John Dumoulin, a 17-year-old boy from Northern Virginia has won the 16th annual Microsoft Office Specialist World Championship last month. Dumoulin, a to-be high school senior has won the championship in the Excel division. Microsoft’s Excel besides Powerpoint and Word has been synonymous to workplaces for the past 20 years. Certiport announced the winners in Excel, Word, and PowerPoint categories on Monday, Fortune reported. Dumoulin’s outstanding win in the championship makes him the first American to win the top Excel Prize. The contest which started in 2001, has Americans emerging as winners in Word and Powerpoint division but Dumoulin is the first American to make it to the top of the Excel division.
The championship which 17-year-old Dumoulin won came with a luring cash price of $7,000 and if you add the $3,000 he won during the US finals the previous year, its no petty amount. At least 560,000 people had applied for this championship worldwide and after initial tests, semi finals, finals only 157 contestants were selected. In the championship finals, the finalists were to be judged on a set of parameters and tasks. The contestants were expected to create the most accurate spreadsheet in the fastest possible time and the one who could do it would take the prize home.
Ever since his middle school days, Dumoulin was interested in Excel and used it for his school projects and also to track baseball statistics of his favourite team. He calls himself a ‘huge numbers guy’ who had his first brush with victory when he took the Certiport Excel certification test and scored highest. John Dumoulin says his school uses Microsoft products and has never heard of Lotus 1-2-3 the once-dominant spreadsheet IBM. Excel is not the only thing Dumoulin is good at, he plays baseball, takes advanced placement coaching and also works part time at a Chic-Fil-A, and is an Eagle Scout. Dumoulin is surely a powerhouse of talent.