* 50 teams from four Cisco academies participated

* Three winners from Sri Lanka Skills Competition to participate in SAARC Competition

New Delhi, India: Cisco®, the worldwide leader in networking and Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology (SLIIT) today organized the Third National Cisco Skills Competition in Sri Lanka.

The day-long competition saw participation of 150 students from 50 teams comprising of three students each from four Cisco networking academies.

The three winning teams from the SLIIT – Colombo (1st Place), SLIIT – Malabe (2nd Place) and SLIIT – Colombo (3rd Place) will represent Sri Lanka at the SAARC Skills Competition scheduled for end September and the winner will represent Sri Lanka at the APAC Skills Competition slated on October 28th 2010.

The competition was inaugurated by Dr. Lalith Gamage, Managing Director, SLIIT in the presence of Lokesh Mehra, Regional Manager-Corporate Responsibility, Cisco South Asia; Jagan Jothivel, Area Academy Manager, Cisco India and SAARC and Ananth BS, Technical Manager, Cisco SAARC. The Skills Competition comprised of three rounds which are Multiple Choice Networking related Questions followed by Packet Tracer Simulation Activities and finally troubleshooting. Such competitions help evaluate students’ skills in designing, maintaining and troubleshooting computer networks so as to ensure that the quality of training being provided to students is in line with the best in the world.

At the occasion, Lokesh Mehra, Regional Manager, Corporate Responsibility, South Asia said, “At Cisco, we continue to support local initiatives aimed at enhancing employability for students in the IT domain. National Skills Competition is one such platform which helps students evaluate their understanding in multiple areas such as troubleshooting, designing and maintaining computer networks. Over the years, the competition has met with tremendous success with an ever-growing number of students participating from across the country. Going forward, we plan to expand the outreach to include more colleges in our endeavor to take IT and networking education to students across India and provide them yet another avenue for technical and professional excellence.”

Commenting on the occasion, Lalith Gamage, Managing Director of SLIIT said, “National Skills Competition-Sri Lanka has received an extremely positive response from students and institutes alike. We are pleased to have partnered with Cisco in bringing the highest standards in technical education to our students. Competitions such as these are best suited to create a talent pool of skilled professionals. It is only by forging industry-academia partnerships such as this that any nation will be able to leverage its tremendous potential in the area of ICT.”

Sri Lankacurrently has 1300 enrolled students across five academies and overall 2100 students have been exposed to the Cisco curriculum since inception. The Cisco team, besides participating in the National Skills Competition has also conducted retooling and updates for existing academies offerings Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) and IT Essentials curriculum to students.

About Cisco: Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) is the worldwide leader in networking that transforms how people connect, communicate and collaborate. Information about Cisco can be found at http://www.cisco.com. For ongoing news, please go to http://newsroom.cisco.com. Cisco equipment in India is supplied by Cisco Systems International BV, a wholly owned subsidiary of Cisco Systems, Inc.