60 seconds with Abhishek Kant

60 seconds with Abhishek Kant
MVPs are champions of community.

VJ caught up with Abhishek Kant, India MVP Lead, to get his view on the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Program(MVP).

VJ: Please tell us about yourself.
Abhishek: I work with the Microsoft Technical communities in India to support and encourage them. I am employed by Microsoft and designated as Community Program Manager. I have been a techie part of my life after being trained as a banker in management school.
I blog about technology at: http://www.abhishekkant.net/
I am a gadget freak, enjoy programming in my spare time and love playing on my XBOX360 (gamertag: chints).

VJ: Please tell us about MVP Program and Its importance.
Abhishek: Microsoft community in India has a large presence in form of user groups, forums and blogs. MVP Award recognizes the top community contributors for Microsoft technologies. MVP is a globally recognized award and one that Steve Ballmer, CEO himself keeps a close contact with. MVPs are conscience of Microsoft and provide valuable neutral feedback on all our products. Their feedback (bugs and feature suggestions) is highly regarded by the development teams.
MVPs are champions of community and Microsoft relies on them to guide us in determining what community needs from us. To know about the great work Indian MVPs have been doing, visit:http://blogs.technet.com/southasiamvp

VJ: Please tell us about how to become an MVP.
Abhishek: You can’t take a certification to be an MVP! You have to earn it by working hard in the community and getting recognized as a leader there. The only way one can take the leadership position in the community is by being the most prolific contributor in the community.
You can self nominate yourself for the MVP award by visiting: www.microsoft.com/india/mvp
Make no mistake it is very difficult to become an MVP. We have only 125 MVPs in India and over 4000 world over.

VJ: Please tell us about benefits of becoming an MVP
Abhishek: MVPs enjoy recognition, technical and relationship benefits from Microsoft. Some important benefits are:
The most important benefit to the MVPs is access to all existing and upcoming (betas/ alphas) Microsoft products for free. Microsoft facilitates interactions between product teams and MVPs where they can participate in determining the future of the products.
Access to the wide network of MVPs worldwide provide for excellent networking and learning opportunities that is rare to find in professional world.

VJ: Please tell us about your MVP Summit experience
Abhishek: MVP Summit is a very different experience from regular conferences. Presence of MVPs from over 35 countries under one roof provides valuable learning and networking moments. Personal interactions with Microsoft product teams and candid exchange of ideas are unique features of MVP Summit that make it very valuable. The high point of every MVP Summit is the Steve Ballmer keynote. He is the best speaker I know of in the world.

VJ: Any message to the Technologists
Abhishek: Learning from books is something that we all learnt growing up. What I wish I knew in college was that a person learns more from participating in the community. Community challenges you with real world problems and encourages you to think of real world solutions. I wish I had participated in technical forums early on so that my knowledge would have grown exponentially.
If there is one thing that I would urge all technologists, whatever stage of career you are in at, to do is to start participating in community of interest to you. If you are a Microsoft technologist you definitely want to check out Microsoft Forums.
Communities are where you find the best and brightest of people engaged in world over. An interesting by product of community participation is the global recognition you would gain for yourself.