These South African kids rock Adobe, Microsoft Office like no one’s business

Did you know that there were global championships for the Adobe software suite and for Microsoft Office? And did you know that South African teenagers medalled at both?

No? It’s okay, neither did we.

But it’s true. Tiffany Onderstall, a 19-year-old student at Inscape Education Group, beat 88 000 worldwide competitors and more than 30 finalists to win second place in the 2015 Adobe Certified Associate World Championship. Samantha Knupp, a student at Elkanah House High School, beat 600 000 worldwide competitors to win third place in the 2015 Microsoft Office Specialist World Championship. Both competitions were hosted by Certiport in Dallas, Texas, USA.

The ACA championship saw students judged on their creative and technical skills, as well as their ability to take and follow instructions and communication from the client, and implement Room to Read’s vision and message. Room to Read is a non-profit organization for improving literacy and gender equality in education in the developing world. During the Championship Round, contestants were assigned a banner design challenge from Room to Read to which they responded using Adobe Photoshop CC, Adobe Illustrator CC and Adobe InDesign CC software.

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“We were very impressed with the final Room to Read banner entries – they demonstrated talent, creativity, and professionalism at a high level,” said Steve Cox, associate director of marketing for Room to Read. “We enjoyed participating in the judging process and hope to utilize the winning entries as we promote our mission to help all children pursue a quality education.”

The first, second and third place winners were selected based on design score, and were awarded scholarship money (US$5 000, US$2 500, US$1 000), Adobe software, and computer hardware prizes.

The Microsoft Office competition meanwhile included 145 student finalists from 47 countries participated in the final round of competition. The winners from that competition walked away with the same amounts of scholarship money as their Adobe counterparts, a medal, a trophy and Microsoft products.

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“More than 1.2 billion people use Office worldwide, and these students have taken the time to set themselves apart as the best of the best,” said Alison Cunard, general manager of Learning Experiences at Microsoft. “Earning a Microsoft Office Specialist certification has already provided proof that they have the necessary skills to succeed in academics and the workforce. Winning the World Championship puts them in a class of their own, and we look forward to seeing how they put their Microsoft Office skills to use in the future.”

In the concluding round, competitors participated in unique project-based tests to demonstrate their ability to create documents in Word.

“These winners are part of an elite group that know how to use Microsoft Word efficiently and to its full potential,” said Aaron Osmond, vice president of the global Certiport offering for Pearson VUE. “We are proud to support this competition as a vehicle to promote what the world needs most – young people who possess in-demand workforce skills.”