2024 departs and here we are in 2025. It has been an year full of events for me with a whole lot of learning, networking and getting out of my comfort zone.
Got invited to Juniper #MistFits. It was an absolute honor to be selected as a MistFit and be part of an elite technology experts.
NOTE: I had to resign from being part of the #MistFits because of a new job and conflict of interest.
About #MistFits:
The Juniper MistFits are a community of users and advocates of Juniper’s AI-Native Networking Platform. Members of this program are selected because of their contributions to the network industry and their high level of technical expertise.
Got nominated for the Wi-Fi Awards. This was very unexpected and I was surprised that I was nominated for this award. While I was not the winner, I’m great honored and appreciate to be one of the finalist. Most importantly the best reward is knowing that anything I write is helpful to my readers.
About The Wi-Fi Awards:
To recognize Companies, Individuals, and Products that demonstrate unique excellence and achievements with extraordinary contributions to the community. The Award Recipients exemplify the highest standards to promote and expand the wireless industry.
Attended WLPC 2024. If you are a wireless professional you must know about this highly anticipated conference each year. I was fortunate enough to attend the conference in 2023 and 2024 in Phoenix, AZ. If you haven’t been to one of these, I highly recommend attending it, it not only provides great value for the employees attending, but also employers sending their employees.
About The WLPC:
#WLPC is all about the people. Whether you’re just starting your career in WLAN technologies or you’ve been in the field for decades, we would love to see you at one of our upcoming events.
#WLPC is a vendor-neutral event, free of sales pitches, where Wi-Fi enthusiasts gather to discuss technology, share knowledge, and engage in one of the best tech communities in the world. Each event offers multiple ways to learn and grow your skills and knowledge through Boot Camps, Deep Dives, and Presentations, along with valuable connections and learning that happen over meals, drinks, and in the hallways. Source Link.
Worked on couple of couple of #CBRS #Private #LTE projects. Learning about the uses cases of Private LTE/5G, deploying them and seeing them in action has been a wonderful experience. I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to engage with some of these opportunities, get my CPI certification (NOTE: this is needed if you are planning on certifying the installs).
If you are looking to learn more about private cellular, I highly recommend some of these resources:
- Marko Does Wireless – Mark is a good friend and writes a wonderful blog Private Cellular, CBRS and other wireless technologies.
- Coursera CPI Course
- Federated Wireless
- CWNP – C5S Course
About CBRS:
In 2015, the Commission adopted rules for shared commercial use of the 3550-3700 MHz band (3.5 GHz band). The Commission established the Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) and created a three-tiered access and authorization framework to accommodate shared federal and non-federal use of the band. Rules governing the Citizens Broadband Radio Service are found in Part 96 of the Commission’s rules. Source Link
Attended the very first #NileNavigators session hosted by Nile. Excited and grateful to receive a special invite for this program from Nile. It was wonderful to be able to interact with the leadership team and the service owners along with other highly skilled engineers.
About Nile Navigators:
Nile Navigator is an invite-only program designed to engage and nurture hand-picked partner engineers from select partners and convert them into Nile champions and advocates.
Attended Mobility Field Day 11 – #MFD11. It has been amazing being part of the Tech Field Day Delegate community. This is an excellent way for vendors to answer real questions from seasoned delegates and engineers all around the world. If you are a vendor of technology products, or coming out of the stealth mode; I highly recommend giving Tom or Stephen a call to discuss your participation. I feel like this is a great event for vendors to showcase their best.
About Tech Field Day (Mobility Field Day):
Tech Field Day is a series of invite-only technical meetings between influencers and sponsoring enterprise IT companies. We refer to influencers as delegates and invite them from around the world. Companies share their products and innovations through presentations, demos, roundtables, and more. Source Link
I’m going to miss getting these, but thank you to the entire #TechFieldDay team. Honored to be a part of Tech Field Day as a delegate.
What do I see here #NFD #TFD, #MFD #TowersEdge #WiCo #Velaspan #PacketProtector. I am forgetting a few.
Attended Juniper AI Native Now Conference with buncha #MistFits in Vegas.
About Juniper AI Native Now:
Juniper Networks hosted a two day conference event to discuss roadmaps, technology innovations and collaborate with customers, partners and MistFits. This has been an yearly conference so far. However, with HPE acquiring Juniper, this may change.
Worked with Dawn Douglas to host and attend the first 2024 Wi-Co event in Chapel Hill, NC. It was a pleasure working with Dawn Douglas, who was absolutely phenomenal as the local lead of this event in making this happen. Special thanks to Melissa Rowland helping us setup everything.
About Wi-Co:
Wi-Co, short for Wireless Community, is the brainchild of Peter Mackenzie and Alan Blake, on a mission to make the Wireless Community party like it’s 1999 (but without the B rates).
Their strategy? Well, it’s all about “bringing the herd together” by organizing Affordable, Accessible, Local Events, all over the world, where knowledge is shared.
Attended HPE Discover 2024 in Vegas, and made a cameo at the Networking Field Day Exclusive at HPE Discover (Thanks Tom for the invite). It is always awesome meeting tech friends, discuss technology, learn about the new technology and have fun. I also decided to sit through the new Aruba ACA cert and ended up passing it. Can’t forget about finally getting to see the Sphere and experience the inside. Although I did not have a good seat, but it was still an amazing experience.
About HPE Discover:
HPE Discover is a technology showcase event for business and government customers hosted by Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE). The event features, technical talks, learning, road maps etc.
Deployed my first Nile Solution. Read more details here. I’ve been part of the Nile Navigators program for quiet some time and been involved with Nile in some capacity since they came out of the stealth mode.
About Nile:
To achieve an invisible network, strip away legacy complexity to lighten the system. Employ a unified data approach within a predictable design. Integrate AI to automate to near-autonomy. Employ uncompromising zero trust security.
This creates a self-sufficient network that liberates IT from daily oversight—the core of Nile. Source Link
Worked with Eva Santos to host and attend the first Wi-Co DC 2024 event. Eva Santos was leading the event and did an incredible job with promoting and organizing the event. It was an absolute pleasure working with her.
Keep an eye out for 2025 Wi-Co event and join the mailing list/slack channel. If you are a vendor and looking to find out more about sponsorship opportunities reach out.
I have been involved with Nile since they came out of the stealth mode few years ago. My first introduction to Nile was through Todd Ellison, who’s been a wonderful leader and mentor. Back in July, I was on my way to SJC to do a #CBRS deployment. Right before boarding the plane I met Suresh Katukam (Co-founder and Chief Product Officer at Nile), we exchanged some quick conversations. Next day after I finished my project I met Suresh for dinner and we must have talked for two or three hours about Nile and the thought process behind different things. It was a very refreshing conversation and I learned a lot.
Few months later an opportunity presented itself as Nile was looking for a Solutions Architect for the South East region. Long story short with lots of conversations, discussions, alignments I ended up doing something that I never thought I would do (yup, never thought I’d ever end up working for a vendor). I’m certainly thankful to everyone who has been part of my career journey, gave me advice, help me learn and push myself and get better. But with every chapter it is a new start because what I feel is, “More you learn, less you know”.
What’s in 2025?
Goals, goals, goals. 2025 is here and usually new year brings new goals. As I was reading through my peers posting about their goals my mind was thinking of my own. I ended up with so many that I got overwhelmed and the sense of I’m not doing enough took over. There are goals related to career and goals that are personal, it seems like there is never enough time to accomplish each and everyone of them. If one is not careful, this can very easily lead to more stress and depression so don’t let it.
With my mind all over the place while also trying to keep up with learning a whole bunch of new stuff, I ran into this post from Rowell Dionicio – 5 Lessons Learned in 2024 & Goals for 2025 and it really helped me realign my thoughts and priorities. My top priority as Rowell puts it in his post, “Taking care of myself, my health”. Because, guess what if I don’t, no one else will and if there is no health and I don’t care of myself none of the other stuff will matter.
So yes, I want to take care of myself first; and I have been doing some of it already, but would like more focus in 2025. Eat healthier, work out more consistently, roller blades, ice skating are couple of activities I’ve gotten into with my son. I’d like to get better at it. More hiking trips, staying on top of yearly checkup with the doctor.
I also would like to do more activities with family and friends. Learn more about outdoor survival activities, camping etc and teach my kids. Hopefully, I can travel more this year.
After that, my top two priorities are learning more about public speaking and presentations and getting better at it. One of the things I have learned is that as your role changes, how and what you present also changes. This is also an art and conversation/speaking skills are crucial even in the world of AI.
Professionally, I need to work on some recertifications, just need to figure out which ones I need to focus on or do I even need to. CWISE is something I have been targeting may be this is the year should I focus on that instead? I’d like to learn more Python and automation by taking a proper course, considering Nile focuses on ML/AI and closed-loop automation I am thinking I may prioritize as follows:
- Automation, Git, APIs etc
- Learn more Palo Alto
- Recertifications
- Finish Wi-Fi 7 in Depth Book
- CWISE (may work on this next year if I don’t get to it)
Lastly, learn how to drive a stick shift and get a ham radio license. Well if you made it all the way here and read all this, thank you, feel free to share your thoughts and feedback.
I wish everyone a happy, healthy and success year, don’t forget to be kind.