos, CCIE #4392, Network Specialist, Telkom.

After Pepelnjak, attendees heard two presentations from Cisco's team. Kian Ellens, Business Development Manager, spoke about mobility and analytics, and how these will transform the world and business, and Gawie Herholdt, CCIE #7768 and Consulting Engineer, presented the future of Cisco Collaboration technologies. These presentations also received positive feedback.

"It's a pleasure to see more and more experts joining the initiative and participating in our events. But most importantly, the club is fulfilling its goal - African CCIEs are getting to know each other; they meet and share experiences, which they can continue with through the online forum after the events. As the membership grows, the club will gain an even more international character, which will further contribute to its appeal," commented Karen Sharpe, Learning Services Manager, NIL.

If the first CCIE Club Africa event brought together only CCIEs, this time NIL and Cisco were very pleased to welcome members' spouses. For them, the organisers arranged a professional chef, who prepared a quick course and demonstration on how to decorate a cake in no time at all and without spending a fortune. The demonstration, of course, finished in a "delicious" way that was eventually enjoyed by all the attendees, members and their partners.

NIL and Cisco will continue to promote the club across the region, with the ultimate goal of expanding it across the whole continent and connect the whole African CCIE community. In October, the club was officially launched in Kenya, and the next opportunity for members to meet will be at the beginning of 2014.