World's youngest MCP (Microsoft Certified Professional)

World's youngest MCP (Microsoft Certified Professional)

S.Somasegar

13 Jul 2005 9:55 PM

Comments 88

With every new generation, you see people achieving great successes and accomplishments at an earlier age than the previous generations. This is a natural part of evolution and also partly due to technological advances that enable people to access information and get exposed to different kinds of opportunities earlier in their lives. You might have read about the 9-year old wonder kid from Pakistan, who recently became the world’s youngest MCP (Microsoft Certified Professional).

I got a chance to meet with this wonder kid – Arfa Karim Randhawa earlier this week. She is a 5^th grader who visited us at Microsoft for a few days along with her father. I had a lot of fun in meeting Arfa and getting a chance to understand what motivated her to strive for such an accomplishment at such a young age. She definitely has some clear ideas about the kinds of scenarios she envisions technology can enable in the future.

My hats off to Arfa’s parents for nurturing her passion and talent and providing her with opportunities to learn and excel. I wish Arfa all the very best in her life and hope that her passion for learning and more importantly “dreaming big” enables her to do great things in her life.

Namaste!

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Anonymous

14 Jul 2005 2:17 AM

When opening article from http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2005/may05/05-02YoungMCP.mspx, it is deleted.
Adnan

14 Jul 2005 2:27 AM

Hello

would you like to share things you discussed with this young lady,I as a Pakistani definately feel proud on this girl,this girl is just another example of talent present in subcontinent,less resource,not good education infrastructure and still doing best in their respective fields

I wonder if we people are provided facilities like given to US or other countries,we won`t take time to be on top

regards

-adnan
S.Somasegar

14 Jul 2005 3:49 AM

Hi Adnan,

In general we talked about

a) what prompted her to get excited about technology and computers at such a young age - her dad bought a computer mainly for email purposes that she started using. In addition there were a couple of senior students in her school who apparently noticed her interest and took her under their wings and spent time encouraging him and guiding her along the way.

b) what she wants to do as she grows up - she would love to study at Harvard, work in a company like Microsoft and go back to Pakistan to do technology innovations in the field of satellite engineering.

c) she articulated some of her ideas about how auto-nagivation of automobiles is possible, how we need to strive to have equal numbers of women in high technology engineering, etc.

All in all, a very interesting conversation and sometimes you forget that you are talking to a 9-year old girl given the depth of the conversation and the breadth of things that she is aware of.

- somasegar
Basharat Ali Sheikh

14 Jul 2005 10:22 PM

I am so proud of this little genius that I printed out this article from Microsoft Pakistan’s website and put it on outside my cubicle, so everyone in my office can know about her achievement.

Just curious that which paper she passed to become an MCP?

Arfa is really an encouragement and initiation for all of us, my daughter is only 3 yet, I wish she breake this record :)

Anonymous: You can get this article at Microsoft Pakistan’s url: -
http://www.microsoft.com/middleeast/pakistan/Communities/arfakarim.aspx

Regards

Basharat Ali Sheikh
Toronto - Canada.
nsnboy

15 Jul 2005 2:28 AM

really? What a clever Girl!
Sepia Mutiny

15 Jul 2005 1:02 PM

Faisalabad, Pakistan,&nbsp;the ancestral home of one of the London bombers, has a happier event to be remembered by. Meet Arfa Karim, a 10-year-old from that city who at age nine became the youngest person ever to&nbsp;pass a Microsoft certification exam in programming (via Slashdot): Sitting down for a personal meeting with Bill Gates this week, 10-year-old Arfa Karim Randhawa asked the Microsoft founder why the company doesn&#8217;t hire people her age&#8230; She has created basic Windows applications, such as a calculator and a sorting program, primarily in the C# programming language&#8230; The institute instructors assumed it would take Arfa about a year to go through the process of certification for developing Windows applications. But after four months&#8230; she passed the required exams&#8230;. &#8220;I saw her doing something extraordinary, making presentations,&#8221; said her father, Amjad Karim, who serves with a U.N. peacekeeping force in Africa and came with his daughter to Microsoft this week&#8230; he first noticed something unusual when she started displaying a remarkable memory, perhaps photographic, at a young age&#8230; Later in the afternoon, she sat outside with S. &#8220;Soma&#8221; Somasegar, a Microsoft corporate vice president, and described her vision for a self-navigating car. He listened to her ideas and told her about some of Microsoft&#8217;s existing software for cars. [Link] Karim wants to be a satellite engineer or a software developer. But she has stiff competition in Mridul Seth&nbsp;of Bangalore, who at age eight became the youngest to pass the Microsoft system admin exam. Somasegar blogged their meeting here. Related post here....
Somasegar's WebLog

15 Jul 2005 2:50 PM

&nbsp;
I blogged the other day about Arfa, who became a MCP when she was just 9 years old.
&nbsp; ...
Adnan Siddiqi

15 Jul 2005 4:34 PM

I have been reading about Arfa`s these days,whether its on Slashdot&nbsp;or on MS blogs. i got an online...
prakash

16 Jul 2005 1:18 AM

hats off to the girl.,

Now a days., ppl at very little age has proved something unusual and itz quite surprising us.

In India,(Tamil nadu), a boy has achieved similar milestones. read on

www.akce.ac.in/chandrasekar.html

http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/2002/10/29/stories/2002102902090500.htm
anonymous

17 Jul 2005 7:58 PM

three cheers for arfa karim .... amazing achievement ~!~!
anonymous

17 Jul 2005 10:49 PM

Good to know that there are still some sensible pakistanis left who divert their energy into creative pursuits instead of crossing over into India and wreaking havoc !
Anonymous

17 Jul 2005 10:54 PM

And why is it that Microsoft did not invite Chandrasekar, the 9 year old who became a MCP in '99 to Redmond ? (Source : http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/2002/10/29/stories/2002102902090500.htm )

Was this girl invited because she's a Paki ?
Anonymous

18 Jul 2005 9:41 AM

As far as Chandrasekar is concerned, you should point it to concerned official at Microsoft. But it doesn't give you a right to use bad names for a country. Try to do achieve something yourself instead of shedding your frustrations here.
PakiHater

18 Jul 2005 10:22 AM

Hey Paki .... Crawl back to your country !
Zeeshan

18 Jul 2005 8:59 PM

Hi Indian,
Usually world media doesn't take serious these stories from india.Bcz i was amazed to see a news item in which a guy from india claimed to have won a competetion exam of NASA.This guy was promoted as a hero in the whole world until NASA people had to explain in a press conference that there is no such exam existing.I hope in this case Chandrasekar is either not existing or not recognized by microsoft as a MCP because he might have been caught cheating....?
Hey indi...mindi...Your country have even borrowed its name from Indus river of Pakistan.You are indian because of Pakistan.RESPECT....us.