I don’t think anyone will argue when I say last year was an extremely challenging year. I know few people that weren’t impacted from Covid-19 in some shape or form. From a professional perspective many of us had to change and adapted to how we do our jobs.
For us in the VMware community, conferences, training, meetups, all in person, became a thing of the past. Many were cancelled, many shifted online. Some of us lost our jobs. A lot of us went into lockdown. It was a tough year!
When it came to the vExpert awards for 2021 it was certainly a unique year as well. This year the vExpert program acknowledges the many challenges people had due to Covid-19 over the past 12 months. As a result the award path for returning vExperts was greatly simplified this year. Along with considerations made to first time applicates that may have been impacted by Covid-19.
Disclaimer: Numbers below are not official and have been compiled to the best of my abilities to be as close to accurate as possible. These numbers can vary as some applications are reassessed or were not available to me to count.
This year we are awarding 2057 vExperts from 79 countries. That’s approximately 300 additional vExperts up from this time last year. Which is a pretty great achievement. This year we have just over 180 vExperts receiving the award for the first time. Well done to you all. Our largest group of vExperts come from those holding the award for two years, which is just over 420. A huge congratulations to those first time and returning vExperts!
As always the United States holds the largest number of vExperts at 664. Sitting in second, and a long way back, is the United Kingdom with 177. Followed by Netherlands (116), India (110), and Germany (99). My home country, Australia, jumped up a few places from last year to equal 8th with Turkey with 49 vExperts this year.
Here’s hoping that 2021 is a much better year for everyone. As Covid-19 vaccine rollouts begin to happen. Fingers crossed that we start to see some in person events begin running again and we can see each other face to face and in person. I look forward to a great year from the vExperts.
The official VMware vExpert announcement and link to the vExpert Directory can be found here.
A full break down of vExperts by country can be found below.
| Country | Number |
| United States | 664 |
| United Kingdom | 177 |
| Netherlands | 116 |
| India | 110 |
| Germany | 99 |
| Japan | 83 |
| Brazil | 63 |
| Australia | 49 |
| Turkey | 49 |
| Canada | 44 |
| France | 43 |
| Spain | 43 |
| Singapore | 38 |
| United Arab Emirates | 31 |
| Belgium | 27 |
| Ireland | 25 |
| Poland | 24 |
| Czech Republic | 23 |
| Italy | 22 |
| Switzerland | 21 |
| Argentina | 20 |
| Denmark | 19 |
| Russia | 19 |
| Egypt | 17 |
| New Zealand | 16 |
| Saudi Arabia | 14 |
| Korea South | 13 |
| Norway | 12 |
| Sweden | 12 |
| Austria | 11 |
| Colombia | 11 |
| Costa Rica | 8 |
| Taiwan | 8 |
| Hungary | 7 |
| Chile | 6 |
| Israel | 6 |
| China | 5 |
| Myanmar | 5 |
| Romania | 5 |
| Slovakia | 5 |
| Sri Lanka | 5 |
| Bulgaria | 4 |
| Portugal | 4 |
| South Africa | 4 |
| Dominican Republic | 3 |
| Ecuador | 3 |
| Iceland | 3 |
| Kosovo | 3 |
| Kuwait | 3 |
| Lebanon | 3 |
| Luxembourg | 3 |
| Mexico | 3 |
| Morocco | 3 |
| Pakistan | 3 |
| Panama | 3 |
| Philippines | 3 |
| Ukraine | 3 |
| Estonia | 2 |
| Finland | 2 |
| Gibraltar | 2 |
| Hong Kong | 2 |
| Indonesia | 2 |
| Iran | 2 |
| Malaysia | 2 |
| Nigeria | 2 |
| Qatar | 2 |
| Armenia | 1 |
| Belarus | 1 |
| Channel Islands | 1 |
| Greece | 1 |
| Guatemala | 1 |
| Macau | 1 |
| Mozambique | 1 |
| Nicaragua | 1 |
| Paraguay | 1 |
| Thailand | 1 |
| Vatican City State | 1 |
| Venezuela | 1 |
| Zaire | 1 |