Extracurricular Activities & Achievements:

The Deputy Minister's Award of Excellence is given each year to individual or team who demonstrated exceptional excellence and exemplary service by exercisng leadership and commitment to helping WD achieve its priorities and objectives.

The WD Infrastructure Team is involved in the design, negotiations, delivery and evaluation of the various infrastructure programs, which are jointly delivered with the provincial governments in each of the regions. This team has overcome conflicts and continuously improved collaboration with partners, all the while ensuring good stewardship and keeping the processes and procedures simple. The team also continues to focus on service delivery and maintaining a high standard of performance.

Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) credential is for professionals who have the skills to successfully implement a Microsoft product or technology as part of a business solution in an organization. Hands-on experience with a product is necessary to successfully achieve certification.

CompTIA A+ certification is a vendor neutral certification. The objectives contained the A+ Core Hardware Exam and the A+ Core Operating System Technologies Exam. CompTIA is vendor neutral but does lean towards Microsoft Windows. The A+ exam is intended for information technology professionals who have the equivalent of 500 hours of hands-on experience.

Topics of the Core examination include IRQs, direct memory access, practical computer repair, including installing or repairing: hard drives, modems, network cards, CPUs, power supplies, printers, and so forth. The focus of the exam is not theory, but practice. Sometimes graphics are used in exam questions. Topics included in the Operating Systems Exam include: memory management, configuration files, and historical operating environments rather than the cutting edge, newer technologies.

The Duke of Edinburgh's Award (D of E or Duke of Ed), also popularly known as The Duke of Edinburgh's Award Scheme, is an award for personal achievement that can be obtained by anyone aged from 14 to 25, regardless of personal ability. The Award itself has three levels: Bronze, Silver and Gold. To obtain an award, participants must demonstrate achievement at the appropriate level in various activities in four sections:

1. Service: helping the community (for example, working with a charity)
2. Skills: a hobby, skill or interest (for example, showing progress with a musical instrument);
3. Physical recreation: sports, dance, or fitness; and
4. Expeditions: can be by bicycle, horseback, or water, but most commonly on foot.

The Bronze Award takes a minimum of six months to complete, with the participant having to complete three months work in two of the three main sections (service, skills, and physical recreation) and six months in the third. The expedition must be an overnight trip spanning two days.

At Silver Award level, participants must complete six months of in the service section. Of the skills and physical recreation sections, one must be undertaken for six months and the other for three months. Participants who have not completed the Bronze Award must add an extra three months in either the service section or in the longer of the skill and physical recreation sections (so one activity takes nine months, another takes six months, and the third takes three months). The expedition must last for three consecutive days, including the two nights between them.