A digital revolution is speeding up across sectors, with automation, artificial intelligence, the Internet, and a host of online applications transforming how we live and do business.
With these new stakes, governments are integrating digital transformation into their national policy and development agendas. As efforts to support Internet development grows, there is an urgent need for a technically proficient talent pool that can drive national ambitions to success.
To help make the Internet an integral part of the digital transformation reality, the Internet Society developed the Introduction to Network Operations (NetOps) course, an online learning experience that equips early career and intermediate level engineers with the critical technical skills they need to design, deploy, and manage an ever-growing global Internet environment.
This year, the course trained more than 1,000 people from across the globe. By 2020, more than 4,000 people benefited from their participation on this course.
Handy Commands and Tricks
Cynthia Wambui Muchiru is a Network Operations Center (NOC) Engineer from Mawingu Networks, a local connectivity provider in Kenya. She joined the course because she wanted to gain hands-on experience that could help her in her job. She says she can now apply knowledge from the course to solve everyday problems at her work. “I have Linux systems that I manage, and the commands and tricks learnt during the course come in handy.”
Jasneel Bir, a student at Fiji National University, says, “I learned how Linux OS functions and operates in order to enhance the performance as an end-user.” After completing the course, he says he is armed with new knowledge to perform practical tasks on a virtual machine using a command-line interface.
Bir’s university encourages learning and sharing on technological advancements and development. He is planning to use his knowledge to pursue a career in the field of network ecosystems operations, as well as in his current studies to expand his experience.
Nabil Benamar, full professor of computer science at Moulay Ismail and Al Akhawayn Universities in Morocco, facilitated the online course. He says it is important for learners who are seeking knowledge about Internet ecosystems, and he is recommending the free course to the students at his universities.
Roberto Zambrana, former president of the Bolivian Chapter of the Internet Society and Senior Advisor for the Global e-Schools and Communities Initiative (GeSCI) also facilitated the course. He says it’s been a satisfactory experience for both learners and facilitators. He adds that judging from participant testimonies during weekly live sessions organized, it is clear learners can apply the new technical skills they learn.
NetOps Course Future Plans
The NetOps course has been well received, training more than 10,000 people globally since 2015. Throughout the years, the Internet Society has updated it to meet the demands of our time and to prepare learners. And, heeding to the request of learners of past courses for an advanced course, we are glad to announce we have developed a 2.0 version of the NetOps course.
NetOps 2.0 is geared toward middle-career to expert-level trainees. Using NetOps 1.0 as a foundation, NetOps 2.0 brings sophisticated practical exercises to various technical skills, including how to setup email servers and web servers.
This course will be available in early 2022. Past trainees from NetOps 1.0 are encouraged to sign up for this new course!