Education

Qualifications, stated exactly as they are.

Three completed credentials and one course in progress. The in-progress one is marked that way here, is excluded from my CV, and is described nowhere on this site as a completed certification — because its completion has not been verified.

About the curriculum lists. Each one is taken from the official record for that qualification — the SAQA registration for the Higher Certificate, UNISA's own module listing, and the published course syllabus for CS50 AI. They state what the programme covers, not a claim that I have mastered every topic in it.

Completed · 3

Completed qualifications

Completed Completed March 2024

Higher Certificate in Information Technology Support Services

IIE Rosebank College · South Africa

Formal grounding in IT support: hardware, operating systems, networking fundamentals, user support and service practice.

NQF Level 5 · 120 credits · SAQA ID 126343

Careers the qualification prepares for

Support Technician
Helpdesk Support Technician
Network LAN Technician
System Support

Curriculum covered Registered curriculum, SAQA ID 126343

Technical Writing and Communication
Computer Architecture
Help Desk
Introduction to Quantitative Thinking and Techniques
Computer Networks 1A
Client Systems Configuration
Introduction to Cyber Security
Work Integrated Learning

Why it matters here The basis of the IT Support Specialist track on the Career page, and the reason troubleshooting appears as a demonstrated rather than a claimed skill. Its Introduction to Cyber Security module also sits alongside the UNISA information security work below.

Completed 2021

INF4831 – Information Security

University of South Africa (UNISA) · South Africa

NQF Level 8 Distinction

A single NQF level 8 module passed with distinction, not a full qualification — stated that way deliberately.

NQF Level 8 · 12 credits · Honours-year module

Curriculum covered Corroborated against UNISA's module listing

Identification and authentication
Authorisation and access control
Confidentiality and integrity
Non-repudiation
Risk analysis
Cryptography fundamentals
Security planning and policy compliance

Why it matters here My strongest academic result, and the origin of the privacy-by-design decisions documented in the case studies — processing kept on the user device, no account, nothing transmitted.

Completed Certified

Google Analytics Individual Qualification

Google · Online

Certified

Measurement, reporting and analysis in Google Analytics.

Why it matters here Applied directly to the technical SEO and structured-data work on this site.

In progress · 1

Studies in progress

Listed separately and deliberately. A portfolio that blurs the line between studying something and having completed it is misrepresenting a qualification, which is the single easiest thing for an employer to check.

In progress Commenced February 2025

CS50 AI with Python (CS50AI)

Harvard University (online) · Online

IN PROGRESS. Not described as a completed certification anywhere on this site, and excluded from the CV, because completion has not been verified.

HarvardX via edX · 7 topics

Curriculum covered Official course syllabus

Search
Knowledge representation
Uncertainty
Optimization
Learning
Neural networks
Language

Why it matters here Covers search, knowledge representation, optimisation, learning and neural networks — the formal underpinning of the applied AI work, and step 4 on the roadmap.

What formal study gave me, and what it did not

The Higher Certificate in IT Support Services is the reason troubleshooting appears on my skills page as demonstrated rather than claimed — it gave me a method for isolating a fault rather than guessing at it, and I use that method on production systems weekly.

The Information Security module is my strongest academic result, and it shows up in my work in a way I did not expect: the decision that one of my products should process everything on the user's own device, hold no account and transmit nothing came from thinking about the data I would otherwise be responsible for. That is a security-trained instinct applied to a product decision, years after the exam.

What formal study has not given me is the AI and machine learning foundation I am working towards. CS50 AI with Python is in progress and incomplete, and the twelve-step roadmap on my Career page is how I intend to close the rest. Nothing on that roadmap is marked complete today.

Career development roadmap Technical skills