Havana, Cuba.- Education and technology are fundamental for countries to prosper in an increasingly interconnected world, said Laura Quintana, Vice President of Corporate Affairs at Cisco, when inaugurating the first academy of its kind in Cuba.

Our contribution as an industry is to promote the development of technical and professional skills so that educators and companies are prepared and can change the world, said the official.

The first Cisco Academy in Cuba was opened at the University of Computer Science (UCI), with the aim of promoting professional training in network administration, in line with the comprehensive policy for the improvement of the Cuban society’s computerization.

A Cisco Academy is a program recognized worldwide, with more than 20,000 instructors and more than 10,000 institutions around the world, joined now by UCI and Cuba, said Raydel Montesino, first Vice Chancellor of the Cuban university.

This program is added to the UCI’s undergraduate and postgraduate programs for the training of professionals in network administration and consists of four modules covering the basic principles of routing and switching, as well as scaling and connection of networks.

Each year, several editions will be developed to train more than 100 professionals in setting and network administration profiles, Montesino said.

The first ideas to create the academy were born in 2015 and currently 19 Cuban instructors have been trained, who will lead the Cisco program, in the search of network solutions and infrastructures for the Internet, assured Montesino.