Pieter Delport, a student from the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU) School of Information and Communication Technology, came third in the African region in the Cisco Certified Network Associate NetRiders competition.
The participants in the regional competition completed their networking challenges from venues across Europe, the Middle East and Africa on 24 September. The top achievers won a study trip to Cisco's headquarters in the US.
According to Cisco, the annual Cisco NetRiders competition tests the skills of Cisco networking students from around the world in a challenge that progresses from country level to a global level. Students compete individually and three top scorers per participating country move on to participate in the regional NetRiders competition.
"The competition, organised by Cisco, is an opportunity for Networking Academy students to learn valuable networking/IT skills through a series of online exams and simulation activities using Cisco Packet Tracer," says Cisco.
The company adds that while numerous students from across SA participated in the event, SA's three representatives this year- Delport, Wonga Vika and Ryno Schoeman - were all NMMU students. The three flew from Port Elizabeth to the Johannesburg offices of Cisco to pit their networking skills against those of the top networking students in the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) competition.
Despite not having pocketed the study trip to the US, Delport, who finished third in the African continent leg, hopes his achievement will inspire people to work harder.
Delport aims to grow his skills and become a senior network engineer abroad, as he believes the job opportunities are greater there.
NMMU networks lecturer Shaun Vincent, who accompanied the competitors, says NMMU students have participated in NetRiders for the past four years. He sees the competition as a valuable tool for students to deepen their skills and benchmark them against their global peers'.
He notes that while SA may once have been seen as a natural leader in the networking space, students across Africa have caught up.
"The competition is getting tougher as more countries across Africa improve their networking competencies," says Vincent.
Alfie Hamid, regional manager at Cisco corporate affairs, sub-Saharan Africa, and champion of the 16-year-old Cisco Networking Academy programme in SA, says 172 students in 57 countries participated in the EMEA leg of the competition this year, with Ugandan student Mark Ojangole, of Makerere University College of Computing and Information Sciences, winning first place in Africa, and Stefan Nikolov, of Bulgaria's National High School of Mathematics and Science, achieving the highest EMEA ranking.
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