SETTING HIS SIGHTS ON SUCCESS

Ohio IT student has mastered computer repair, cybersecurity, and certification

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The student I’ll be profiling in this issue of Certification Magazine, Alex Mitov, is 19 and hails from Bowling Green, Ohio. Also, spoiler alert: Alex Mitov is not your typical IT student.

Alex does have a lot of the same characteristics and accomplishments as any up-and-coming future IT professional: He’s highly intelligent, a hard worker, he enjoys challenges, and is enamored with the potential of information technology. He holds a bundle of certifications attesting to his computer acumen, and he has even won a few computer competitions.

Alex spends his down time like most teenagers, “watching” YouTube videos, being with friends, and listening to music. He enjoys kayaking with his dad on Lake Erie and he even has a snappy catch phrase when things fall his way. (More about that later on.)

He often puts his IT skills to good use messing with phone and tech support scammers. He once spent an hour on the phone punking a fake “agent” from the Drug Enforcement Administration who claimed Alex was under investigation as part of a smuggling ring.

Yes, in many ways Alex is like most of the young people I’ve written about. There is one key difference, however, that distinguishes him from other IT aficionados — Alex is blind. Other than being able to distinguish some light levels, he has been completely sightless since birth.

Unlike someone who loses their sight later in life and who can remember what colors look like, as well as the shape and function of everyday objects, individuals born blind have no frame of reference from which to recall anything. They have so much more to learn.