Back in February I did send an email to Corey telling him that I didn’t understand that there were only a handful of vExperts in Belgium, a country similarly sized to the Netherlands, and that I wanted to encourage the program in Belgium and grow the numbers of vExperts.
Hey Corey,
Hopefully you are doing well and not too swamped with assessing all the VEXPERT applications.
For the last couple of years I have been literally stunned by the underwhelming amount of VEXPERTS in Belgium. There are exactly 10. As a comparison: there are about 70 in the Netherlands, a similarly sized and populated country. So what is going on over here in Belgium?
I have been thinking about how to increase the number of VEXPERTS in Belgium for the last year, but I lacked the support to highlight the wonderful opportunities the VEXPERT program can bring to my fellow Belgians. Well this has changed! There is a keen interest from VMUGBE and my soon to be employer to aid with getting this number increased, because they too see that we lack people with a voice in Belgium and would love to get this changed.
So now I am reaching out to you because we would love to have your support for this exciting adventure as well. We would like to highlight the VEXPERT program in Belgium, starting the coming VMUG Belgium convention on June 15.
Can you let me know what you think about this? We really would love to get you involved and get your support.
Kind regards,
Kim
It didn’t take long for Corey to reply:
Hi Kim, the timing of your email could not have been better. We are building out a program to do exactly what you described. We are currently working with a vExpert in Brasil as well as a vExpert on the east coast of the US and expanding as we grow.
So they had just started working on something very similar and I was invited to join the first meetings of what would later become the vExpert PRO program.
Meanwhile we (‘we’ because this is not a solo endeavor, Tom Vallons and Stijn Depril and myself are a team) promote the vExpert program in Belgium and anywhere else we might set foot. We have had successful events at VMUGBE+ (thank you Erik!) and the resurrected vBeers in Belgium. But we couldn’t have done this alone. Along the way we have enjoyed tremendous support from VMware Belgium & VMware Netherlands and from ITQ. Thank you guys! We won’t rest until we will have converted every living soul in Belgium to join the vExpert program ;-). Currently I am working in Zurich but I keep promoting the program. There are many souls to convert in Zurich!
Although Tom, Stijn and myself will be mostly busy growing the numbers in Belgium, feel free to reach out if you would like to get some answers about the vExpert program, how to become one and many more questions you might have.
Keep growing those numbers! Keep feeling excited about the vExpert program! Never stop being excited about the marvelous solutions VMware creates for us to use! Never stop promoting VMware!
Onward to greatness, you all!
Official annnouncement: https://blogs.vmware.com/vexpert/2018/10/10/vmware-vexpert-pro-program-launch/
Kim
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