Tran Dinh Vi from the Ho Chi Minh City Banking University won first prize in the Microsoft Office Word 2003 category at the Microsoft Office World Champion 2012 (MOWC 2012) on August 1 in Las Vegas.

The contest, which attracted 285,000 students from 53 countries worldwide, specialised in competitions using Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

This is the third time Vi has taken part in the MOWC, having missed out in 2010 and 2011 in the final round.

"It is wonderful for me to win this award on my third attempt. My efforts have finally paid off," Vi said.

According to Ray Kelly, CEO of Certiport, the organiser of the contest, MOWC has been gaining incredible momentum over the years, and the student competitors are incredibly passionate about preparing for the exams and representing their countries.

"The competition has become a technology Olympics as students demonstrate their tremendous skills and compete against the best of the best," he said.

"Certification is a valuable tool for students – it helps them to be college and career ready. It also proves that they have desirable skills and gives them confidence in using these applications more fully than most other users in the world," Kelly added.

Certiport, the world's leading provider of computer literacy skills training, has a network of 10,000 authorised testing centres worldwide./.