Christopher Demicoli, Malta’s National Cisco NetRiders 2014 Champion
ICE Malta student & Guts.com software engineer, Christopher Demicoli is Malta’s Cisco 2014 National Champion and will representing the Maltese islands in the international Cisco NetRiders 2014 competition this September competing against more than 40,000 Cisco students from all over the globe with the chance of winning an all expense paid study trip to Cisco California.
‘Last year, ICE Malta student Ryan Chetcuti placed first in Europe and forth in the world and managed to secure a job at Cisco Scotland so this year the pressure is on! The ICE Malta Academic Team is committed to support Malta’s top four and will be giving them mentoring sessions with ICE Malta Cisco educators who are undoubtedly the island’s top ICT practitioners and were crucial in our previous Netriders success. This time round, Christopher will be competing from Cisco’s headquarters in Milan and will be accompanied by a member of the ICE Malta team. This is an investment in local ICT talent which as a leading educational entity we will continue to make. We’re proud to put Malta on the Cisco map while we are committed to ensure that local talent continue to have the opportunity to enrol for Cisco study programmes at ICE Malta and achieve the island’s highest academic results’. Nikolai Sammut, Director of ICE Malta explained.
The ICE Malta team had a chat with Christopher Demicoli, Malta’s Cisco Netriders 2014 ambassador – here’s more.
ICE Malta: Why did you enrol for the Cisco study programme?
CD: The reason that I enroled for the Cisco study program is that since I am a Software Engineer by profession, my knowledge of networks, routing and switching was very basic. I was always fascinated by the internet and how it works but with my limited knowledge it was all very difficult to grasp. This gave me the motivation to start CCNA course. I am very pleased with the outcome considering that 6 months ago I didn’t even know what a subnet is. I have now also managed to set up the office network from scratch completely with 2 WAN connections for redundancy. WAN redundancy was not in the CCNA curriculum, but with the knowledge I had gained from CCNA, I was able to search for and understand enough so that I could configure it on my own.
ICE Malta: Is this your first course at ICE Malta? What do you think of the ICE Malta study experience? How did you prepare for the national finals?
CD: This was my first course at ICE Malta, but I will definitely be doing other courses; in fact this July I am starting MCSD (useful for my career) and Gaming Development (as a hobby). A big advantage of studying at ICE Malta is that we also get to work with real equipment instead of just computer simulations. This, combined with one of the best lecturers that I ever had, made it possible for me to achieve first place in the national finals. ICE Malta also provided us with complimentary training before the finals to ensure that we are well prepared.
ICE Malta: Why is Cisco important for your CV?
CD: I consider Cisco Certifications to be very important addition to my resume since it is the leading networking giant. Cisco influence the whole networking world since they are always supplying advanced networking solutions. Today’s businesses require a network platform that enables technology innovation and business-critical services across the entire network. Cisco stands alone in its ability to provide an end-to-end network platform tied together by a common infrastructure and a common operating system, and manageable as a single, cohesive entity.
ICE Malta: What is your message to students who are considering starting a worldwide recognised certification?
CD: I think everyone should get certified if they have the opportunity. You can certainly get jobs without certification, but many companies want or prefer certified professionals. Besides this, certifications will prepare you for the future jobs which will include logical thinking, troubleshooting, configuring, designing etc… They give you the tools you need to build a solid foundation. Lastly, certifications along with technical knowledge help build rapport when discussing solutions with other technical parties.
More Cisco NetRiders 2014 competition updates will be shared on ICE Malta’s social media pages.
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Dr Cardona, ICE Malta team, Cisco team and winners
Christopher Demicoli