Infoblox, the leader in cloud-first networking and security, recently held an event in Detroit on Monday, April 25 t 10 a.m. ET to announce plans to conduct a second pilot of its Diverse Student Certification with Wayne County Community College District (WCCCD). As part of Infoblox’s commitment to increase the representation of women and minorities in the tech sector, the pilot program will allow up to 20 students to participate in an Infoblox instructor-led training course held at Wayne County Community College’s. Infoblox is fully funding the cost of the training for participants.
Rolling out sat down with Avonne Thompson, Channel Account Manager at Infoblox, to discuss how aspects of their DDI Certification Program are benefitting Black students.
Briefly give us a description of your role and responsibilities.
As a channel account manager for the federal territory, I bring in resellers and partners to help us enable our customers. Within the federal government, you can’t buy directly from a vendor. They always have to buy from a value-added reseller, or a partner. So, I manage those partners. I make the connections with the sales teams, with the different vendors, and facilitate all of that to make sure transactions and procurement operate smoothly.
Tell us about the Infoblox program.
The program is amazing. It’s designed to educate people on DDI ( DNS, DHCP, and IP Address Management), so it helps to give people the leg up on networking. If you’ve got a computer, if you ever go to a website, you’re using DNS. Your network doesn’t run if it’s not secure, if it’s not automated, or if it’s not managed well. And the DDI course helps you understand that.
How does that benefit the students?
The technology field, as you know, is constantly growing, constantly changing. I feel as though, Blacks specifically, and especially women also, we are at disadvantage, right? This course will give you that advantage into the field.
This course is something that most people pay $5,500 for. It’s something that people that have been in the industry for years are actually taking. So, these students that pass these courses, they’re able to get that leg up into the career of their choice, if it’s around networking.
What type of student will be interested and how can they find out more information?
The type of students that would be interested in this course are people who are in cybersecurity, or that are doing networking, or in the it field, and they’re closer to graduating college.
It would be someone that has the understanding of it the field. You have the understanding of cybersecurity. You’ve done the courses, you’ve done what you’ve needed to do in the past year, year and a half. So you’re going into it with a little bit more knowledge. And now this is just that icing on top, to give you that extra boost.
Is this course free to students?
For the people that are in this program? Yes.
