Arfa Karim Randhawa meets Bill and is given a tour of Redmond.
Arfa Karim Randhawa, aged 10, has become the youngest person to be certified as a Microsoft engineer. Randhawa passed her Microsoft Certified Professional examinations last year. She met Bill Gates this week and was taken on a tour of Microsoft's Redmond campus.
The 10 year-old, from Faisalabad in Pakistan, asked Gates why children were not allowed to work for Microsoft and was told that they should concentrate on their school studies.
But he explained that Microsoft has an intern programme which would be available to her once she reached high school level. Randhawa also asked why there are so few women in the company, suggesting that Microsoft should have an equal number of men and women.
Gates replied that it is sometimes difficult to get women interested in technology.
News source: vnunet.com
Arfa Karim Randhawa, aged 10, has become the youngest person to be certified as a Microsoft engineer. Randhawa passed her Microsoft Certified Professional examinations last year. She met Bill Gates this week and was taken on a tour of Microsoft's Redmond campus.
The 10 year-old, from Faisalabad in Pakistan, asked Gates why children were not allowed to work for Microsoft and was told that they should concentrate on their school studies.
But he explained that Microsoft has an intern programme which would be available to her once she reached high school level. Randhawa also asked why there are so few women in the company, suggesting that Microsoft should have an equal number of men and women.
Gates replied that it is sometimes difficult to get women interested in technology.
News source: vnunet.com
Thanks to Radish™ for his Back Page News Submission
If she had a normal childhood, I doubt she would have even heard of programming at that age...
This pic is with Clemens Vasters (RD) with Arfa
i want to..
Unless it's (put girls favorite colour here)
j/k
Fair play to her, someone send her an invite to join neowin.
Likewise for firefighters. Strength ratios are sexist.
(vice versa too, if 95% of my workforce is women and the woman applying is better than the man, I'll hire the woman anyday)
Sexist my ass.
I agree with what you said wholeheartedly... it's nonsensical to demand that a certain number of employees meet an arbitrary characteristic like race or gender; all that should matter in the WORKPLACE is the ability to do the WORK. The same statement can apply to affirmative action in colleges. And yet, despite the intentional absurdity of my post, it wasn't all that dissimilar to the kinds of radical gender-feminism statements made seriously.
THAT'S scary.
Lucky girl though, I'm sure she will do well
I mean, congratz to the girl. I'm sure she will do great things when she becomes a real engineer, but passing a technician exam is hardly grounds to be called an "Engineer." I was at the Hilton hotel the other day for a weddings reception, and the sink in the bathroom was out with the note "Sink is out, Hilton Engineering."
BTW, the story is incorrect in that she did not recieve any certification with the word "engineer" in it. She passed the MCAD cert.
I am impressed they can even boot a PC up
That's why he was impressed.
It's kind of insulting to the current Employees I would Imagine. "YOU ARE JUST AS GOOD AS A TEN YEAR OLD GIRL!"
@hotdog963al, take the SQL Server exam and tell me how easy it was.
I wonder if Arfa took the SQL exam. I'd be very impressed if she did and passed it. One of the finest DB developers I know said it was hard(he did pass, though).
just coz shes gna b in microsoft at 10 years of ages doesnt mean shes insanely smart, it could also mean microsoft are insanely desperate :p
She just happened to pass some multiple choice tests and get a piece of paper saying she's certified. I doubt she would be able to execute any of the real world used knowledge if put into a corporate IT situation. They don't teach you how to deal with corporate BS either on the MCSE.
i dont believe people should be pushed that early in life
In the current system, everyone who wants to learn and do something with themselves has to suffer being treated like an idiot for 12 long years (not because they are stupid but because the teachers refuse to teach at a decent rate) when they could learn everything they need to learn before going to college in 6 years and then go to college so they'll be able to do something with themselves sooner in life. Just my 2 cents.
I think the teachers should be people who have gone through at least some 10 years of some kind of teacher requirement classes and so forth, that way they have all this knowledge that they can pass on and some kind or small child psycology courses should be a requirement for any teacher. I mean come on beside from parents these teachers are the ones reasing our kids.
my .02
Pakistan must have lower standards.
http://www.imagineeringezine.com/e-zine/whatpe.html
http://www.tbpe.state.tx.us/lic.htm
All 50 states require PE certification. It looks like roadwarrior just got PWNED!
Note, this is NOT what the girl passed, she passed the MCAD (Microsoft Certified Applications Developer)
I agree totally that MS is trying to water down the meaning of the term Engineer. Just one more thing I don't like about them.
The P.Eng qualification applies to MANY branches of engineering, note a few "non-building" services:
Biological Engineer
Chemical Engineer
Software Engineer
Water Engineer
Environmental Engineer
many others as well.
I'm currently working and on overview for 48 months to receive my P.Eng after doing my undergrad in Engineering Systems and Computing.
While people still do call themselves engineers without being a certified, professional engineer, the bottom line is that they do not have the qualifications to work under that title, or call their work "Engineering" in the professional sense, as microsoft portrays it. (However, the word engineering is common, and can be used to describe something as little as "cobbling together" )
Would you let someone who is a certified public speaker, call themselves a Lawyer? A person who works a cash register an Accountant? Someone with first aid, a Medical Doctor?
I hope you get the point.
Engineers work incredibly hard, and face rigorous and strict guidelines set out by provincial/national/international engineering councils. When someone who is not restricted buy these regulations, and haven't put in the same amount of work wants to use the same distinction for themselves and their work, it discredits the sanctity of Engineering.
Thank you
J/K
i am pakistani and only 15 years old,, you can see pic in my avatar ,,,and i've done (RHCT,MCSE,CCNP,LPC)
Pakistani are very talented ............
and they are quite dangerous as we saw in london
The moral of the story is that when you're in a competitive society, knowing more at a young age isn't as special as knowing that much in a very lax culture. All humans of all races, creeds, and nationalities have the *ability* to gain whatever certification this girl did, but only those who have a real reason to reach proverbially higher ever do. Typically, it's out of need, not want.
Anyway, I think the focus should not be on appling pressure to students but more so on giving students the oppitunity to learn as quickly as they'd like to rather than force them to learn at the absurdly slow pace our school system forces them to learn at. If anyone is wondering what I mean when I refer to our school system, I'll clarify it now. I'm referring to the private schools. I don't want to even begin with the public schools.
What I was trying to say was that the reason FOR the intelligence is because of the pressure TO be intelligent. It's not like Japanese children understand mathematics as soon as they're born; the Japanese education system is designed to educate children better, quicker. This ensures proficiency with rudimentary IQ-test skills as well as historical dates, math formulas, etcetera.
And regarding the second part... aren't private schools *designed* to be more complex and flexible for more 'interested' students than the public schools are? In any case, you're correct in the fact that US public schools are incredible failures when it comes to things like "educating" or "teaching".
The reason for their intelligence is more genetics than anything else but no matter how intelligent they are, their intelligence is useless without an education. Japan's education system provides that necessary education and the competition simply enhances it. However Japan's education system doesn't make the Japanese intelligent, unless you consider intelligence to be what a person is saying or doing rather than what a person is thinking. On such a scale, Albert Einstein would be considered an idiot in grammar school even through he was more intelligent than any of his classmates.
The better private schools are years ahead of the public schools but from my own experience, it isn't enough.
Standards compared to what? Who are you to say who's childhood is better? If anything I'd say Africa is having a harder time than pakistan.
Apparently they're not very talented when it comes to writing news comments at Neowin, though.
The boy is 15! First, ease up! Second, he has great certifications for his age, lives in pakistan, and can type in ALMOST perfect english, yet you need to chastise him because you can't just read between the minute mistakes? Grow up.
Every race is talented, not just urs
and they are quite dangerous as we saw in london
First off, the terrorists in london weren't from pakistan, that has been proven.
Second of all, even if they were, that's a ridiculously racist statement. Get the hell off the internet.
I don't know about everyone else but I know that I would have loved to have known as much as she does about computer programming when I was her age.
Ideally, they give children an healthy appreciation for physical fitness and a working understanding of competition. It doesn't always work out that way, though.
I do agree that knowledge and creativity are just as important (and probably moreso), though.
You people are mind blowing.