Shafay Thobani another pride of Pakistan; World’s Youngest MCTS or self-proclaimed?

Another pride of Pakistan, another Pakistani boy to claim as being the World’s Youngest Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist, even when Microsoft has said this officially that they don’t keep track of age for its certified professionals.

Without any doubt, Pakistan is full of genius minds and they can overcome in every field of life if given chances. - Following on the footsteps of Arfa Karim Randhawa, who became Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) at the age on nine, another eight-year-old Pakistani Shafay Thobani became world’s youngest Microsoft Certified.

Shafay, who was born on March 13, 2004, grew interested in computers studies since from very early years. - He was appeared in the Prometric test and secured 91 per cent marks, thus making him the world’s youngest Microsoft Certified Training Specialist (MCTS) at the age of eight years and 24 days. - According to the reports, he is certified professional in Microsoft Windows 7 Configuration and Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2.

Shafay Thobani’s certification is legitimate, we have checked with Microsoft, but his claim of being youngest certified professional in the world could not be verified for the fact that Microsoft doesn’t count age of its professionals.

In case of Shafay Thobani, his father or guardian went a step ahead. They hired a PR agency, organized a press conference in a five star hotel in Karachi yesterday to announce his heroism in front of media. So instead of pulling the media, they rather contented with pushing their son to media to get him the coverage.

Jus t to mention, Shafay has a page on his website that reads: “Hire me as a Brand Ambassador”, while ProPakistani has learned that Shafay Thobani is going to become brand ambassador for a brand or two in addition to getting sponsorships from government and private sectors. Which is fine, in fact not. Let me explain.

Frankly speaking I am impressed by the skills of Shafay Thobani. Since he is legitimate certified professional at this age, which is something to be praised and lauded about. But the problem occurs when he calls himself “World’s Youngest Certified Professional”, which is a fake claim. Since Microsoft can’t verify this we are in no position to assume that he is indeed world’s youngest certified professional.

On the one hand, ProPakistani claimed that Shafay’s guardians went a “step ahead” to hire a PR agency to organise the press conference to “push their son to the media” rather than pulling the media, while on the other hand, Shafay’s father said that the family was hiding this from the media that Shafay is attempting to become the world’s youngest MCTS.

“But now when he has finally got through the certification successfully, this is worth celebrating,” said Dr Shah Thobani. “Today I stand here not as a father, but as a proud Pakistani.”

According to ProPakistani, Microsoft is worried about these self-proclaimed child prodigies, who have been surfacing very often now – some of them even being fake.

When contacted by ProPakistani, a Microsoft official said that the company has already ‘disowned’ Shafay for his claim of being the “world’s youngest MCTS” and also announced that Microsoft does not keep track of ages of its certified professionals.

We hope that Microsoft will not ban kids from Pakistan below 18 to appear in certifications because of these self proclaimers.



Sources: Express Tribune, Pro-Pakistani, Shafay Thobani Website
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