It has been an eventful week for Jordan's information technology strategy: In the span of seven days, Sun Microsystems and Cisco Systems promoted two local universities to regional training and certification centers, while Microsoft was to formally announce Sunday the opening of its office in Amman, Jordan Times reported Monday.
After Sun and the Princess Sumaya University College for Technology signed a deal on Tuesday for the region's first authorized Java certification center, Cisco — the company with whose equipment 80 percent of the Internet was built — established Sunday its Networking Academy Program at Yarmouk University, in Irbid, the paper said.
Yarmouk University was also chosen as a regional academy, meaning that, in line with its deal with Cisco, it is now expected to recruit, train and support other colleges and schools in the Levant in extending Cisco's technical training to their students.
“The Cisco Networking Academy Program (CNAP) is a platform,” CNAP Manager for the Middle East Maroun Naser explained at a press conference on Sunday.
Launched in 1997, the program is now taught at 6,300 academies in more than 100 countries — including some Gulf countries and Lebanon.
According to the daily, it is structured into an eight-semester/560-hour course for students and in-transition workers on how to design, build and maintain computer networks.
The national strategy for the development of the IT sector, launched in summer 1999, hopes to create 30,000 new jobs, attract $150 million in foreign investment, and total $550 million in IT exports by 2004.
In the past two years, the sector has grown three-fold — from $60 million to $177 million. In the past 18 months, it has attracted more than $70 million in investments, and it currently employs 3,000 people.
At Yarmouk, Cisco will provide the networking laboratory infrastructure, coursework and training for lecturers.
Two academics will be sent to the Cisco Academy Training Centre in Birmingham, UK, to attend two sets of training sessions and be certified as Networking Academy trainers, it added – Albawaba.com
