Scholarship / I am actively connected to so many national and international professionals; networking skills essay [2]

for Chevening Scholarship

Chevening is looking for individuals with strong networking skills, who will engage with the Chevening community and influence and lead others in their chosen profession. Explain how you meet this requirement, using clear examples of your networking skills, and outline how you hope to use these skills in the future.

I am a computer professional and I love information technologies. Working in this field requires continuous engagement in a fast-paced growing network of IT professionals and be updated with new technologies, finding solutions and troubleshooting. For the time being, I am working as Database Development Advisor in Checchi and Company Consulting. I provide technical advices related to Information Technologies and developing database systems to the Supreme Court (SC) in Kabul. I know it is very important for any individual to improve his networking skills in order to have a better personal and professional life. I learnt this especially when I was asked by my employer to develop a database system for the Audit Directorate (AD) of the SC. The challenge for me was that I did not know people in that directorate and was not familiar with their work. I started to set meetings to see the AD managers in person and offered what I could do for them and what benefits they could get from a database system. In the first few weeks I participated in several events and connected with many of the top-ranking managers of the SC, including AD and Information Technology (IT) department. I knew this as a personal rule that to make people follow you, you must have something of interest for them. Therefore, I started presenting a demo of a powerful database system and made them interested in it. I shared my phone number, email address, Facebook and LinkedIn pages with them and received theirs too. I provided a link to an online test database where I had uploaded the partially developed database and asked for their feedback. Over time, I had not only a professional relationship with many people in the SC but there was friendship that led us to a better and faster involvement regarding the database system I developed for them.

To point out to some other activities I have tried to use networking I can talk about a four-day seminar hosted by PeaceTech Lab in Kabul where I could present my innovation to reduce street harassment towards women and girls in Kabul. I got a certificate for presenting the idea and still follow the events and take advantage of my peers of the community.

Now I am a member of many communities such as Codeweekend, Academic House, Employment and Empowering and etc. and am actively connected to so many national and international professionals both in the real world and on Facebook, LinkedIn and Stack Overflow and I can not find any single individual that I could think of removing them from my contact lists.