Thai students scoop Microsoft, Adobe prizes in US competitions

THE NATION Issued date 07 August 2018
Six Thai students were feted by parents, teachers and friends on arrival at Suvarnabhumi Airport on Sunday night, returning from the United States wreathed in high-tech glory.
They had won the top prizes at the Microsoft Office Specialist World Championships and Adobe Certified Associate World Championships held between July 28 and August 1.
Natthapong Theumala of Rajamangala University of Technology Thanyaburi (RMUTT) was crowned Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2013 champion and Apakorn Kengkanna of Mahidol University took top honours in Microsoft Word 2016.
Worathep Mongkolwathee, general manager of ARIT, a Bangkok-based company providing computer training and worldwide IT certification, helped coach the prize winners.
Apirat Horwichien, who attends Stamford International University in Bangkok, won Adobe’s top prize for graphic design and Ratchadaporn Ondeekul of RMUTT was first runner-up, Worathep said.
Also from RMUTT, Apinan Khemsamrit was second runner-up in Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2016 and Khirithan Sirivej took fourth place in Adobe’s graphic design contest.The Thais were among 200,000 students aged 13 to 22 from 70 countries who registered for the contests which are organised annually by Certiport, a firm that runs the Microsoft Office Specialist certification exams.
Apakorn said the competition was tough, requiring analytical and problem-solving skills.”I felt the pressure of my own expectations because I’d prepared for this for a long time and was hopeful about winning, so I tried to focus and keep everything under control,” he said.
Natthapong was proud as a Thai to hold the world title and credited his previous experience and his training at university and with ARIT.
Apirat also spent two months training with ARIT for the competition and was focused on the challenge for a year. “I didn’t think I’d win the top prize – I just wanted to do my best,” he said.