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A Vietnamese student will represent Vietnam for the second time at the finale of a Microsoft-backed information technology contest that will take place in the U.S. next month.

Bui Huu Hong Hai, a student at the Ho Chi Minh City University of Foreign Languages – Information Technology (HUFLIT), has been chosen to attend the final round of the 2014 Microsoft Office Specialist (MOS) World Championship contest to be held in California from July 27 to 30.

This is the second consecutive year that Hai has been selected to join the MOS finale to compete with other contestants from around the world, hoping to become the champion of this year’s competition after failing last year.

The competition requires participants to take full advantage of several available computer software tools to display their abilities and skills to process the information given by the jury in the best possible way.

“The competition has three categories including Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. In 2013, I won the MOS Excel 2010 category so I decided to join the Word category this year. I’m really happy to represent Vietnam to join the 2014 contest’s finale,” Hai told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper.

Ranking 20th of all contestants from 80 countries and territories in 2013, the 21-year-old Vietnamese student said he had little experience when he joined last year’s final round and will try his best this year.

“Besides practicing and studying, it’s also important to sustain good health for the competition. Last year, I suffered from jet lag as it was my first time flying to the U.S. It seriously affected my performance in the competition,” he shared.

As the president of his university’s student council, Hai revealed that he will organize many workshops dedicated to Microsoft Office 2010 tools, hoping to disseminate knowledge and information he has acquired from the competition to his university fellows.

Other students representing Vietnam in this year’s final round include Tran Phuc Duy, a 10th-grade student at Lawrence S. Ting High School, who won first prize in the MOS PowerPoint 2010 category, and Tran Minh Tien, a student at the Banking University of Ho Chi Minh City, winner of the MOS Excel 2010 category.

This is also the first time the title of MOS representative has been awarded to a high school student. The three students are winners of the contest’s national round, which began in March.

Microsoft Office Specialist World Champion is an annual competition involving Microsoft Office applications held by Certiport all over the world. This year marks the fifth year the contest has been organized in Vietnam.

The 2014 national round attracted more than 1,000 Vietnamese students from 174 teams across the country.