Twelve years old, JSS 3 Nigerian boy, Nyemahame Allwell Worgu has equalled a record set by another 12 years old Pakistani girl in mastering the Sun's Java program.

In 2001, the Pakistani girl, Afsah Shafqat ventured into writing Sun's Certified Programmer for Java 2 Platform 1.4 certification exam, a version of Java basically designed for programmers experienced in using the basic syntax and structure of the Java programming language.

http://odili.net/news/source/2007/jan/28/23.html

This is pretty impressive. If more young Nigerians can look in this direction, the future of Nigeria's IT sector will be bright.

What do you guys think?

Lord knows I wish the dude well. More importantly though, I wish it goes beyond the certification. It is one thing to get certified. It is another to apply this certification on either a job or a personal venture.

In some countries, such a kid would have been picked up by some corporation and given a scholarship or sent to a school for talented kids where his talent would be groomed.

Let's see what the future holds for this kid.

d guy z a guru dem, java no easy and 4 him 2 b certified at 12 na blessing.

Certification is nothing . he could have achieved it my downloading brain dumps and mastering it 4 d exam. if he developed a world class software then i knw he is a genius

Candylips

My friend, don't you see the bigger picture -- getting a certification is really nothing special, but the motivation at that young age is what's fascinating. obviously if he his patient and determined enough to read for the exam, and pass it, learning how to code should n't be much of a challenge.

i'm 14 and i'm into programming and i would be less jealous if I met him.

mactao -

keep up the programming enthusiasm -- the future is bright

Certification may be nothing, but achiieving it at 12 years old is definitely something. I read on javaranch that another 12 year old or so from India achieved the same thing. Lets not undermine what the guy has achieved at his age. He si definitely at a different level, compared to most other 12 year olds. After all, a lot of professional developers study for this exam and still do not pass the thing.

My opinion about certifications

Certification to me is ok but not everyone needs to take the certification exams. Thousands or millions of people take certifications of different technologies yearly and very large proportion of those people pass the exams.

Why would I want to prove my knowledge about a technology to someone else who really doesnt care about me but just doing his job when asked to find someone to fill a position by taking a standardized test?

Individual knowledge and intellect is relative. I do believe once any one has study materials for certification he/she should be able to make a passing grade.

Only I know what my strengths and weaknesses are in relation to IT.

Primary skill/knowledge required
Networking certification = OSI model
Microsoft = Excellent troubleshooting and developmental skills (thanks to buggy programmers)
Database = Data Modeling, transformation, and transactions.


Certification today is just like taking SAT, GRE, GMAT exams. Once u study hard enough you will understand and pass the exam (hopefully if you are not drunk or delirious on that day).

Putting this in perspective. If there are millions of newbies entering into IT and are taking the exams and passing, what gives an employer the confidence such individual will be knowledgeable enough to complete assigned tasks? Definitely there will be exceptions and those exceptions will perform very well.


I don't like the notion of encouraging people to get certified just to prove their skills on paper to some body who may not even know jack.

If I have an IT company, and I am looking for employees, depending on the technologies required. All i ihave to do is give you sample problems and solve the problems based on the information provided on the persons resume (of course).



Just my advice or opinion. Before taking any certification, research on how difficult it will be to get a good job without certification, see if the money invested in taking the certifcation can be used to improve your skills either by buying more books to study or softwares or just collaborating with people.

If anyone is looking into improving their skills or creating a track of what they have done or participated in, look into open source application eg sourceforge.net look for projects that interests u and contribute, you can write codes, create translation documents, assists in debugging.

Contributing to open source application definitely gives u more leverage in collaboration and group work instead of paying hundreds of dollars to a freaking corporation who really doesnt care about you but their products


after you have taking the certification exams, well guess what, you will still have to look for the job and go in for interviews, so now you will be back in the mix of people without experience (newbies), people with experience, and people who are just testing the waters of IT

candylips give the young guy some props now.

I mean at 12 he passed a certification. Men i no fit remember wetin i dey do at 12 (I cant remmember what i was doing at 12). Certification is really nothing, im not mcsc, but i have helped mcscs out in troubleshooting systems before and i found out that they didnt really have the hands on stuff. All they did was cram and pass the exam.

like cactus said, it jobs should be given to people whos know the practical stuff. i mean if im going for an IT interview, i should be given the technology of my strenght to work with and solve a small problem with itl. if under durex you can just do something close to solving the problem, it means you should be given a chance.

The question that should be asked in IT intervies is What Can You Do, and not what certification do you have.

Allwell, who is also part of the six Nigerians to represent the country at the upcoming Computer Olympiad holding in Romania, also bared his mind on issues affecting Nigeria as a nation, urging youths to always take a chance.

What upcoming Computer Olympiad are they talking about? And what Romania?

There is International Olympiad in Informatics taking place in Zagreb, Croatia later in the year.

Are they talking of IOI or some other event? Anyone?

It's really great that a 12 year old Nigerian has achieved this. Like someone said, it is one thing to get certified and it is another thing to apply the knowledge. I wish him well.

I believe Nigerians have the brains, what we lack is opportunity. Given ample opportunity, I believe it would be quite easy for many more young people to achieve this sort of feat based on the potentials of many young programmers I have seen.

It is ideal that a corporate body sponsors this guy, or at leasts encourages him/her in any possible way.

This is some remarkable feat. Braindumps or not, it's remarkable. I just hope the Nigerian IT atmosphere will be favourable enough such that when he's older, he'll be able to contribute his quota. Such lads usually end up abroad helping to develop another country. Hope we won't lose this one to Brain Drain.

Its quite nice and i am really proud of that Fella. He actually was challenged with info he gathered about a girl of similar age too that was certified. But, friend its an Old news. Over three months now.

@Coleslove
Its not old news to those of us who didn't see it at the time.


@Topic
We should all rejoice that a 12yr old Nigerian has achieved this feat.

candylips said:
"Certification is nothing . he could have achieved it my downloading brain dumps and mastering it 4 d exam. if he developed a world class software then i knw he is a genius"
Give the kid a break, he's only 12yrs. Lets wait and see if he's the next Bill Gates. On a lighter note, did you get your certification at age Ten?

Tornadoz:

@Coleslove
Its not old news to those of us who didn't see it at the time.

Nevermind, just felt we should have latests infos. That is been realtime Up-to-date.

Pls i'll advice everyone who tinks wat Allwell achieved is not a big deal to go and read the entire article. The young man has the trappings of a genius.
How many of u gat bearing at dat age?

The kid is clearly clever.

what happened to all those noise about gifted kids school??

All the best to the whiz-kid

I.T. firms should come all out to take him to the next level of xcelence. at this stage, he shold not be seen as an individual but as a Nijirian whose suceess would be OUR suceess as Nigerians.
I believe he has sometin in him that could be tapped into.



Odebode Olumide Kelvin

Hey
If things work out well for this guy, I think it's just false high hopes that make us think that he's going to stick around in Nigeria and try to develop things when this USA company is offering him thrice the pay and three times better working conditions.
Talk to your government.