Cisco announces winners of NetRiders India 2011, India's leading Networking Skills Competition

The winning team from CRISP (Centre for Research and Industrial Staff Performance) Bhopal will represent the country at the Asia Pacific NetRiders Challenge, to be held on October 27, 2011

Cisco today announced the winners of its National Networking Skills Competition, NetRiders India 2011. Aakanksha Mishra and Ravi Agarwal from CRISP (Centre for Research and Industrial Staff Performance) Bhopal won the contest while Dhanapal Santhosh and Manish Bavne from CRISP Bhopal and Gaurav Singh Ahlawat and Rupinderjit Singh from Thapar University, Patiala, were the first and second runners up respectively. The winning team will represent the country at the 2011 APAC NetRiders Team Challenge scheduled for October 27th, 2011. The APAC winners will be awarded a one week paid trip to San Jose, California, where they will spend time at Cisco and other leading IT organizations apart from meeting with Cisco Chairman and CEO, John Chambers.

NetRiders is an annual competition held by the Cisco® Networking Academy®, a comprehensive e-learning program that enables students to develop valuable information and communications technology (ICT) skills for increased access to opportunities in the global economy. This year 196 Students from 26 Cisco Networking Academies across the country had participated in this competition.

Leveraging the network, students from across Cisco Networking Academies in India participated in the contest over Cisco's collaborative platform, Cisco WebEx^TM. The competition involved two levels of testing. The first level was a multiple-choice online examination, and the second, an online network configuration through a computer simulation test using Cisco Packet Tracer.

"NetRiders Challenge provides a global platform for students and alumni of Cisco Networking academies to showcase their IT Networking skills and gain visibility among talent recruiters in the growing ICT industry. Over the years, the competition has met with tremendous success with an ever-growing number of students participating from academies across the APAC region", said Bina Raj-Debur, Regional Head, Corporate Responsibility, Cisco India & SAARC.

"Through initiatives such as these, Cisco Networking Academy has made a positive impact on student's lives by encouraging career advancement, supporting the growth of the ICT industry and promoting sustainable economic development in the communities in which it operates", she added.

In India, there are around 196 Networking Academies that have instructed more than 50,146 students since inception. Last year 330 Students from 15 Academies across the country participated in the NetRiders competition to showcase their IT & Networking skills. Indo-German Institute of Advanced Technology, Visakhapatnam, won the India competition. Amrita School of Engineering, Bangalore, and Engineering College-Bikaner, Rajasthan were the 1st and 2nd runners up respectively.

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