Photo: Hispanic Standout Thomas Suarez: Self-Taught iApp Creator and TED Event Speaker
Though most 12-year-olds love playing videogames, Thomas Suarez taught himself how to create them, and was even a speaker at a TEDx event.
In 1984, TED started out as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Today, it holds true to their slogan: Ideas Worth Sharing with young entrepreneurs like Suarez.
After developing iPhone apps like “Bustin Jeiber,” a whack-a-mole game, Suarez is now using his skills to help other kids become developers.
At the TED conference this year, Suarez spoke to his audience about tech integration in education, providing app access to all children, and about how teachers can enhance their lessons by actually looking to their students for better way to engage them.
His interest in technology and programming led him to learn the programming languages Python, Java, and C “just to get the basics down.” He built an app and then coaxed his parents into paying the $99 fee to get the app which he called “Earth Fortune” in the app store. Thomas also started an app club at school to help other kids build and share their creations, saying, “[If you want to learn to play] soccer, you could go to a soccer team. For violin, you could get lessons for a violin, but what if you want to make an app?”
And at the age of 12, Thomas Suarez is now starting his own company, CarrotCorp.
Watch him speak at a TEDx event in Manhattan Beach earlier this year.
