Meet the Microsoft Excel World Champion

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A 15 year old boy from Florida, Kevin Dimaculangan has won the title of Microsoft Excel world champion.  The catechumen out of Dunbar High School in Fort Myers took part in 2018 Microsoft Office Specialist World Championship which tests the student’s skills in Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint and Word.

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They give you a packet of instructions and a bunch of data. You use those three to create a file using charts, graphs, etc.,” Dimaculangan said. More than 760,000 candidates from 116 countries were participants in the competition. The competition was hosted by Certiport. Certipot is a provider of performance-based IT certification exams.

Dimaculangan is also an accomplished pianist and mathematician. He hopes to attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology after graduating from high school. “I am hoping to become a software engineer,” he said when asked about his career goals. Six winners were selected after competitors chose between 2013 to 2016 versions of the Microsoft software applications. Each winner took home a first-place cash prize of $7,000. Dimaculangan said he was also awarded with a medal, trophy and an Xbox game console for becoming the world champion of the 2016 version of Microsoft Excel.

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A little about the competition

The competition is conducted annually which challenges the competitors on their knowledge of Microsoft applications. It takes lots of hard work to prepare for the championship. Students between the ages 13 and 22 are allowed to appear these tests. Students prepare themselves for this championship through national and regional competitions in the Microsoft categories those include Word, PowerPoint and Excel.

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This year more than 760,000 students across the world had appeared for this competition. In the final round, 152 students from 51 countries competed from July 29 through August 1. Competitors are free to choose the Microsoft Excel, Word and PowerPoint versions between 2013 or 2016. There were six winners for each Microsoft category and version.

John Dumoulin from Woodbridge, Virginia was the winner of this championship the previous year. Kevin is the second American in a row to earn first place in the Microsoft Excel 2016 category. But for Kevin, it was never about becoming a world champion. Excel was a hobby he just happened to pick up last year.

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