Edward van Biljon has been awarded the prestigious Most Valuable Professional (MVP) award for Microsoft Exchange, making him the only MVP for Exchange in South Africa. The MVP award recognizes exceptional community leaders who share their technical expertise and knowledge of Microsoft products. It takes many years of effort to achieve the MVP designation, as it requires meeting 10 achievement steps and is considered the Masters Level for Exchange expertise.

1. mean you will get it. I was nominated
twice before, but nothing happened. It is a
very strict and rigorous process. It takes a
lot of effort and you have to make time for
what is needed.
How many MVPs are there in the
world?
For Exchange, there are only about 110 in
the world. In other areas of expertise there
are about 500. n
What does it mean for you to be
an MVP?
It is a milestone, something I have been
working towards for a long time. A dream
come true. It is the start to many new
things, more learning, deeper knowledge
of the product not available to the general
public and the opportunity to work with
the guys out there who know the product
on a higher level.
How long does it take to
become a MVP?
It is not something that can happen
overnight. It has taken me six years to get
to this level. MVP is the Masters Level of
Exchange.
What do you need to do to
achieve it?
There are 10 steps one has to achieve to
be nominated, but that doesn’t always
Edward van Biljon, Collaboration Specialist at Head Office, has been awarded the
prestigious Most Valuable Professional for Exchange. It is the highest award presented
by Microsoft and makes him the one and only MVP for Exchange in South Africa.
What is Microsoft Exchange? MS Exchange Server is a calendaring
and mail server developed by Microsoft.
What is an MVP? The Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) award
is given to exceptional, independent community leaders who share their
passion, technical expertise and real-world knowledge of Microsoft
products with others.
More about MVP
w From Xbox to Excel, from Office 365 to OneNote, an MVP can solve software
questions and provide necessary support.
w They are nominated by their peers, by Microsoft employees and other MVPs for their
achievements over the past 12 months.
w An MVP does not work for Microsoft, nor do they represent the company.
w The MVP programme extends worldwide and includes
millions of members within the technical community.
Read more: mvp.microsoft.com
32 | SPRING 2015
OUR MVP
For expert advice, call
Edward, Microsoft MVP