Cloud Certification Spotlight #13

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👋 Hello to our Cloud Learners! It’s always a joy to connect with this incredible community of cloud enthusiasts and professionals. We hope this week’s newsletter brings you fresh inspiration and practical insights for your certification journey.

Meet Dinash, a community-focused leader turning his passion for service and technology into action. Through cloud certifications, he’s building the skills to drive impact and innovation across Buffalo and beyond. This spotlight is one you won’t want to miss!

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Personal Background 

Geographical Location: Born and raised in Woodside, Queens – New York City, but I have spent most of my adult life in the Buffalo-Niagara region of Western New York (WNY). Far from the cosmopolitan potential it once possessed, Buffalo is a rust belt city full of promise that is yet to be fully realized. An ideal city and region for ambitious and vision-led entry to mid-career phase professionals with intent to be impactful. 

Educational Background:  I am currently pursuing an MBA to complement a master’s in public administration, recognizing some of my biggest victories in the public sector were achieved through the collaboration and between public and private partnerships. My education has positioned me to understand, manage, and lead public initiatives and institutions in building communities and enhancing the potential for the human experience. 

Family Life:  Raising a family in WNY with my Mental health Counselor wife; we have two sons, and a not so friendly, Presa Canario. With most of my family downstate in New York City, we are pioneering a life away from both of our childhood homes. 

Professional Journey 

Current Role:  I tend to focus on roles that speak to the core needs of society (housing, governance/public policy, health, education, etc.) and currently, I operate a workforce-professional development computer technology Lab with the State University of New York Research Foundation (SUNY RF) https://www.bha.sunyattain.org/ . It’s a fantastic opportunity to do many things I love to do, teach, administer, and help positively change lives and build community. Though my Lab is located in Buffalo, through remote accessibility my efforts are benefiting communities statewide throughout New York. Whether helping a working professional upskill with a professional certification or helping a young professional forge a pathway towards an exciting new career the work our Lab is doing is vital for preparing for the technologically driven shifting global economy. 

Career Path: With education and training in public sector leadership and management and a professional career that has worked across government, nonprofit, and NGOs, a focus on technology has always remained on the sidelines for me. With each encounter with emerging technology, I was able to peek into the benefits of its use in advancing work in the public arena. With the pandemic and the world on hold, I was afforded an opportunity to circle back to some of this tech that eluded my day-to-day work in the community. With each exposure I was able to see the potential utilization of technology had on my work and the increase in capacity that it provided. 

Professional Level: I am a mid-career professional with leadership and C-suite experience in both public and private sectors. Many of my career aspirations revolve around the projects I work on through my consulting firm, which seeks to advance community development utilizing private sector resources. I am pursuing cloud computing skills to accelerate the change I’d like to see in community through the work that I do. One such project consists of building a website to serve as a regional or municipal economic development dashboard to help inform strategy and public policy initiatives in economic development.

Outside Interests 

Hobbies and Passions: I am passionate about uplifting community and contributing to the creation of a better world. I believe in service and helping individuals and community through empowerment and assisting others in their pursuit of meaningful goals that reward them with deep satisfaction. I enjoy training my dog, lifting weights, and spending time with family. I don’t try to compartmentalize much, and my personal and professional life tend to overlap. My entrepreneurial projects integrate my genuine interest, and I often look to develop products/services that I would benefit from. 

Community Involvement: I have a career dedicated to community – through my Lab I have taken initiative to connect with local universities and colleges to open pathways for real world experience and skill development through internship opportunities. In return, interns provide me with capacity to take on more community-based projects that can scale my work and make greater impact.

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Learning and Development 

Learning Techniques: I tend to take on multiple study programs at once that affords me the ability to integrate my knowledge and seek out linkages between seemingly disparate topics with the intent of increasing the chances of applying what I am learning. If you can apply it to your everyday, you can cement it as part of your knowledge base. I tend to work between analog and digital tools, often starting with a pen and pad/notebook and eventually depositing my notes and research into MS OneNote. I am a big proponent of MS OneNote and use it for both professional and personal management. 

Passion Projects:  Currently a former client (retired IT Instructor from Niagara Falls, NY) and I, with assistance from interns are working on a youth computer building program where children will have an opportunity to learn about computer technology from a hands-on experience; dissecting parts and learning about the functions of components and putting it all together culminating in taking home a computer a child builds themselves. 

Cloud Certification Pursuits 

Motivation for Certification: I was an early adopter of cloud-based services and didn’t find the technology dependable enough for operational use years ago. However, as things improved, I have pivoted back and now see the potential is greater than ever before. Connecting cloud computing technology’s potential to my experience and expertise in community-based work; I see an opportunity to bypass the need to wait for policy or leadership to initiate change. By honing my skills, I intend to do, rather than wait and I encourage clients and community to lead from where you are, as there is no reason to wait. 

Specific Certifications: I am very much at the beginning stages of my journey, starting with Microsoft Certified Fundamentals, AZ-900. I intend to continue onward and remain open to possibilities of where each step takes me. However, I am eyeing the two specific tracks of Data and AI and Infrastructure and Cloud Architect – as I see these two roles as beneficial to the work that I am pursuing. I am more interested in attaining the skills to work on projects in the entrepreneurial space rather than seeking out employment opportunities.

Study Resources: I am utilizing the resources available through my Lab as they are free to all NYS residents. If you are in NYS, feel free to reach out! https://www.bha.sunyattain.org/ We use the Microsoft authorized vendor Certiport, and their learning platform called GMetrix. 

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Experiences and Insights 

Helpful Strategies: Set yourself up for success and build a realistic plan. Put the effort in on the front end and develop a well-thought-out plan that is life proof; meaning, things are bound to happen in your life that will take you off track. Build in contingencies and habits that keep you continually bringing you back to the path that you committed to. 

Other Advice: Be realistic and break down the study into meaningful chunks that progressively get you past the finish line. Don’t delude yourself into thinking you can do a full-time job, run a household, and do 8 hours of study a day. Take a real inventory of your current obligations, personal and professional, and whatever time you have left over is what will be used to study. Whether it is 30 minutes a day or 1-2 hours a day, do at least the bare minimum every day and more if motivated to do so. The days you don’t feel like doing more, you won’t have to, as long as you build a plan that gets you there in the time you allotted. 

Future Aspirations 

Post-Certification Plans: Apply immediately what I learn to real world projects to hone the skill and enhance the projects. 

Long-Term Goals: I would like to continue to build my consultation firm and help individuals to institutions build better communities. 

Additional Thoughts 

Lead from where you are, there is no reason to wait, improve the world by taking ownership of your corner of it and if we all do that, we will all benefit. https://www.linkedin.com/in/dinashlal/ 

That was one of my favorites — thank you, Dinash. Your dedication to advancing technology while uplifting communities is a powerful reminder of how certifications can be a catalyst for meaningful and lasting impact.

We’re looking for more inspiring certification journeys like Dinash’s to feature in our spotlight series this Fall and Winter! If you’d like to share your story and inspire our community, simply reply to this email. We’ll provide you with a simple template to guide you through the process. Your experiences make a huge difference, and the feedback from our readers has been incredibly positive!

Until next week, keep learning and building.

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