[afrigeek] AIS 2020 : AfNOG '20 - TIMELINE

[Nishal Goburdhan]

On 18 Oct 2019, at 18:54, Nancy Dotse wrote:

> Hello Steve,
> Thanks for the feedback which is well noted.
> Multiple French tracks are only run when host country is Francophone.
> The various Track Leaders/ Instructor Team  do periodic upgrade of the 
> curriculum of the various Tracks  to align with technology  changes  
> and  trends in the industry.

[cc: list trimeed]

hi,

(speaking for SI-E)
we’ve changed the lab examples completely, to be more in flow for how 
we see networks growing.  we’ve also made ipv6 mandatory for all 
lessons, and have chucked most of the basic/preparatory theory into the 
networking bootcamp.  we’re also *really* strict on our admissions;  
to the point where we call up potential participants, to do telephonic 
interviews before scoring them.  and, as nancy and badru will attest, we 
routinely turn away last minute students, that have not been pre-vetted. 
  we think that, that helps us be in a better position to keep the 
curriculum flowing for the whole class.  i am sure there are enough 
stories floating around about how scary entrance to SI-E is ..

/shrug.  it’s not a perfect system ..

i *think* though that a complete rewording of (at least) our track is 
necessary.  we routinely get applicants that think that “scalable 
network infrastructure - english”) means dns/mail/etc.  and i can 
completely understand why.  i also think that the application form needs 
to be redone, since, the kind of students that we want, don’t need to 
go through most of the questions on the legacy application system.  and 
it doesn’t cater for the sort of individual that we want.  my typical 
telephonic interview question is:  “so, tell me about your typical 
work day .. “


(speaking personally)
i think that a more devops type curriculum could be interesting, and 
could help bring in new blood.  same for network security (not 
firewalls/product security, but instead, how to build and scale their 
ISP networks to cater for dDOS attacks, scrubbing, nsp-sec 
co-ordination, etc).
still, the practical reality is that the students that are coming to 
SI-E (at least) still need to learn the fundamentals of networking, and 
devops-ish stuff would be their next level.  also, i feel that devops is 
just a tool (spanner).  before you use a tool, you still need to know 
when/how to use it.  we do talk about automation, but there’s not 
enough time to teach everything, of course.

of course, i have also said that courses like SI-E, should be retired 
[1].  there are sufficiently enough individuals that have been trained 
through the years to be able to run and hold this sort of class, in 
their own domestic environment, and, it does *not* scale anymore to (as 
an example) fly someone form gambia to uganda to learn relatively simple 
BGP.  go to gmNOG, instead!  and maybe more support for the people at 
gmNOG to make a localised SI-E, possible.    (search and replace GM with 
appropriate country/nog .. )

i’ve already told nancy before that we’re happy to *not* run SI-E 
(an english track) in predominantly french regions to make space for 
other classes.


> The plan is to review Workshop Tracks with the Instructor team etc in 
> DRC following  the discussions on AFNOG  future  held in Kampala and 
> other parameters.

i missed the kampala discussions.  are there notes somewhere?

—n.

[1]  as well as SI-E instructors.  we have a retirement policy that will 
see older instructors leave in 2020, and the class be run by newer 
instructors that have been actively coached over the past three years.