Pakistani Boy Becomes World’s Youngest Cisco Expert

Irtiza Haider, a Pakistani student of class 8 from Faisalabad has been crowned to be the world's youngest Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA). He did it by answering 80 percent of the questions correctly in 2 hours, in order to pass the CCNA test. The CCNA, is a certification that emphasizes on the technology and skills needed to work with networks of 100 nodes or fewer, covering both IP and non-IP networks including IPX and AppleTalk. Irtiza had already enrolled in the CCNA classes back in June of 2007 however he, his father and teacher went to Islamabad to attend the Cisco Academy Awareness Day in Islamabad on June 19, 2007 to learn more about the prospects of the program. In order to pass the CCNA, you need more than a good teacher and a supportive family. One needs to grasp key networking technologies and concepts. Further levels of certifications will extend towards the CCNP (Cisco Certified Networking Professional) and the CCIE (Cisco Certified Internet Export), which will place Irtiza amongst an elite group of Networking Professionals around the world. The 12-year old boy's teacher and mentor is Rizwan Dastgir, Curriculum Lead and Academy Instructor at Ahad IT Services (a Cisco Local Academy), in Faisalabad, a city of about 3 million people.