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Microsoft MVPs are technology experts who passionately share their knowledge with the community, and the Microsoft MVP Award is our way of saying "Thanks!" to outstanding community leaders. No matter how knowledgeable you are or how successful you are in business, continuing community activities is required to be an MVP.
Every MVP has been doing unique community activities through all sorts of online and offline channels and engages with diverse audiences in various industries based on their technical expertise. Many things are different per MVP, however, their common purpose is helping others.
In this post, we feature three MVPs in the United States, Dominican Republic, and China who have been helping community members. They tell us what made them start community activity and their experiences and best practices.
United States - Emma Chieppor, M365 Apps & Services MVP
“I strive to find opportunities to learn more and give back to my community!”
Emma is the founder of Excel Dictionary, the ultimate source for impactful, digestible Excel tips and tricks. She has tremendous number of followers, such as 2.6M followers on Instagram (@exceldictionary), 2M+ followers and 11M+ Likes on TikTok (@exceldictionary), 330K+ followers on Twitter (@exceldictionary), and 310K+ views and 10K+ subscribers on YouTube (@ExcelDictionary) as of March 1, 2023.
Emma looks back on her story from the first step when she started community activity to date , “I started Excel Dictionary to help those struggling with Excel, and now that my community has grown to over 5 million around the globe, it is my main priority to educate and help as much as possible by providing free Excel tips, resources, hosting free events, and more.”
Her active community engagements for community members brought about a new experience as a community leader, and she was awarded as a M365 Apps & Services MVP in January 2023. “I felt over the moon when I received the MVP award! Microsoft Excel has always been a passion of mine. I created Excel Dictionary to teach and share my passion with the world to show others how to view Excel from my perspective: A dynamic, powerful product that can be used to create or solve anything! So, to be recognized as an Excel MVP and sharing the news with my community to benefit them further has been an unbelievable experience,” Emma says.
Her new journey has just begun. As an MVP, Emma will keep helping community members improve their Excel skills for better user experience. Join her social media channels to learn useful Excel tips from her.
For more details about Emma’s story, check Office Insider Spotlight: Emma Chieppor out.
Dominican Republic - Leomaris Reyes, Developer Technologies MVP
“It is never too late to start sharing your knowledge. Remember that someone needs your information. Put fear aside and go for it!”
Leomaris is the software engineer who blogs about mobile app development, especially recently related to .NET MAUI, on AskXammy.com. She also joins community events as a speaker and helps software developers raise their skills with her information.
Her community activities began when she decided to learn at least one topic a week, even though she was busy studying at the university and working hard as a full-time worker. Leomaris says, “I left notes of what I learned and the questions that came up from them, and referred to them as my personal library. However, I decided to share it with the world because I thought it would be useful to others who are doing similar things. That's the moment when my blog was born.”
As she says, “Happiness is priceless,” reading the words of gratitude from people who have learned from her information is her motivation for community activity. “I receive comments of joy that my information contributed to finding a job, pass a subject at the university, or complete the app of their dream. It is worth the effort, to be able to change lives!”
Four years have passed since she was awarded as an MVP for the first time. Leomaris tells how the MVP Award affects her community activities. “The MVP Award is a springboard to continue doing my activity, teaching, on a larger scale. It is a magical program that allows us to connect with the people from all over the world with wonderful profiles, the people you admire and never imagined meeting, and above all, the people who have admirable spirit of teaching and collaboration.”
Leomaris will continue working on the new framework, .NET MAUI, and to provide new learning options to her community members, such as sharing her knowledge on Videos. “There are different ways of learning. As well as blogging as a reading tool, I would like to provide community to a new learning opportunity through video,” she adds.
She has been blogging in two languages, https://askxammy.com/ for English speakers and https://es.askxammy.com/ for Spanish speakers. Visit her blog to catch up with the latest information of .NET MAUI and learn her passion for teaching.
China - Jiong Shi, Microsoft Azure MVP
“I feel community is my friends, family, and neighbors.”
Jiong is the 14th-year MVP who focuses on Microsoft technologies such as Azure IoT and UWP and has been devoted himself to community activity for a long time. In his professional career, he has also been contributing to the growth of students and the development of technology as a university professor of the School of Computer and Electronic Engineering.
He explains a couple of things that enabled him to continue sharing his learning with others for more than a decade.
Firstly, Jiong agrees with Microsoft’s philosophy, “I firmly believe that Microsoft solutions and technologies empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.” He has been covering a wide range of development technologies from IoT to Microsoft AI Services and empowers diverse developers to leverage the latest technologies.
Secondly, he emphasizes the core priority as a Microsoft MVP, “helping others by sharing is the essential spirit of being a Microsoft MVP. It inspires us to move ahead.” He proactively joins the MVP program-led initiatives to reach more people in this audience. For instance, he joined the skilling-focused project for MVPs, MVP Global Cloud Skills Challenge, learned new technologies, and shared his learnings on his blog. As one of the most active learners in this initiative, we featured his learning experience on MVP Award Blog: The MVP Global Cloud Skills Challenge: Azure Data and AI
Thirdly, “The more community contributions I make, the greater the impact on the community I can gain. It will attract more readers, audience, and listeners when organizing online and offline events,” Jiong says. Not only he makes community members happy by sharing technical contents, speaking engagements, and mentorship, but also, he feels happiness that his activities give impact to enhance local developer experience using Microsoft technologies.
He is demonstrating his community leadership in these community involvements. Visit his profile page on TechNet to find some of his activities.