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13-Year-Old CEO Steals the Show At TiECON
An anonymous reader tells us about a 13-year old Silicon Valley CEO with a plan to change the way kids learn chemistry. Yesterday he stole the show at TiECON 2007, the big entrepreneur conference held in Santa Clara, CA. VentureBeat has the story and a video interview. The company's VP of sales is the CEO's sister. She's 11. They're looking for $100K to ramp up production and distribution.
One of my Many, Many, many majors was Chemistry, So I can sort of see where you are coming from. However, as the parent of a teenager who just doesn't have ANY interest in chemistry, I have to say this is a good idea. A quick check before typing this reveals that while he has no idea what a noble gas is, he can tell you everything that is written on any Pokemon or Digimon card ever made. If you make the things that you are required to have a basic grasp of into a game, you are going to make a lot of kids initial foray into science less of a nightmare, without so much risk of building a hatred of the subject that will cripple their learning for the rest of their lives.
Why, yes, I AM a Pagan Libertarian.
I find it kind of sad. Yeah, the world probably needs the capitalistic natural selection to move forward, but I'd wish the kids would aspire for something else too, apart from trying to be rich.
The kid's idea is stupid anyway, sure you can roleplay very basic things with it by providing an analogy, but that analogy doesn't work consistently and does not allow for a deeper understanding of chemistry. So unless you are satisfied with the "iron card and oxigen card equals rust card", it does not allow for a deeper understanding. Don't tell me kids are not supposed to learn more at that (around twelve) age, you're probably expecting too little of them.
Either this kid is a gifted one, in which case he'd better spending his time working on something that has use or he's not and probably articles like this are doing a disservice by encouraging him and by taking his idea seriously. The kid apparently has charisma, but that is only enough for deluding people.
Talking about public education, initiatives like this boy's degrade education. For example not teaching children proper algorithms for basic multiplication, division and addition but instead encouraging them to come up with their own reasoning is the equivalent of starting a coding project with two tonnes of sand and some heavy metals. Most of the kids fail at it. It is not against self development and creativity to build upon the work of others, as progress is incremental.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
From what I can see that's where this kid is coming from. Sure, the game won't teach you things like redox reactions, or actual experimental processes, but if you get a good grounding in the basics it makes it much easier to understand the more complex things later on.
You can learn a lot about a person if you just take the time to inject them with sodium pentathol
I was also making money before I was 13, and Elementeo doesn't surprise me. It is much more easier for children to be engaged in business than adults. First, children have lots of imagination, while in general few adults retain it after they turn 22-23. Furthermore, children are usually free of debt and get free food and financial support from their parents, and children normally have no responsibilities; compare that to an adult who is indebted, needs to work in order to eat, and has a family to support. Moreover, children have more free time than adults. Another important factor that is in children's favour is that they usually have good health, while many adults do not. Lastly, laws in general seek to protect children, an advantage mature entrepreneurs cannot have.