The winner of the Microsoft Office Specialist MOSAU Australian Championship has been announced by Microsoft and Prodigy Learning after a virtual final which took place on 2nd December.
The Microsoft Office Specialist World Championship is an annual global digital skills competition (delivered locally by Prodigy Learning) involving over 760,000 students from 116 countries who compete to be the World number 1 in Word, Excel or PowerPoint. Students, aged 13 to 22, competed with peers to prove their Microsoft Office digital skills. The top 30 finalists were invited to the 2nd December virtual final where they sat a Microsoft Office Specialist (MOS) Certification Exam from the comfort of their own home to demonstrate their mastery of Office tools.
Today’s finalists represented the width of Australia and the breadth of Australian education and included students from the University of New South Wales, TAFE SA, TAFE NSW, Canberra Institute of Technology, Jubilee Christian College, Mountain Creek State High School, Silkwood School, St Pauls School, Toowoomba Christian College and the MEGT ICT Youth Jobs PaTH Program (an Australian Government Department of Education, Skills and Employment pathway to help young people into work).
There could only be one winner. Using the top score method, the MOSAU Champion (who has won the trip of a lifetime to Disneyland, Florida to compete in the MOS World Championship Final 2021) is: Lianna Andersen, TAFE SA. Runners up in the Final were Aileen Wang, University of New South Wales (2nd) and Nishil Patel, University of New South Wales (3rd). Congratulations to the MOSAU Champion on a fantastic achievement and a perfect top score in the final!
“The Microsoft Office Specialist Australian Championship is an incredible event, it is fantastic that students across the whole of Australia can compete and prove their digital skills and inspire others with their amazing achievements,” said Tiffany Wright (Director of Education, Microsoft Australia). “These young people beat 1000s of their peers and truly are leaders of the future. They have earned valuable industry recognized certification representing a bright future for our industry and a solid foundation for the future skilled global workforce.”
With 2.3 million certifications delivered annually, Microsoft Office Specialist is the world’s largest IT certification program. Microsoft Office Specialist is the only official Microsoft-recognized certification for Office globally and serves as a powerful instrument for assessing student skills and preparing students for real-world application.
“Celebrating the best of the best digital skills at the Microsoft Office Specialist Championship Final is a highlight of our year. Digital skills have never been more important and it is our honour to crown the MOS Australian Champion who will represent the region at the World Championship Final in 2021. Certification and success in this final will set these young people’s CVs apart from their peers in their future career pursuits” said Andrew Flood (CEO, Prodigy Learning). “Congratulations to Lianna on an incredible achievement and well done to all of today’s Finalists. Our thanks to all students, educators and institutions who participated in the 2020 Championship and made it such a success.”
Lianna Andersen is currently completing a Cert IV in Information Technology at TAFE SA student and is a trainee with the South Australia Department of Education as part of the Microsoft Traineeship Program. Microsoft Australia in partnership with Prodigy Learning and MEGT developed the Traineeship Program to create a new, diverse pipeline of exceptional IT talent such as Lianna, while also addressing the technical skills shortage in Australia.
