Nanda has many stories to tell about his early career, including attempting to start a computer hardware repair business while he was still studying and an IT sales role in which he spent long days walking the streets of Bangalore and battling with multiple gatekeepers to drum up business. After deciding this wasn’t for him, he was offered a role in Mumbai. However, his mother forbade the young Nanda to accept the job, concerned that he would fall foul of the city’s underbelly and end up becoming a gangster. His next job offer came from the Gujarat, a location that finally met Nanda’s mother’s approval because it is the birthplace of Mahatma Gandhi and would therefore no doubt have a good influence on her son.

Learning the meaning of humanity

It was in Gujarat that Nanda says he learned the true meaning of humanity. A month after he moved to the region, there was a devastating earthquake and Nanda became involved in the rescue and clean-up efforts, sleeping in a truck while delivering blankets and supporting the local population. Not long afterwards the area was hit once again by disaster, this time in the form of riots between the Hindu and Muslim populations. This was too much for Nanda’s long-suffering mother who demanded his return home once again.

Moving into IT training

After moving back to Bangalore, Nanda gained more experience in the IT industry and was offered a role in training. Around this time, he noticed the attrition of experienced engineers from his employers. To address the issue, he launched a program to recruit a group of new trainees who were inexperienced but had a good attitude and the potential to become software engineers. Nanda trained the group and put them out in the field to prove their worth. Today, many of the leading experts in the security industry came from that original recruitment program and it is one of the innovations that Nanda is most proud of in his career.

Introducing Red Education

After a stint in the Middle East, Nanda returned to India looking for a new challenge. He was introduced to Red Education and the rest is history. He describes teaching as his passion and believes the industry needs more practical trainers with hands-on experience rather than those with a purely academic approach. He believes the best trainers can correlate what they teach with everyday life. Everyday brings new challenges, and that’s what constantly appeals to him about the role.

Inventions and adventure

When he is not working, Nanda enjoys spending time with his children, as well as sleeping and driving, describing himself as the Schumacher of the streets of India. Although he doesn’t have what he would term as a fixed hobby, he enjoys exploring, adventuring and inventing, with a mind that thinks up problems and then won’t rest until they are solved.

Nanda enjoys applying that same creativity to finding new ways to explain complex technical scenarios so that even the least experienced engineer can understand them in his training courses. He describes explaining the Roaming Host concept with Infoblox in terms of the Indian dish Idli Sambar. When one of his students started to explain the idea in the same way in a job interview, he was interrupted and immediately hired on the spot. His interviewer had also been trained by Nanda, knew the story and knew that he could trust the student to do a good job because of his background.

What the students say

“The training was excellent. Thank you, Nanda.”

“One of the best training. Thank you, Nanda Kumar for this valuable training.”

“It was really great experience. Nanda Kumar was really good at conveying the technology. I really liked the way he communicates, the knowledge transfer, clearing up doubts with patience.”

“Excellent delivery by Nanda. He is amazing with F5 modules. I would like to get more trainings from him. Thanks Nanda.”

Nanda’s certifications

• Bluecoat Certified Trainer
  • BCCPP (Bluecoat Certified Proxy Professional)
  • BCPSP (Bluecoat Certified Packet Shaper Professional)
  • Bluecoat WARP (Web Application Reverse Proxy Professional)
  • BCSAP (Bluecoat Certified Security Analytics Professional)
  • BCCASA (Bluecoat Certified Content Analysis System Administrator)
  • BCMASA (Bluecoat Certified Malware Analysis Administrator)
  • BCSAP (Bluecoat Certified Security Analytics Professional
  • BCWAP (Bluecoat Certified WAN Acceleration Professional)
• F5 Certified Trainer
  • F5 LTM Specialist (Architect, Setup, Deploy, Maintain and Troubleshoot)
  • F5 DNS Specialist
  • F5 APM Specialist
  • F5 ASM Specialist
• Infoblox Certified Trainer
  • CDCA (Core DDI Configuration & Administration)
  • SDCA (Secure DNS Config & Admin)
  • CDAT (Core DDI Advanced Troubleshooting)
  • NABC (Network Automation Configuration)
• VCP (VMware Certified Professional)
• VSP4 (VMware Sales Professional)
• VTSP4 (VMware Technical Sales Professional)
• WCSA (WatchGuard Certified Security Administrator)
• SCSP (Sonicwall Certified Security Professional)
• CCSA (CheckPoint Certified Security Administrator)
• NSA (Nokia Security Administrator)
• Radware Certified Systems Engineer
• CompTIA A+
• CCNA (Cisco Certified Network Associate)
• MCSA (Microsoft Certified System Administrator)
• Brainbench Certified System Administrator (Windows NT 4)