Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Award Winner Joins Company-X

HAMILTON, NEW ZEALAND: An award-winning expert in Microsoft and Unity 3D, 2D, augmented and virtual reality technologies has joined New Zealand Agile software specialist Company-X.

Five-time winner of the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional, Developer Technologies award, Jiadong Chen, recently joined Company-X.

Chen is one of 3,000 Microsoft Most Valuable Professional award winners internationally, recognised by Microsoft as one of the technology industry’s best and brightest five years in a row.

Nominations for the award are made by Microsoft executives and existing winners.

Chen’s awards recognise his passion for technology, willingness to help others, and commitment to the international technology community.

Award recipients have the opportunity to meet Microsoft executives, network with peers, and position themselves as technical community leaders through speaking engagements, one on one customer event participation and technical content development.

MVPs also receive early access to Microsoft technology.

“It helps other people recognise your value,” Chen said of the award. “It’s recognition from Microsoft.”

Chen is adept in the Microsoft Azure cloud computing service for building, testing, deploying and managing applications through Microsoft data centres.

He is also a Microsoft Certified Azure Developer Associate and holds a Microsoft Azure Fundamentals certificate.

Chen joined Company-X from Unity, the creator of the world’s most widely-used 2D, 3D, augmented and virtual reality development platform, where he worked as a field engineer.

“I was based in Beijing before I moved to New Zealand,” Chen said. “In this job we provided support to all of our customers.”

Chen’s clients included the world’s largest video game vendor Tencent, based in Shenzhen, China.

“I would do project reviews to weed out problems they encountered. Sometimes we needed to customise the Unity engine to meet their requirements.

“Originally Unity was a game engine.

“It is a general purpose development platform so you can do whatever you want. Currently Unity is focussing on architecture, engineering and construction.

“The architecture industry is using Unity to develop their virtual reality (VR) application or augmented reality (AR) application to help them design buildings. There are some other industries, such as the automotive industry, using Unity to design car prototypes and render a 3D model.”

Chen, who graduated from Dalian Maritime University in Liaoning, China, with a Bachelor of Engineering in Electronic Information Science and Technology in 2012, is also the author of the 2016 book Unity 3D which has sold 15,000 copies in print and eBook editions.

Chen has presented at both the Microsoft Ignite and Unite conferences.

“I want to share knowledge,” Chen said.

He is also a regular technology blogger, posting at http://www.jiadongchen.com/

“On the other hand writing a blog and writing books can improve my own capabilities, so I like to write blogs to share knowledge with the community.

“I like to do personal projects in my own time,” Chen said.

“Sometimes I may look for new ideas and I want to implement the idea, so I will research documents and knowledge and implement it myself and write something to record it and share the knowledge with the community.

“I believe technology creators can make the world a better place, and Company-X has the same ethos that aligns perfectly with my personal mission, which is why I am so excited to be a part of the team,” Chen said.

Company-X augmented and virtual reality specialist Lance Bauerfeind said Chen was already making a difference at Company-X

“We are extremely excited to have Jiadong on the team. He has already had a positive impact on the projects he is working on.”

About Company-X

Company-X offers Silicon Valley level software savvy delivered with a Kiwi can-do attitude.

Founded in 2012 by software specialists David Hallett and Jeremy Hughes, Company-X immediately won contracts with New Zealand government departments and a Silicon Valley multinational.

The team has grown to nearly 60 New Zealand-based software specialists, with only the best and brightest passing the Company-X interview and assessment process.

The Company-X team prides itself with experience in a wide range of technologies and languages and loves challenging problems.

Company-X is the first Australasian reseller of RealWear head-mounted tablets.

Company-X ranked on the Deloitte Technology Fast 500™ Asia Pacific, a list of the fastest-growing technology companies in the Asia Pacific region, in 2017, 2018 and 2019.

Company-X has won many awards:

• The Independent Software Vendor Award at the Reseller News Innovation Awards 2020 for state-of-the-art software that turns text into human-like audio files at a fraction of the cost of booking a voice artist, recording studio and sound engineer.
• The Independent Software Vendor Award at the Reseller News Innovation Awards 2019 for a hands-free auditing application developed for AsureQuality.
• The Service Excellence and Global Operator awards at the Westpac Waikato Business Awards in 2018.
• The Services Exporter of the Year category at the Air New Zealand Cargo ExportNZ Awards 2017.
• The Homegrown Innovators Independent Software Vendors Award at the Reseller News ICT Industry Awards 2017.
• The Roading Asset Management Innovation Award at the Road Infrastructure Management Forum in 2017 for the One Network Road Classification Performance Measures Reporting Tool built for the New Zealand transport sector.

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