Gabriel Wolmarans, Philip Axt, Wimpie Hattingh, Shane Hutchinson, Corne van Heerden, Jacques Wentzel, Vumbhoni Chauke, Rushabh Thakor, Christiaan Volschenk, and Maryke Holtzhausen.

Remember these names, for they will go down in history as the ten most talented spreadsheet operators in South Africa, who can turn a simple set of rows and columns into a creative masterpiece for both aesthetic and functional use.

These ten Excel experts are in pursuit of the title of “Office Excel Champion” and a stack of prizes that includes an awesome Dell E7470 Ultrabook, their numbers having been whittled down from a much larger group by the previous two challenges.

For the quarter finals, contestants needed to perform three tasks, namely complete a “100m Sprint”, “Graph freestyle” and “Formula wrestling” as quickly as possible.

The “100m sprint” exercise was all about speed, where contestants had to pull and arrange data from various sheets into a single table in the fastest time possible. All sheets contained different sets of information (Name, Age, Profession, Salary and Postal Code), and there were no predefined requirements on how that information had to be arranged – entrants just needed to do it in the shortest time possible.

One of the entrants managed to do it in an almost unbelievable 2.12 seconds in a clear demonstration of some serious Excel-fu.

The “Graph Freestyle” challenge was all about the visualisation of a large volume of data. Making data easily relatable by turning it into charts and graphs allows Excel users to identify trends and patterns far more effectively than staring at a wall of numbers does.

The fastest time for the best graph created based on the data provided was 2.26s.

The last part of the challenge, “formula wrestling” was all about putting the best formula together so that even though the data may change, the answer is always correct. To solve the challenge, contestants had to solve three problems with a formula. What some of the contestants missed was that there was a refresh option, which changed a lot of the numbers and therefore the answers. Some took to just answering the questions, some read the question and added the ask into their formula, not realising that when the data changed the “ask” changed. The fastest time on the formula wrestling was 3.05s.

Congrats to all ten, who now go on to complete the next set of Excel challenges set out by Microsoft, which has been posted to Microsoft’s Facebook page. It’s no doubt even more complex than the last one was, a daunting prospect indeed!

These ten semi-finalists have until the 6th of May at 12pm to complete the next set of challenges, the results of which will be announced on the 12th of May.

From there, all that remains is a three-way face-off happening at the end of May to see who’s the very best of the best…