Marko Calasan: Mini Mozart of Computers
Eight year old Marco Calasan from Skopje, Macedonia has been dubbed the Mozart of Computers by local press after becoming the worlds youngest IT Professional when he passed the Microsoft Certified System Administrator exam.
According to a report in the Times last week, Microsoft presented Marko with games and DVDs after he'd passed the exams, and although he considered it a nice gesture, he said he wasn't "really interested in those things."
Marko, who has a bent for mathematics and physics, was reading and writing by the time he was two years old, and by four he was speaking in English. In a video posted on YouTube (Macedonian), Marko explains that computing is a simple matter of mathematics and following instructions.
This simple understanding has made him into something of a local celebrity who has since been offered his own IT lab by the Macedonian Prime Minister, Nikola Gruevski.
Marko's parents plan to publish a book for small children about computing based on Marko's experience and success.
Photo Credit: Daniel F. Pigatto
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wow, that is truely amazing- mmmm - now how do I get my kid to do that.lol
Common, Microsoft! Marco needs more than just video games and DVDs. Perhaps a scholarship would'nt hurt.
Come on! Balkan countries have such "IT wonders" every couple of weeks or so -- media over here are hungry for stories so they would write about just anything.
This is really no big deal (MCSA, hmph), you can read about local kids winning this IT olympiad or that international contest all the time. Even if those achievements were something really special, they're completely irrelevant considering the fact that in most of the countries down here bright minds have no way of making a difference -- entrepreneurship is actively discouraged (it's viewed as morally only slightly better than crime, and as something that no young person could ever be able to do "properly"; if anything, in Macedonia it is only more so than in Croatia), and there is nearly no infrastructure to support the budding startups -- not only funding, but advisors, skilled lawyers and other kinds of mentors are only a handful worth something in the whole region.
Interestingly, as soon as parents find out that money can be made from it, they stop complaining about their children spending too much time at the computer.