It is unfortunate to report that Shayan Akhtar, the self proclaimed world record holder for Youngest Microsoft professional, is a fraud told me officials from Microsoft.

Shayan Akhtar, a student from Okara, recently claimed that he has set a new world record by scoring 998 marks out of total 1,000 in a Microsoft Professional Certificate programme.

Furthermore Shayan had claimed that Bill Gates has invited him for one to one meeting in July 2012.

Microsoft officials from Pakistan as well as United States, who wanted to remain unnamed, confirmed ProPakistani that Shayan is fabricating facts and communication records to gain popularity for reasons not known to them.

Shayan Akhtar was never invited by Bill Gates, commented company officials.

Microsoft officials also maintained that Microsoft doesn’t keep track of age for its certified professionals anymore. Hence there’s no point of claiming being youngest or oldest certified professional.

When we asked from Shayan about the same, he said that Microsoft could be lying to ProPakistani, and that he was indeed invited by Bill Gates for which he is visiting US in December 2012. He said he could show us the email invitation as well. (We will update this post, when and if we get the scan of invitation)

He also claimed that his name will appear in next publication of Guinness Book of World Record, for his extraordinary achievement. He was of the view that his certification (in November 2011) was a recent record that is why his name isn’t appearing in online search for world records on Guinness website.

Shayan’s father didn’t take our call.

Microsoft didn’t comment when we asked if company is considering any legal action against Shayan for the propaganda.

It merits mentioning here that Punjab government was considering to honor Shayan by throwing a ceremony which of course isn’t happening now.

It maybe recalled that Ammar Afzal, a student from Okara too, was involved in such kind of fraud as well. He had claimed similar kind of records in various certifications, which were later found out to be fake.

Update:

Shayan has tried to fabricate emails, exactly like what Microsoft officials claimed earlier. Just five minutes ago, I received an email from “Bill and Malinda Gates Foundation”. Here is what the email reads:

We’ve just contacted Shayan Anique to confirm his Bill Gates Invitation. He is invited by Mr Gates to visit Microsoft Corporation in November because of the work he had done in the field of Microsoft Technologies like ASP.NET, MVC, .NET FRAMEWORK and WINDOWS PHONE. He is also a youngest MCPD in Windows Phone and Web Development 4. Although we have sent his world Records Documents for Verification to Guinness. We have also verified his MCP Transcript from Microsoft. It is totally valid. We will inform you as soon as we receive reply from Guinness. Your’s Sincerely, –

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Main Office

PO Box 23350

Seattle, WA 98102

Interestingly, the header of email suggest that this email was sent to us using a proxy email sender.

Check below screen shot of email header:

I feel pity for Shayan.