Earning Microsoft's coveted MVP award in one product category is no easy feat. But how much work and dedication would it take to earn an MVP award in two categories at the same time?

To find out, just ask Prashant Bhoyar, who is a Microsoft MVP for AI as well as Business Applications. MSDW reached out to Prashant, a cloud solutions architect at consultancy Applied Information Systems (AIS), to find out more about his MVP recognition, his work with Microsoft technologies, and his approach to community involvement.

MSDW: When did you receive your awards?

Prashant: The first one I got was in April 2017. At that time my category was Office 365 apps and services and it was mostly for my work with SharePoint. Then in 2019, I changed my category to artificial intelligence and I have been getting that award every year since. This year I also received the MVP award in business applications.

What did you have to do to go from one MVP award to two awards? And how are you maintaining them simultaneously?

To be honest, I wanted to get a second award and I had been trying for the past couple years and this year I was successful. For each category, Microsoft expects a certain level and type of contributions from you. Last year, I had a lot of contributions, which qualified for the MVP award. And those contributions were good enough in both categories. So that's why they gave me the award in two categories in the same year, which is hard to achieve. But I was fortunate enough.