Ruari Plint made MEA MVP Program Manager
This is rather exciting news for one of our local lads; Ruari Plint has been made MEA (Middle East, Africa) MVP Program Manager for Microsoft, effective from the 1st April 2007.
Even when Ruari joined Microsoft a couple of years ago and lost his MVP title (Microsoft employees can’t be MVPs, it defeats the point) he has kept himself involved in the MVP community and its members. It’s no real surprise that Ruari would be offered this position and I want to wish him well.
For those readers who don’t know; the MVP Program (Microsoft’s Most Valued Professional) is an acknowledgement program for recognising non-Microsoft developers for being experts in a particular Microsoft technology or product or just in general. Microsoft uses the MVP program to create experts in their products across the world which their partners can use because having a paid employee for every product, in every country is just not feasible. It’s a win-win situation with developers being able to push their professional profiles into the market and having access to the Microsoft teams creating the technology and Microsoft having a team of passionate developers using their products.
In South Africa the appointment of MVPs is a little mysterious but what I can tell you is that it’s not easy to keep. Every year your status as an MVP is reviewed, and you’re expected to have grown in your technology sphere as well as shared your knowledge and helped the communities and partners around you.
Personally, I’m very fortunate to work with 2 MVPs, namely Pieter Germishuys (Windows – DirectX MVP) and Willy-Peter Schaub (Visual Developer – Team System) so I get a little insight into what other benefits MVPs get and how the program works.
