The South Asia Microsoft MVP Award Program

Microsoft MVPs are awarded every quarter and recognize the contributions of an individual to technical communities over the past year.

We are extremely happy to welcome the following new MVPs amongst our midst for this quarter:

Congratulations to all the MVP awardees, and the renewed MVPs, for this prestigious award! We are glad to have a Powershell and Internet Explorer MVP amongst us now.

To know more about the MVP Program, please visit: http://www.microsoft.com/india/mvp

It’s wonderful to have more community leaders and technology experts as Microsoft MVPs. Microsoft MVPs are announced every quarter, though the award is valid for an year, given for the contributions of the individual to technical communities over the past year.

Join me in welcoming the new MVPs for this quarter:

Microsoft MVPs are awarded every quarter and recognize the contributions of an individual to technical communities over the past year.

We are extremely happy to welcome the following new MVPs amongst our midst for this quarter:

Congratulations to all the MVP awardees, and the renewed MVPs, for this prestigious award! We are glad to have a Windows Azure MVP, the recently introduced expertise, amongst us now.

To know more about the MVP Program, please visit: http://www.microsoft.com/india/mvp

Happy New Year folks! We are extremely happy to welcome the following new MVPs amongst our midst for this quarter, the first of 2011:

Congratulations to all the MVP awardees, and the renewed MVPs, for this prestigious award! We are glad to have new MVPs in Dynamics CRM, Windows Embedded, and Windows Azure competencies, niche relatively, amongst us now.

Microsoft MVPs are awarded every quarter and recognize the contributions of an individual to technical communities over the past year. To know more about the MVP Program, please visit: http://www.microsoft.com/india/mvp

Microsoft MVPs are awarded every quarter and recognize the contributions of an individual to technical communities over the past year.

We are extremely happy to welcome the following new MVPs amongst our midst for this quarter:

• G Vijai Kumar - SharePoint Server                
• Gaurav Khanna - Visual Basic                 
• Visakh Murukes - SQL Server
• Tanmay Arjun Sonawane - Windows Desktop Experience
• Vasu Jain - Windows Desktop Experience       
• Jeya Kumar Devarajulu - ASP/ASP.NET
• Deepika Haridas - ASP/ASP.NET 

Congratulations to the MVP awardees on this prestigious award!

To know more about the MVP Program, please visit: http://www.microsoft.com/india/mvp

Yet another quarter begins with the announcement of newly awarded & re-awarded individuals as the Most Valuable Professionals. I’m sure it would be a New Year Gift for all the individuals whose names are mentioned below. Please join me in welcoming them in this elite technical group. We thank them for their past contributions and looking forward for their active participation in all future engagements.

With the above announcement, unfortunately few of our friends are also moving to the alumni state (seven in total). I’m sure all those individuals who are moving to the alumni state, would make a New Year Resolution today to come back soon in the active group.

Thanks again and have a fantastic year ahead!!

With best regards,

South Asia MVP Community

Renuka Prasad, an Expression Blend MVP from India, got blessed with two things earlier this year – A beautiful baby and the Windows Phone 7 developer tools few months before that. Those two are the only things on his mind all the time!

He’s authored two comprehensive articles on the popular portal, CodeProject.

• Toast Notification Using Windows Azure Cloud Service
• Push Notifications in Windows Phone 7

And hold you breath, that’s not the end of it. His blog has had a multitude of developer posts on Windows Phone 7 discussing the platform, code snippets, utilities. and applications. Here’s an assortment of the same:

• How to use Desktop PC/Laptop Keyboard in Windows Phone 7 Emulator
• InputScope – How to Get Dictionary on Windows Phone 7
• Voice Activated Bing Search on Windows Phone 7
• Behaviours on Windows Phone 7
• Explore Application Bar with Icon buttons and Menus on Windows Phone 7
• Input Methods – Touch Gestures – Windows Phone 7
• Status Bar Icons Explanation on Windows Phone 7
• Understanding Message Box on Windows Phone 7
• Samaya – Kannada/Hindi Numberd Clock on Windows Mobile 7
• Roman Number Clock on Windows Mobile 7
• Isolated Storage – Windows Phone 7

So, it’s just not the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 this month that’s caught the nation’s imagination and attention. For all the tech enthusiasts and practitioners, Microsoft TechEd India 2011 matches that excitement! Are you coming?

At the TechEd India 2011, say hello to the Microsoft MVPs, the best and the brightest community folks and technical experts in India. Bounce off your ideas, and maybe talk about what you are building. Unlike the sessions, this meetup would address your individual technical hitches. For three hours on the first day of the event, explore this opportunity of professional networking with the MVPs.

Here’s a list of all the MVPs you’ll find at the un-conference:

Meet The MVPs
March 23, 2011 | 12:00 – 3:00 PM

Also, as always, several MVPs would be speakers in different tracks at the TechEd… check the schedule here to mark your favorite MVP speakers’ sessions on your calendar.

The Microsoft user groups and MVPs across several cities in India are hosting Windows Azure Camp – a 1-day deep dive session designed to help you speed up on developing for Windows Azure. The Windows Azure platform is a flexible cloud-computing platform that lets your customers focus on solving their business problems.

9:00 AM - 5:00 PM

• The event is FREE; on first come first serve basis
• Total number of available seats: 30
• Attendees need to bring their own laptops with internet data card for hands-on labs & access to Windows Azure.

Agenda:

• Introduction to Azure and overview of its features
• Building a simple Web application and deploying to Azure
• Azure storage options include SQL Azure
• Hands on Labs on Azure
• Overview and quick demo of Windows Azure App Fabric

Register Here

The high point for us in the MVP Program is when we grow our tribe and are able recognise the community leaders who have been active for the past year. And today is another of those high points. We are very happy to introduce the new MVP Awardees for October 2011 as follows:

The MVP Award program recognises community leaders every quarter. If you have been an active community contributor for the past year or you know an active community leader, please feel free to nominate using the MVP Nomination Form.

While we don't respond to individual request for status on their MVP application, you can write to indiamvp@microsoft.com to request the information.

If you want to know the wonderful activities of the South Asia MVPs you can also follow us at @IndiaMVP on Twitter or our page on South Asia Facebook Page.

Microsoft MVP Award is presented to individuals who are committed in contributing the knowledge to the community. MVPs are independent experts sharing their in-depth knowledge and real-world experience of Microsoft products with the online and offline community.

We are excited to introduce the new MVP Awardees of July 2012:

Name                                                                                                                   Technology              

Abhimanyu Kumar Vatsa                                                                                     ASP.NET/IIS

Joydeep Das                                                                                                        SQL Server

Vidya Sagar Gudisa                                                                                             Windows Expert-Consumer

Dilip Pandey                                                                                                         Excel

Pranay A Rana                                                                                                     Visual C#

The MVP Award program recognizes community leaders every quarter. If you have been an active community contributor for the past year or you know an active community leader, please feel free to nominate using the MVP Nomination Form.

While we don't respond to individual request for status on their MVP application, you can write to indiamvp@microsoft.com to request the information.

If you want to know the wonderful activities of the South Asia MVPs you can also follow us at @IndiaMVP on Twitter or our page on South Asia Facebook Page.

This was one of the common questions in TechEd India 2013. This blog post will try to answer this and some other Frequently Asked Questions:

What is MVP?

MVP Stands for Most Valuable Professional, which is an award given to those exceptional community leaders who are voluntarily contributing to the technical community and helping other understand the true potential of Microsoft Products and solutions.

Is there an Exam to write, to become an MVP?

Please don’t relate it with Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) program. MCP program is part of Microsoft Learning (MSL) and requires successful completion of exam/s. While MVP is an award which is no where related with MSL and doesn’t have any certification requirements.

Then how to achieve the MVP status?

As we mentioned, MVP is an award and you can’t just achieve it because you want it If you are a community contributor and regularly share your knowledge with the broader community in form of Professional/Technical Blog Posts, Speaking Engagements (Online/Offline), Publishing articles, books, e-books etc. and assist others through Online Forums and your contributions are considerably high in terms of both quality and quantity, you can certainly look at the possibility of being awarded as an MVP.  

Am I expected to contribute on both forums and blogs and/or speaking?

Technically yes. MVP Award Program compliments three areas of product life cycle (advocacy, support and feedback). We expect contributions in at-least two areas to process the nominations but there may be exception depending on the product trends etc.

Oh yes, I started doing all these. When will I be awarded as an MVP?

Hold on…let’s first understand the award process. MVP Award Program processes candidates in a quarterly basis. Therefore, every quarter we award many individuals as an MVP. The processing includes assessing/evaluating your contributions for last one year (and nothing beyond that). So let’s say, if you are submitting your nomination on Jan 2014, you need to submit your contributions from Jan 2013 till the date when you are submitting the nomination to be considered. So if you just started, we would suggest you to continue with your contributions and submit your nomination when you really have considerable amount of contributions.

And where do I submit my nominations?

Nominations can be submitted through MVP Global Site: http://mvp.microsoft.com/en-us/nominate-an-mvp.aspx 

What details should I mention while submitting my nominations?

Make sure to provide your online identities (not just your Facebook profile link but the links to your blogs, forum profiles etc.) and detailed list of contributions. Also, don’t provide counterfeit data as it may cause rejection during the evaluation process. Each contribution entry should be supported through some links or reference to the contribution.

Can I expect any confirmation or acknowledgement of processing my nomination?

No. There is no confirmation or acknowledgement process but if your nomination is in the process and more details are required, Microsoft Staff would contact you accordingly. Just follow our blog or Facebook page for quarterly announcements.

I have submitted my nomination for “x” technology but never received any communication?

Depending on country and local communities, we can only award fixed number of MVPs on a particular product area. In you case, we may have already achieved the max number of MVPs possible in your country and that’s why your nomination was not processed. In future, whenever there are any possibility of adding new MVPs in the product area, you nomination would certainly be considered. Please continue with your contributions. Keep in mind that at the time of processing, only past one year’s contributions would be considered.

What happens once I am awarded?

Your award was based on your contributions from last one year and valid till next one year. As an MVP, you are given many options and opportunities to contribute to the community or engage with Microsoft in various forums. Your basic contributions on forums and blogs may continue. You need to continue with your contributions to be awarded again next year. Being an MVP, you are eligible for many benefits (as listed on MVP Global Site) which are also valid for an year.

You said fixed number of MVPs on a particular product area. So does that mean unless one of the existing MVPs retire, there is no possibility of getting awarded in that area?

Yes we have a max cap of how many awards we can give on each product area but fortunately we revisit that number in a quarterly basis to include instances like new product releases, market trends etc. So every quarter, there may be changes in the max cap  

Who can be awarded as an MVP?

Anyone contributing in the community in a positive way and have deep technical insight about the product can be awarded. There are few exclusions such as:

• Microsoft Employees
• Microsoft Contingent Staffs
• Government or State Owned Entity Employees

 

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Do you have more questions? Please ask us through the comments and we would be happy to add them in FAQ.

The International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium  - (ISC)² has honored Manu Zacharia, an Enterprise Security MVP from India, with the prestigious Asia Pacific Information Security Leadership Achievements award. (ISC)² officials will honor the ISLA honorees at the ISLA Gala Dinner and Ceremony on 26 July 2010 at The Ritz-Carlton, Millenia in Singapore. As part of (ISC)²’s Global Awards Program, ISLA aims to recognize the achievements of outstanding information security professionals who have significantly contributed to the enhancement of the workforce by demonstrating a leadership role in an information security workforce improvement initiative, program or project.

(Press Release)

(ISC)² is the largest not-for-profit membership body of certified information security professionals worldwide, with nearly 70,000 members in more than 135 countries. Globally recognized as the Gold Standard, (ISC)² issues the Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP^®) and related concentrations, as well as the Certified Secure Software Lifecycle Professional (CSSLP^Ò), Certified Authorization Professional (CAP^®), and Systems Security Certified Practitioner (SSCP^®) credentials to qualifying candidates.

After the stupendous success of Ultimate Windows Tweaker, The Windows Club – a popular Windows portal run by Windows Desktop Experience MVP, Anand Khanse from Pune, India - keeps releasing small, but useful utility applications for Windows.

Windows Access Panel

Access Panel for Windows 7 and Windows Vista is a freeware portable application. While you can use Control Panel to change settings which control nearly everything about how Windows looks and works, in some cases to access these very controls , or the in-built Windows programs, requires you to engage in multiple clicks or know their names.

That's where this small utility can help you. Windows Access Panel is meant to minimize your trouble in accessing such programs.

Prevent v1.0

Prevent is a freeware app which runs on all versions of Windows. If you do not want anyone deleting or renaming, or in general, messing around with your data, then Prevent might help you.

Fix IE Utility v1.0

Fix IE Utility is another freeware portable utility that re-registers all the concerned .dll and .ocx files required for the smooth operation of Internet Explorer.

The utility is useful if you face any problems while running IE, maybe after recovering from a malware attack. Fix IE Utility has been tested on IE 7 and IE 8, on Windows Vista as well as Windows 7.

UPDATE:

TWC recently also released Fix MSE Utility v 1.0. This freeware portable utility will restore all registry values and service settings of Microsoft Security Essentials to known good defaults.

Microsoft MVPs are announced every quarter, though the award is valid for an year, given for the contributions of the individual to technical communities over the past year.

We are extremely happy to welcome the following new MVPs amongst our midst:

Pavan Paruchuri - Consumer Security
Subodh Sohoni - Team System
Saurabh Teotia - Excel
Shoban Kumar - Client App Dev
Shivprasad Koirala - ASP/ASP.NET
Suresh Ramani - Small Business Server
Rajiv Vishwa - Developer Security
Sateesh Arveti - Visual C#
Manan Kakkar - Windows Desktop Experience
Meetu Choudhary - ASP/ASP.NET
Nitin Gupta - Exchange Server
Ashic Mahtab - ASP/ASP.NET
Arjun Paudel - Visual Basic

We are also extremely happy to welcome back the following three MVP Alumni amongst us:

RavicKumar M – Team System
Niraj Bhatt – Connected System Developer
Satheesh Babu – ASP.NET

Hope to see you further contribute to communities, and make a difference.

Windows 7’s beta release has been fascinating, and the early adopters have been pleasantly surprised. It’s great to know that apart from the product team at Microsoft, kudos should also be given to members of community who contribute in so many ways.

Recently, Microsoft Connect, the unified portal to provide feedback about Microsoft products and services, awarded an ASUS Eee PC 4G netbook (approx value USD $300) to four users in India - Dileepa Prabhakar, M Rajesh, Vasudev, and Vikram Lakhotia – for sharing specific and important feedback on Windows 7 Beta. Vasudev and Vikram Lakhotia are ofcourse MVPs from India.

It was further exciting for Vasudev, who also won a lot of goodies for providing the ‘Best Suggestion’ in one of the Windows 7 Live Chat with the Windows 7 product team.

The goodies included a Windows 7 branded Notepad, a Bobble Pen and a USB Aquarium.

Last we heard, Vasudev was passionately declaring - ‘I’m a Windows 7 PC’ :)

If you think these were just lucky guys, take this for some statistical trivia:

During a peak week in January we were receiving one Send Feedback report every 15 seconds for an entire week, and to date we’ve received well over 500,000 of these reports.  That averages to over 500 reports for each and every developer to look through!

(via Engineering Windows 7 Blog)

Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Award (MVP) represents the best professionals in the Microsoft technology. They distinguish themselves by being team players who rise above their daily professional chores to support the community. With their support to the community, these professionals are the fountain of knowledge for their peers and the most desired assets for their corporations.

Currently there are 4,000 MVPs worldwide with 140 being from South Asia region. MVPs represent more than 90 countries, speak over 40 different languages, and are awarded in almost 90 diverse Microsoft technologies. Together, they answer more than 10 million questions each year.

We are pleased to welcome the following community champions as MVP Awardees for this quarter:

If you know of a deserving candidate who actively supports the community in your region, please feel free to nominate them at: South Asia MVP Nomination form

Stay tuned to this blog to know the latest activities in the community by the South Asia MVPs. You can also follow us at @IndiaMVP on Twitter or our page on South Asia Facebook Page.

MVPs are independent experts and passionate about improving technology. These exceptional and highly respected individuals offer amazing contributions with great dedication. They serve their local online and offline communities and have an impact worldwide. The MVP Award recognizes exceptional technical community leaders from around the world who voluntarily share their deep, real-world knowledge about Microsoft technologies with others.

We are excited to introduce the new MVP Awardees of October 2012:

Name                                                                                                                   Technology             

Jean Paul                                                                                                             SharePoint Server

Brij Mohan Dammani                                                                                            ASP.NET/IIS

The MVP Award program recognizes community leaders every quarter. If you have been an active community contributor for the past year or you know an active community leader, please feel free to nominate using the MVP Nomination Form.

While we don't respond to individual request for status on their MVP application, you can write to indiamvp@microsoft.com to request the information.

If you want to know the wonderful activities of the South Asia MVPs you can also follow us at @IndiaMVP on Twitter or our page on South Asia Facebook Page.

Microsoft MVPs are awarded every quarter and recognize the contributions of an individual to technical communities over the past year. To know more about the MVP Program, please visit: http://www.microsoft.com/india/mvp

We are extremely happy to welcome the following new MVPs amongst our midst for this quarter:

Congratulations to all the MVP awardees, and the renewed MVPs, for this prestigious award! We are glad to have Sameer, the first Xbox MVP from India, back in the fold and Gouri, wife of another MVP – Subodh Sohoni – amongst us!

Windows 7 has set new definition of Personalization. Windows Desktop Experience MVP from Pilani, Rajasthan – Ramesh Kumar, who authors a popular Windows blog, codes up useful Windows utilities, and contributes to online forums couldn’t escape the temptation.

Ramesh has released a Windows 7 Theme pack - I’m Windows 7 PC. It is combination of four wallpapers and uses the inbuilt sound scheme - Festival. Each of the four wallpapers has one of the Windows flag color.
  

Download the Theme Pack from here, and then click Open. The theme is applied to your desktop and added to Personalization in Control Panel. The wallpapers are set to change every 30 minutes, but feel free to choose your own interval.

Like the last year, Windows Desktop Experience MVP, Anand Khanse is organizing the Best Windows Website Contest 2009 on his Windows portal, The Windows Club, to discover and to recognize some of the best Windows bloggers and website owners.

The 10 best websites will be picked up by a panel of 10 Judges, comprising of authors, technology columnists, Microsoft employees, and few other MVPs, and put to vote by the community. The websites will be judged on content, quality, originality, continuity, presentation, and overall impression.

The winners and early entries stand to win licenses of a whole range of software. Winning apart, this contest would provide recognition and a great opportunity for bloggers to expose and showcase their websites. Do check out what the top 3 winners of the last year, have to say about this contest.

At Microsoft TechEd India 2009, we spoke with Sreejumon KP, an MVP from Kerela and President of Kerala – Microsoft User Group (K-MUG) and Binoy, Vice-President, K-MUG about the user group’s academic initiatives.

Download the video (192 MB)

K-MUG has recently organized a Scholarship Program for students to enhance their skill-set.  K-MUG conducts qualifying exam and students get an opportunity to get the free training if they qualify. Nearly 10,000 students appeared for the qualifying exam in the first batch of the unique intiative. More details here.

Selvaraj Kaliyan, an MVP from Bangalore, and the User Group Lead for Bangalore IT Pro has been awarded the Top of the Mark - Volunteer Award, in a programme conducted by The Network Professional Association.

The Network Professional Association® (NPA), in conjunction with Interop, Network Computing, Culminis, and Cisco Press, recently announced the NPA's eighth annual Awards for Professionalism program, which honors individuals for their outstanding achievements as professionals within the network computing industry. Awards for Professionalism winners demonstrate the best balance of professional responsibilities including technical competency, ethics and a proper professional, education and industry credentials, community and industry contributions, leadership, professional affiliation.

Microsoft MVPs are awarded every quarter and recognise the contributions of an individual to technical communities over the past year.

We are extremely happy to welcome the following new MVPs amongst our midst for this quarter:

Congratulations to the MVP awardees on this prestigious award!

To know more about the MVP Program, please visit: http://www.microsoft.com/india/mvp