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29/05/2019

Reasons to be Proud - #R2bP. Nelson Mandela University’s Cisco team recently won the Top Academy Support Centre Award at the Cisco national conference held in Cape Town. 

The award was made for outstanding performance as Cisco Academy Support Centre in Instructor Training, Student Growth and Academy Support. This is the fourth time that our Academy has won the award.

In 1999, the Faculty of Computer Studies at the then PE Technikon approached the global Information Communication and Technology (ICT) giant, Cisco Systems, to form a training partnership. In 2000, the programme was implemented in the Faculty.

The Faculty initially operated as a local and later a regional Cisco Academy. The programme was so successful that in 2006, Cisco systems appointed the University as the Cisco Academy Training Centre (CATC) responsible for the whole sub-Saharan Africa region. The Sub-Saharan Africa Cisco Academy Training Centre (SSA CATC) now operates as a unit of the School of ICT in the Faculty of Engineering, the Built Environment and Information Technology. The role of the SSA CATC is to manage and support Cisco programmes and Academies.

In 2008, the SSA CATC took on support for the CCNP (Cisco Certified Networking Professional) programme for the Middle East region as well and is still the only CCNP CATC in the Africa & Middle East region. It is currently directly and indirectly involved with nearly 300 educational institutions running Cisco Academies in Africa and the Middle East. 11% of the Cisco international programme student population falls within the ambit of the SSA CATC at Mandela University.

(Back from left) Gratitude Kudyachete, Xolile Zepe and Timothy Speckman. (Front from left) Shaun Vincent, Prof Kerry-Lynn Thomson and Luzuko Tekeni.

Contact information
Prof Kerry-Lynn Thomson
Professor - Department of Network Engineering
Tel: 27 41 504 3408
kerry-lynn.thomson@mandela.ac.za