The Excel world champion is crowned here

A world championship in the disciplines Excel, Word and Powerpoint is to be held in the USA in November. The top prize is $ 7,500.

Anyone who has ever claimed to master Excel in a résumé has either lied or should apply for the World Cup. It has been held annually for almost 20 years and should actually take place this year at the beginning of August in the city of Orlando in the US state of Florida. Corona has also struck here and forced a postponement. It is currently planned to hold the World Cup in November.

It’s not just about Excel, however. Rather, the “Microsoft Office Specialist World Championship” is a global competition in which schoolchildren and students compete in using Microsoft’s Office products Word, Excel and Powerpoint. Anyone wishing to participate must be enrolled in an officially recognized educational institution in their country of origin and be between 13 and 22 years old.

For first place there will be 7,500 dollars along with a trophy and medal as well as other prizes from Microsoft. Rank 2 still has $ 3,500, a medal, and a certificate. And third place is endowed with $ 1,500, a medal and a certificate of achievement.

The competition, which is largely ignored by the public, attracts a large number of participants year after year. In its 18th year in 2019, more than 850,000 candidates from 119 countries had registered. 161 students competed against each other in the final round.

In the competition, the participants are given various tasks. Among other things, they have to reprogram Excel files. The aim is to get as close as possible to the original. “It doesn’t depend on the time because nobody gets finished anyway,” 15-year-old Kevin Dimaculangan, world champion of 2018, told CNN. Rather, the decisive factor is accuracy.

the Office World Championship is organized by Certiport. Certiport is a trademark of Pearson Vue, an online test and certification course provider that works closely with Microsoft.