My Experience With ICDL

Greeting!

I'm Prince Sumberia, a Computer Science student from Model Institute of Engineering and Technology in Jammu, India. 

I was first introduced to ICDL by our Head of Department for CS faculty, Mr. Salim Qureshi who informed us about the first ever ICT competition in Asia by ICDL Asia.

After getting to know more about the competition through ICDL Asia’s website and Facebook page, I decided to register for it.

Looking back, that’s one of the best decision I’ve made!

I sat through 2 rounds of the competition in India with some of my schoolmates. That moment when my college informed me that I was one of the top student to represent India for the Grand Final in Singapore, I could not believe it.

Right after that, I had been in constant contact with ICDL India who assisted me in preparing for the Grand Final round and arranged my travel plans to Singapore.

ICDL Asia has provided us with printed courseware and online diagnostic tests of the 3 modules tested for the Grand Final – Advanced Spreadsheets, Advanced Word Processing and Online Collaboration.

While preparing for the finals, I’ve learnt many things that I never knew before, especially for Advanced Spreadsheets module. I’ve learnt about Goal Seek, Pivot Table, Macros and VBA which I truly believe that these skills can help me to improve my productivity and efficiency for school work and for the future.

On 19^th July 2017, I sat for the Grand Final tests with 11 other top students from Taiwan, Bhutan, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore and the Philippines. Thereafter, we were all brought to a nice lunch at Marina Square and had a city sightseeing bus tour. We had the chance to visit prominent landmarks in Singapore such as the Merlion and Garden by the Bay.

The next day we attended ICDL Asia Digital Literacy Day event which was held at Singapore Management University. At the end of the event, the competition results were announced and I emerged as the 1^st Prize Winner!

The exclusive ICDL Asia Student Exchange Program (SEP) was part of the winning prize and from the list countries offered, I decided to visit the ICDL team in Singapore for my all-expense paid SEP.

I had a pleasant flight to Singapore and touch-down in the sunny island on Sunday, 17 September afternoon. I was received by hotel driver at the airport which took me directly to the nice hotel I stayed at. It is located at Bugis which is the famous tourist location here with a variety of affordable shopping and food places.

The next day, I was at ICDL office in Singapore for the first time and was introduced to all the team members. I had my induction with the team before I was attached to the different department throughout the week.

On the same day, I spent time with the marketing team and got to know of the marketing strategy adopted by ICDL in Asia and how they track and analyse their marketing efforts. In the evening, I joined the Skype call with ICDL HQ team in Dublin for their business discussion.

The third day, I had the experience to understand the day-to-day tasks performed by the Ops team; from ordering processes to generating invoices.

The most exciting part was the sharing session with the IT team who works with huge databases and validating the entire data to derive valuable insights. They also have brilliant understanding on working with different software, platforms and languages.

Personally, I feel that their job is quite challenging yet exciting, and my time with the IT team was the best experience throughout my SEP by far, as it was closely related to my field of study.

The ICDL Asia employees work so closely as a team and are ready to help each other whenever they can. I am grateful to have the opportunity to work and learn from them.

Throughout my SEP, I found that ICDL is active in over 140 countries and currently have many new test centres that are being accredited. One thing that set ICDL apart from others is that their vendor neutral standards.

On my last day in the office, I did a quick sharing on my experience with the team and was presented with the ICDL SEP certificate, presented by Ms Tina Wu, General Manager of ICDL Asia.

During my stay in Singapore, I also got the chance to visit various tourists’ attractions including Marina Bay Sands (picture below) and Sentosa Island. I surely recommend anyone who is planning to go to Singapore to visit Sentosa.

Overall, it has been a learning experience both at personal as well as professional level. I would like to thank my family to their endless support and the ICDL India team for assisting me in the Grand Finals arrangements. Lastly to ICDL Asia, for giving this once in a lifetime opportunity which will stay in my memory forever.