John Chambers Hands Out Awards at First Cisco Networking Students' Olympics during Visit to Russia
August 15, 2005
by Jason Deign, News@Cisco
Cisco Networking Academy Program students from Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) were celebrated in the region's first 'IT Olympics' this year.
Students as young as 17 demonstrated complex networking skills at the event, held at the Moscow Technical University of Communication and Informatics (MTUCI).
Cisco Systems® chief executive John Chambers, who holds an honorary professorship from the University, handed out prizes at an awards ceremony held afterwards at the Baltschug Kempinski Hotel.
The event was the centerpiece of Chambers' latest visit to Russia, which is viewed as a critical market for Cisco.
IDC research, sponsored by Cisco and spanning 2004 to 2008, reveals a shortage of skilled Eastern European professionals in Internet networking that is most acute in the area of advanced networking technology such as security, IP telephony and wireless.
Given the strong demand for these technologies in Russia and the CIS, an increasing shortage could have implications for productivity in the region going forward, as a lack of skills could hamper new technology adoption.
Chambers' agenda for the visit included proposals for tailoring Networking Academy Program content to the Russian market.
The Olympics, meanwhile, brought together 30 finalists from across Russia and the CIS, who had scored highest out of 139 people who had completed an online test.
In the final four-hour contest, the students had to answer 100 questions covering areas from the Cisco Networking Academy CCNA® certification course.
The participants were then faced with a three-stage problem: producing a wiring scheme plan of a building, making several unshielded twisted pair patch cords and then configuring lab pods containing Cisco 2800 Series integrated services routers and Cisco Catalyst® 2950 Series switches.
Alexei Beloyssov, an MTUCI student, was the overall winner. Second and third places went to Kirill Zhykov, a student at the Moscow Institute of Radio-techniques, Electronics and Automation, and Anastasija Frolova, a Moscow Energy Institute student, respectively.
There was also a special award for the youngest participant, 17-year-old Maksim Gabidulin, a student of a secondary school in Tashkent in Uzbekistan.
Marina Knyazeva, of the Russian Federal Agency of Education, told attendees that her ministry fully supports the idea of holding such events and finds it very important and useful.
The prize-giving ceremony featured several notable figures in Russian IT, including Robert Agee, general manager of Cisco in Russia and the CIS; Vagan Shakhgildyan, president of MTUCI; Artem Adjemov, MTUCI's rector; and Vladimir Selivanov, training center director at Cisco.
The Olympics also drew support from a number of important Russian companies, including the Cisco Gold Certified channel partner AMT Group, IT and consulting firm IBS (which offered work plus CCIE® training sponsorship to the event's winner) and systems integrator Optima.
In recent years, Cisco has been increasingly keen to promote the role that technology can play in bringing about economic and public sector transformation in Russia and the CIS, and has been involved in several of the region's IT milestones.
In 2004, for example, Nizhni Novgorod State University, one of the most advanced Russian universities, announced that it was using Cisco Aironet WLAN technology to create the first university Wi-Fi zone in Russia.
Based on the 802.11b protocol, the WLAN broadened the capabilities of the existing local area network and provided access to the Web and to e-learning resources.
Previously, Cisco had helped to build Russia's first residential broadband Internet access network, serving more than 3 million users in St Petersburg and more than 6 million users in Moscow.
The network belonged to service provider IP-Net, which was the first carrier in Russia to provide residential users nationwide with high-speed Internet access and value-added services including IP telephony, audio and video broadcasting, audio and video-on-demand and distance learning.
And back in 2000, a mobile data solution from Cisco and Motorola helped Mobile TeleSystems, a leading Russian provider of mobile cellular communication services, to launch the first General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) high-speed mobile data network in Russia.
All this activity has helped boost demand for Cisco products in Russia and the CIS, with Russian orders growing year-on-year by 40 percent in 2004. However, the region still has a way to go in terms of information and communications technology development.
Russia is currently ranked number 62 worldwide in terms of its Networked Readiness Index (NRI) as defined by The Global Information and Technology Report 2004-2005, produced by the World Economic Forum and INSEAD business school with sponsorship from Cisco earlier this year.
This puts the country behind central European states such as Estonia, Malta and Slovenia in its degree of preparation to participate in and benefit from information and communications technology developments, although its score has risen since 2003.
Cisco has recognized the area's potential for future growth by including it in the emerging markets theatre recently created to bring together common disciplines and programs for regions which are now investing in new networking capabilities.
Jason Deign is a freelance journalist located in Barcelona, Spain.
