Student selected as one of 10 to Cisco Live's Dream Team

Andy Gronan

Andy Gronen was chosen to be a member of the Cisco Live Dream Team. In its fourth year, the Dream Team is a vital element to the success of Cisco Live, an education and training conference for IT professionals worldwide. The team, which is comprised of national and local students and instructors, works hands-on alongside industry leaders to deploy and support the event's network operations center and to support Cisco customers at the help desk, helping to deliver a positive experience for over 20,000 conference attendees.

“Being part of the Cisco Dream Team for Cisco Live 2014 is a huge learning and networking opportunity for me,” said Gronen. “I know that the experience will be incredible both on an interpersonal and technical level, and I think I will learn hands-on skills like never before. This level and scale of network is certainly unprecedented for me and I plan on making the most of the experience by learning all I can and meeting numerous interesting people from different backgrounds to further expand my worldview.”

Gronen was selected from more than 80 applicants who had completed the Cisco Networking Academy based on technical and professional skills, instructor recommendations, activities outside the classroom, and geographical and individual diversity.

Andy is an international student from Italy with a bachelor's degree in economics and a master’s degree in game design. He has maintained a 4.0 grade point average in all of his IT courses and recently placed ninth nationally in the Cisco NetRiders competition. He is a Certified Cisco Network Associate and is enrolled in Cisco Certified Network Profession training. He worked for the University of Advancing Technology and GoDaddy before his visa expired and subsequently went back to college to earn Cisco certifications.

“I am trying to break into the industry and being a foreign student is not easy,” said Gronen. “I feel that my qualifications are good, but I still lack the edge to really make myself be noted. I think that being on the Dream Team could be that thing that will get me noticed and hopefully lands me a networking job with one of the really great companies like Cisco, Level 3, Google or others."