#CiscoChampion Radio S2|Ep 3. Giving Back to the IT Community

#CiscoChampion Radio is a podcast series by Cisco Champions as technologists. Today we’ll be talking with Cisco Champions about giving back to the IT community. Rachel Bakker (@rbakker) is this week’s moderator.

Listen to the Podcast.

Learn about the Cisco Champions Program HERE.
See a list of all #CiscoChampion Radio podcasts HERE.

Cisco Champion SMEs
Priscilla Oppenheimer, @priscillaoppy, Network Consultant
Anas Tarsha, @anastarsha, Solutions Architect
Chris Partsenidis, @firewallcx, Network Engineer

Cisco Champion Guest Hosts
Noah Jaehnert, @njaehner, Security Architecture Program Manager

Highlights
Benefits of giving back
Ideas on how to give back to the IT community
How you can leverage your IT skills to give back to your local community
The positive impact of mentorship
Sharing your knowledge and expertise in your local colleges and schools
How to get kids excited about IT

Transcripts
ciscokima Happy Radio Day all!
DeniseD Priscilla – how did you get started in the schools? That sounds like a good idea.
PriscillaOpp I volunteered to help at my local college. I met one of the profs at party and learned about the CS program from him…
DeniseD Ah, so I need to go to more parties…
PriscillaOpp I live in a small town (20K people) so all the nerds know each other, so meeting some CS profs was pretty easy.
Perkzilla Don’t know if it has been said, but most Middle and High schools welcome the opportunity for IT pros to come in for a lecture, and even better if you
WirelessStew I give back everyday while in the field. I make it my goal to educate at least one person technical or non, about Wireless
Cisco Champion Radio Perkzilla, how did you get involved helping with your local middle and HSs?
Perkzilla IT based business courses usually have an emerging technology class, that offers another opening to come in and show off
Perkzilla I have a middle schooler, so it was easy. but you can always reach out to your local school district and offer your services
Perkzilla they dont have SME’s on staff, so they are usually very enthusiastic to bring in gurus
erickbe I volunteer in Chicago at local B-Sides conference, and last yr we did a first Hak 4 Kids conference I was part of..
erickbe so got to get some kids on console of routers/switches
Perkzilla kids get incredibly excited to see something work…if you can do simple labs and get them involved, you will be amazed at the impact
NoahJaehnert erickbe – I’ve attended BSides in Chicago before too, but unfortunately not last year
PriscillaOpp One talk I give is How I Got Into Networking. http://www.priscilla.com/sou-talk.pdf
erickbe Noah: I skipped out last yr, but was there for all others. Planning is starting up for this yr
PriscillaOpp hands-on is good but challenging
Cisco Champion Radio Would be curious to know if lending your expertise to Jr. High Schools and High Schools is interesting. I hear a lot about colleges.
PriscillaOpp FIRST robotics is big in high schools. Fun way to give back!http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/frc
Perkzilla Middle and High schools are a lot of fun for the one or two hours you are able to get in there…esecially if you talk about their favorite social net
Mohammed S I visit an elderly institute here in Egypt (males and females, aged 60 yrs +)They barely have someone pays them a visit so i enjoy go there,
Mohammed S sit down with them, simply talk and laugh with them
Perkzilla take your CCIE lab to the school
Perkzilla CML/VIRL has a huge play here, as well
Perkzilla students do like blinking lights
erickbe perk: yes they do, so do kids
NoahJaehnert https://education.github.com/pack
ciscokima Even showing kids how their text messages and e-mails get from their phones to the kid standing next to them turns out to be pretty fascinating.
aossey I am curious if anyone is doing 1-on-1 mentoring to Jr. engineers/technologists?
Perkzilla Im having a hared time getting my 13 year old interested in BGP…so there is a limit
Perkzilla My company does have a formal mentoring program…it’s actually in our annual performance plan
Perkzilla we are a small boutique…so our braintrust is our lifeline
aossey i would have loved to had a mentor back in the day
aossey just someone to validate my thoughts
Perkzilla we take great pains in maintaining our level of expertise…training is one thing, but being tied to a true expert and learning from their experience
Perkzilla aossey, thats a real issue…you need executive buy in to make it work..our CTO is incredible….really puts the responsibility of the company’s success in the hands of the mentoring program

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