The time has once again come for CENGN to say goodbye to their newest batch of student interns. Over the last 4 months, our nine students have been hard at work contributing to CENGN’s mission of supporting technological and economic growth in Canada.

This semester, the following students joined the CENGN team:

• Alexandre Lott – Cloud Infrastructure Engineering Student from Carleton University
• Omar Abotahoon – Cloud Infrastructure Engineering Student from University of Ottawa
• Tyson Moyes – Cloud Infrastructure Engineering Student from Algonquin College
• Darshilkumar Rijiya – Training Operations Student from Dalhousie University
• Rotesh Chhabra – Training Operations Student from Dalhousie University
• Mary Dereena – Customer Solutions Engineering Student from Lambton College
• Susan Osherov – HR Specialist Student from Ryerson University
• Isaac Deans – Video & Design Marketing Student from Carleton University
• Charline Osborne – Content Writer Marketing Student from University of Ottawa

Cloud Infrastructure Engineering

As a Cloud Infrastructure Engineering student, Alex worked on improving and automating the switch update process for Cisco switches on the CENGN Testbed. This will allow CENGN to speed up the verification steps for the update.

Alex also documented the process of deploying monitoring tools on an OpenShift cluster and the life of a packet as it traverses through an OpenShift deployment. Since CENGN is still in the experimentation phase with OpenShift, Alex’s work will help CENGN choose the best deployment method down the line.

“My experience with CENGN enabled me to learn a lot about automation and cloud networking, which were topics I was very interested in going into my placement. The team was great to work with, and everyone was so friendly!” –Alex Lott

For Omar, one of the most notable projects was working on NIRO, a network integration and orchestration tool developed at CENGN. NIRO has the ability to deploy a wide number of networking and computing resources across multiple domains, such as on-premise networks and public cloud domains, to create a hybrid cloud environment. This allows CENGN to quickly deploy complex environments that startups use to test and validate their products.

“Working at CENGN the last 4 months has been a great experience. I have had the chance to work on many exciting cutting-edge projects that have contributed to my learning and my future career.” –Omar Abotahoon

Omar will be returning to CENGN for his Summer 2022 work term. Congrats, Omar!

This semester, Tyson returned to CENGN for his third work term as part of the Cloud Infrastructure Engineering team. His time at CENGN has allowed him to fulfill some of his key co-op objectives, including experiencing a private-sector workspace and completing all 3 Kubernetes certification exams.

“The largest factor to me choosing to stay with CENGN for all three of my terms was the incredibly fun and welcoming environment throughout the company. Students actually contribute to the goals of the company and are treated as part of the team rather than just students who can do busywork. I would highly recommend CENGN to other students in my field for a co-op position.” –Tyson Moyes

Training Operations

CENGN Academy is CENGN’s platform for teaching the cloud computing skills most sought after by employers. Darshil and Rotesh worked hard to support CENGN Academy’s training operations.

According to Darshil Rijiya, undergoing the Cloud Specialist Bootcamp allowed him to learn the basics of open-source tools Docker, Kubernetes, Networking and Openstack. He commented, “Working at CENGN has been a wonderful experience and has given a head start to my career”.

Rotesh added that working as a Training Operations Student at CENGN has added valuable experience to his career path in Canada.

“I believe that working in a small, tight-knit group and overcoming the challenges I faced has increased my technical knowledge and skills.” –Rotesh Chhabra

Customer Solutions Engineering

Mary also enjoyed her time at CENGN as part of the CSE team. Mary worked on improving an existing internal monitoring tool for detecting tunnelled logins to project spaces in the CENGN Testbed’s cloud space. Her work will have a big impact on CENGN’s ability to stay organized and improve efficiency when working on CENGN projects with tech startups and scaleups. She also contributed to technical project reports, gaining experience in technical and professional writing.

“I was able to explore contemporary learning methodologies and get expertise in overcoming new challenges and finding solutions to new issues effectively. My experience at CENGN gave me more ideas about the deployment of the cloud and the latest technologies for real-world applications.” –Mary Dereena

Human Resources

As CENGN’s HR student, Susan not only contributed to the onboarding and recruitment of students for next semester but also organized virtual social events and helped design recruitment content and promotions.

“Over my term at CENGN I conducted the full recruitment and selection cycle for the Student Program, assisted on the onboarded/offboarding process and had the opportunity to work with the marketing department. Overall, this experience was beneficial as I got to participate on many HR tasks on a wide scale. I also got to speak to so many amazing students and staff at CENGN.” –Susan Osherov

Marketing

Isaac joined the marketing team as a Video & Design Marketing Student. Over the course of his internship, he contributed countless graphics and developed documents for infographics, blog posts, online promotions, and client commercialization projects. He also impressed by creating an animated video on how smart technology will affect Canada’s mining industry.

Watch Isaac’s video to learn about smart mining innovation!

“Throughout my time at CENGN, I’ve had the opportunity to further polish my graphic and video skills through gaining more comfort using various Adobe software. Working at CENGN has been an incredible experience for me in learning to adopt a more professional approach when creating visual content.” –Isaac Deans

As the content writer marketing student, Charline created informative articles on CENGN’s Innovation Hub webpages to support the organization’s content marketing strategy. She also worked to promote the innovation of the tech startups and scale ups who completed CENGN commercialization projects over the winter by coordinating with clients, writing marketing collateral, providing editorial support, and creating social media copy.

“The marketing team at CENGN encouraged me to take ownership of my work. I was able to fully participate in every stage of the blog writing process, from keyword research to writing about technology to publishing on WordPress and promoting across social media.” –Charline Osborne

Read Charline’s article on smart mining technology in Canada!

CENGN’s students gain real-world experience, and our technical students are trained in the latest cloud network technology.

CENGN wants to thank this semester’s students for their contributions to boosting technological innovation in Canada. No matter what team they worked on, the students made valuable contributions to the organization, the impact of which will be felt over the years to come as CENGN continues to grow.

Interested in becoming a student intern at CENGN?

About the Author

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Charline Osborne is a Content Writer Marketing Student at CENGN (Winter 2022). She is an English major at the University of Ottawa, focusing on professional writing and professional editing. Charline believes in the importance of clear, accessible writing, which she puts into practice through her experience as a content writer and student writing mentor.

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