CCIE Routing & Switching with 15+ years of experience in Computer Networking Topics

Find out more about Manas

• Can you tell us about your first experience using a computer?

  I remember the first time I used a computer. It was at my uncle's house and I was 12 years old, It was an old Pentium II machine with 16MB of RAM, but it was the most amazing thing I had ever seen.
  
  I was immediately drawn to the game Prince of Persia. I had never seen graphics so realistic before. The way the prince moved and jumped was so fluid and graceful. I was completely immersed in the game world.
  
  I played for hours that day, and I didn't want to stop. I had finally found something that I was truly passionate about. They sparked a lifelong love of technology that has shaped my entire life.
  
  I still remember the excitement and wonder I felt that day. It was a truly magical experience.
  
  I was so excited to learn everything I could about computers. I would spend hours reading books and magazines about them. I would even take apart my computer and try to figure out how it worked.
  
  My love of computers led me to pursue a career in technology. I now work as a Network engineer, and I love my job. I get to use my skills to create new and innovative things.
  
  I am grateful for the day I first used a computer. It was a day that changed my life forever.

• What is the technological evolution that has marked you most and what will be, in your eyes, a turning point in this field?

  A recent technological innovation that has completely transformed the industry in the last 10 years is virtualization and the emergence of public cloud providers like Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google GCP. The idea of being able to take large pieces of powerful technology and then slicing it up into smaller pieces for consumption of smaller entities is revolutionary. Public cloud providers took this idea to the next level by providing a playing field that made it possible for anybody with an idea and a few thousand dollars to come up with innovative concepts and have it take off and become huge companies today. More than the big giants like Apple, Samsung and Adobe using the cloud providers like AWS and Azure - the fascinating is that smaller startup type companies are able to create and compete at a reasonable scale all thanks to the public clouds.
  
  Examples of this would be companies like AirBnB, Canva and pinterest as all of them have grown with the power of the public cloud.

• Explain your expertise, your interest in it and, more broadly, its importance in the computer world.

  I am a senior network engineer with over 15 years of experience in the technology industry. I started my career as an engineer out of university and have since worked my way up to managing a team of engineers based in ANZ. I have also had a short stint at Amazon working on AWS and hence have exposure to that world as well. I love computer networking because it's a technology that is going to be even more critical in the years to come as everything is now running across the internet and networks play a crucial role in that space. It's also ever-evolving constantly challenging engineers to keep up with learning and growing.
  
  One of the key parts of my role over the years has been to train and skill up newer engineers who come into the Networking industry. I find this greatly satisfying and its great to fill the gaps left by the traditional education from universities and fill in the understanding in peoples minds about why a certain technology exists and how we can go ahead and make something work.

• Do so-called 'visionaries', such as Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg inspire you or do you have other role models?

  I believe that you should definitely take inspiration from leaders in different industries and including including but not limited to the above. But at the same time, I believe that it is the actions that someone like Bill Games, Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg takes that should inspire us. Not the people themselves. All of the above have done things as people which either wasn't the best thing for their companies or they did were not the best versions of themselves to the world. If the let the best things that different leaders do inspire us, we will find that our lives are filled positivity and an energy that will let you go to the next phase and stage of your life.

• What would you say to an uncomfortable person in front of a screen who says that "IT is too complicated"?

  I don't think its a wrong sentiment for someone to have that IT is complicated. Not all of us need to Create IT, Troubleshoot IT or innovate in IT. For the vast majority of the world, all we need is for people to be able to use IT. And that different pieces of technology are easy to understand and use is not the responsibility of the user but that of the manufacturer or creator.
  
  IT is definitely a part of all of our lives now but there is as much effort going into making technology simpler, more accessible and have better user interfaces as creating new features. :)

• What are your other passions, related or non-related to computers?

  I don't have a lot of creative artistic ability in the traditional sense - I can't sing, paint, write music etc :) I am most creative with food. I love creating and cooking and eating and feeding different types of food from all over the world. Now that I live in Sydney, I have access to global ingredients and excellent resources to be able to create anything as far as food in concerned from a Neapolitan Pizza to a Thai Jungle curry :)
  
  Besides this, a lot of my hobbies revolve around gadgets and technology. I love making IoT changes to my house and creating meaningful additions to what I use at home. I also am an avid gamer on all platforms including Playstation, Xbox, Nintendo and Meta.
  
  I also am a huge fan of world cinema and love watching movies in different languages. This led to smart a small collection of 4K bluray movies in the last couple years as physical media can do things to Audio quality which simply cannot be matched by streaming platforms like Netflix.