Eight-year old Shafay Thobani becomes youngest Microsoft Certified Specialist

KARACHI: Following in the footsteps of the late Arfa Karim, 8-year old Shafay Thobani has become the world’s youngest Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS).

To celebrate his achievement, a party was arranged in his honour at a local hotel here.

Shafay was awarded with a Microsoft Specialization Certificate on April 9, this year.

Born on March 13, 2004, Shafay developed interested in computers at a very early age.

On April 9, 2012, Shafay appeared in the Prometric test and secured 91 per cent, which makes him the world’s youngest MCTS at the age of eight years and 24 days.

Shafay is a certified professional in Microsoft Windows 7 Configuration and Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2. He remained under training of Microsoft certified trainers for 13 months before his certification.

His trainer Faisal Durrani said he decided to instruct the youngster with easy examples as it was a challenge to teach complicated concepts such as Domain Name System (DNS) and Internet Protocol (IP) address to an 8-year old.

According to Shafay's father Dr. Shah Thobani, Shafay liked network and communication programming, and added, “He has already completed 65 per cent of Microsoft Hyper-V virtualization too.”

Shafay was born in 2004, the same year Arfa was declared the world’s youngest Microsoft Certified Professional at the age of nine.

Remembering Arfa, she was an inspiration for Pakistan and it is hoped that that the young Shafay, too, would be a role model for other children.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2012