Its been a long time since I worked on a new personal project. I created RouterGeek.net back in 2005 and it had hit success a few months later. I worked on updating it for a few years, then I got busy with my PhD. and ended up turning the website into a small book that was published by Springer in 2012. Since then, I have been busy moving around from one country to another (one of the byproducts of being Iraqi).
A few weeks ago, the idea hit me. What is my favorite thing? Teaching, and passing knowledge to other people. Most of my academic interests are too complicated and might not be interesting to a large audience. I decided to go to a non-academic knowledge passing; certifications. Industrial certifications in the field of Information Technology are growing into a necessity for professionals and job seekers. So, my question was “How can I help?”.
I decided to create a website that talks to certification seekers in a simple way, explaining to them what the exam is all about. Not only by my own words, but using their own words. Eliminating all the big terms and complexity of exam description by experts. The idea is simple. Hear what other people think about the certification exam. What is this exam about? How did others achieve their goals? How did the exam change their lives? What is next?
When you, as a certification seeker, hear these words coming from the mouth of a fellow regular person in a simple language, it takes away your fear and clarifies ambiguities of this exam. I thought that this is a good idea and for me as person who had many certification exams, I believed that this can help me a lot.
So, I started a website called Certifications.Reviews. The website is designed to serve as a platform for certifications takers and seekers to exchange important information and tips.
After settling on the main idea, I was thinking that I should spice up the idea a little. I kept thinking, as a certification seeker, what do I need? The answer was a time table!
So, I sat down and developed a simple algorithm to create time tables on-demand. I put together a small application and a server to host it. The application lets you select the certification vendor, certification, the book that you are using, and the number of hours you plan to study per day. Voala..a time table is generated. I kept adding books to the time table database which now carries 30+ books in different specializations.
So many more ideas are going to be added to the site gradually. Joggling an academic job with a new project is not that easy, apparently. Stay tuned! there is much more to come!