This weblog is by Noor Zafar, a Cybersecurity Cadet Threat Advisory Analyst at Deloitte in Australia and a former member of Cisco’s FIFA Girls’s World Cup all-female Dream Group. We’re excited to have Noor be part of us as we go backstage with the Cisco Dream Group on our subsequent Girls Rock-IT occasion on February 29, 2024.
Noor holds a Bachelor of Science (Chemistry) from the College of Wollongong (UOW) and a Diploma of Mechanical Engineering from TAFE NSW in Wollongong in Australia. She is at the moment within the UOW / Deloitte Cyber Academy traineeship and learning her Bachelor of Pc Science (cybersecurity) and Diploma of Data Expertise (IT). Her multidisciplinary examine in varied fields in Mechanical, IT and cybersecurity has led to a robust ardour for synthetic intelligence (AI).
The Girls Rock-IT Program addresses the gender hole in STEM-related topics. Established in 2014, this system has reached an viewers of over 2 million folks, that includes 156 feminine audio system, 91 dwell TV broadcasts and 78 blogs. Consequently, greater than 974,000 folks have enrolled in expertise programs.
There are two rules in life that I’ve learnt; if one door closes, one other door opens, and the whole lot is expounded and interconnected ultimately or kind. No information can ever be wasted it—it could all the time be utilised—whether or not it’s imaginative, artistic options to actual world issues, or just the curious machinations of our thoughts’s personal creativeness.
Nonetheless, by no means in my wildest goals would I ever have imagined that I might be a part of serving to to seize and broadcast an iconic occasion in girls’s Australian sporting historical past internationally. That is my story.
Internal workings of a artistic baby’s thoughts
As a baby I used to be fascinated with the internal workings of a pc, robotics and expertise normally. Actually, one of my earliest reminiscences helps my father constructing and fixing computer systems in our house storage. Tinkering with computer systems is a ardour that I appear to have inherited and have since constructed upon. As a baby I shortly gained information and expertise to bother–shoot working techniques from previous manuals that have been the scale of phone directories! And for these of you who don’t know what they’re, they’re big! As an grownup, I now look again and realise that my childhood obsession and curiosity in expertise was a a part of my undiagnosed Autism Spectrum Dysfunction trait that might kind a key a part of my identification later in life.
Upheavals of migration
My dad and mom migrated from Pakistan, upheaving their complete lives simply to teach their daughter. My mom gave me a robust sense of conviction and the muse to pursue laborious challenges and set targets. As a girl, she embedded a robust perception in me to pursue training, to be unbiased and most significantly, to lead a life in purposeful service, leaving a superb legacy for future generations. My dad and mom wished me to pursue medication, which I directed my research in the direction of. However I had no concept that sooner or later I might return to my unique dream and keenness of expertise.
Delving into programming
Throughout my teenage years, I delved into programming when my instructor enrolled me into the inaugural Google Python competitors. This concerned creating html and CSS web sites which uncovered me to technical challenges and drawback fixing. As college students, we got Lego robotics kits to assemble robots with a small contact censor and a black and white digicam for the robotic to have a look at targets forward. Our purpose was to code a sensor program so that the robotic may flip and keep away from obstacles. These experiences not solely honed my technical expertise however additional instilled in me a way of curiosity and a love for hands-on problem-solving. The fervour for robotics naturally led me to develop a really sturdy curiosity in AI. At highschool, I liked science, expertise, engineering and arithmetic (STEM) topics and utilized for a bachelor’s diploma in science at UOW after I completed my remaining yr.
Coding, COVID, and cyber profession change
At UOW, I majored in chemistry and I did a Diploma in Mechanical Engineering at TAFE NSW Wollongong. On the time, I solely continued coding and pen-testing programs as a interest. After graduating, I had a quick stint as a chemical engineer which I loved immensely. Nonetheless, after I used to be laid off through the COVID-19 pandemic, I made a decision to return to my previous job as an early childcare educator and regarded educating as a profession change.
I had began doing a Grasp’s in Schooling till sooner or later an commercial on Reddit caught my eye. The advert promoted a UOW / Deloitte Cyber Academy Program for brand new college leavers and mature age college students, paying them to review a level in pc science at UOW, a Diploma in IT at TAFE NSW and to work at an enormous 4 firm. Such potentialities appeared insurmountable, but I utilized for it and after the year-long software course of, I lastly received in.
This system consisted of a two-week bootcamp earlier than coursework commenced. I accomplished the Fundamentals of Networking [Networking Essentials] course by means of Cisco Networking Academy, one of many world’s longest-running and purpose-driven IT skills-to-jobs applications. My instructor, Shan Ansari, nominated me for the Cisco Dream Group as I used to be capable of decide up networking ideas shortly, requested a variety of questions, and was very fast to drawback clear up the Cisco Packet Tracer lab workouts. He wrote me an exquisite advice letter and I utilized for the Dream Group; it was a really last-minute software!
You’re dreaming!
Truthfully, I used to be gobsmacked after I heard that I received into the Cisco Dream Group. My TAFE instructor informed me that I used to be the primary TAFE pupil to make it into the Dream Group and that could be a extremely coveted expertise to acquire within the IT trade. The Dream Group went to a few workshops the place we gained hands-on expertise of the right way to do cabling and primary troubleshooting. It was the primary time for me to satisfy the all-female Dream Group which included the all-female Dream Group which included six girls from all throughout Australia. The workshops have been very informative as we have been all enrolled into Cisco Networking Academy’s CCNA course, and we bodily learnt the right way to do cabling and work with Cisco tools. This was my dream coming true:
I had all the time wished to review and apply my technical information however this was at a complete new stage, at a serious sporting occasion!
The Dream Group occasion went over seven days. We have been cut up into two groups to cowl the cabling at each occasion stadiums: Stadium Australia and Homebush Stadium. The Dream Group shadowed the Swisscom group which was answerable for planning and putting in the IT infrastructure utilizing Cisco tools. We got the schematics of the media tribune space, and we spent our time setting-up the tools to ensure that the media to have dependable high-speed web all through the protection of the FIFA Girls’s World Cup. The Dream Group additionally arrange wi-fi entry factors close to the realm of play. On the day of the opening match of France vs Jamaica, the Dream Group gathered with the Swisscom group to troubleshoot the match in real-time. Seeing how a serious occasion is put collectively behind the scenes, from the infrastructure and planning and sheer scale of individuals working, was a life-changing expertise for me. Thankfully, the opening match protection went easily with none points and it was a implausible studying alternative.
Cisco recognition
The sensation of contributing to such a monumental occasion introduced a wave of feelings over me. The camaraderie among the many Dream Group members and the popularity from Cisco executives made me realise the quite a few alternatives and pathways for girls in IT.
Cisco’s all-female Dream Group acquired protection within the nationwide newspapers, trade press, and my native hometown regional newspapers. I even received the chance to share my expertise on the ABC Illawarra radio station. This chance has opened-up so many profession pathways and recognition that I’m actually grateful for. My recommendation to anyone beginning in IT is to grab the chance to upskill and retrain. IT is a pathway for girls that may present extra choices and larger flexibility than many others, and all of your information that you simply achieve all through your profession could be utilised to unravel essentially the most distinctive issues and create modern options. At all times be curious, be resilient below the face of challenges and all the time have a artistic aptitude in your work.
I hope this story serves as an inspiration for these navigating the tech panorama. As I mirror alone path, it’s heartening to know that the abilities I developed in my adolescence performed a vital function in my more moderen success. The FIFA Girls’s World Cup made Australian TV historical past. The Cisco Dream Group journey stands as a testomony to the limitless potentialities that unfold when childhood passions meet curiosity and resilience.
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