Meet Shafay Thobani, The Youngest Microsoft Certified Tech. IT Specialist

KARACHI: Shafay Thobani, an eight-year-old child has won the honour of being the world’s youngest Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist, Geo News reported.

Born on March 13, 2004, Shafay grew interested in computers ever since he was a baby.

On April 9, 2012, Shafay appeared in the Prometric test and secured 91 per cent marks, thus making him the world’s youngest Microsoft Certified Training Specialist (MCTS) at the age of eight years and 24 days.

The young man is certified professional in Microsoft Windows 7 Configuration and Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2. Before appearing in the exam, he remained under training of Microsoft certified trainers for
13 months.

His trainer Faisal Durrani said it was a challenge for him to teach complicated concepts such as Domain Name System (DNS) and Internet Protocol (IP) address to a child as young as Shafay. “So we split the 40-hour course designed for grown-up IT specialists into 13 months for the child. We taught him by giving him easy examples in order to grasp the concepts. Teaching him for three to four hours everyday, we would also allow him breaks to let him be the normal kid that he is, swimming, playing football or rollerblading,” said Mr Durrani.

Speaking of the boy’s main areas of interest, Shafay’s father Dr. Shah Thobani said he liked network and communication programming. “He has already completed 65 per cent of Microsoft Hyper-V virtualization, too,” he added.

“Shafay was born in 2004, the same year Arfa was declared the world’s youngest Microsoft Certified Professional at the age of nine. Arfa was an inspiration for us and I hope that Shafay, too, would be a role model for more children to show their tremendous achievements,” Dr Thobani said.

Shafay said, “I am proud of myself and I will work for Pakistan in any

In 2008, a 9-year-old girl from India achieved certification and reports surfaced that she was the youngest. Another girl who was from Pakistan -- and sadly passed away in January at the age of 16 -- had been certified in 2005 when she was 9 years old.

New record or not, Shafay notes on his website that his life dreams include helping the poor people of his country, and meeting Bill Gates. He is also open to being hired as a consultant.

Shafay said, “I am proud of myself and I will work for Pakistan in any way possible.”