Thomas Suarez is in the 6th grade at a middle school in the South Bay. And while most of his peers are probably fussing over new soccer kleets or watching the Disney channel, he’s creating iOS apps and giving TED Talks.
Suarez, who’s not even old enough to have a Facebook account, has been fascinated by computers and technology since before kindergarten. He’s established his own company, CarrotCorp and has made two iOS apps that are currently in the App Store: Earth Fortune, which displays different colors of Earth depending on what your fortune is and his most successful- Bustin Jieber, a Whac-a-Mole for Justin Bieber.
“A lot of kids these days like to play games, but now they want to make them,” he says. “And it’s difficult because not many kids know where to go to find out how to make a program…And not many parents have written apps.” Suarez, inspired by Steve Jobs, started an App Club at school where any student can come to learn to design an app. In the future, Suarez wants to create more apps, more games and get into Android programming and development. He plans on continuing his app club and find other ways for students to share knowledge with others.
Knowing that human beings such as Suarez exist makes me really hopeful and excited for the future. Watch his TED Talk from the recent TEDx conference in Manhattan Beach below. There are more great finds from around the Internet every day at TNW Shareables.


















Suddenly, I feel that I am very old — while I am now still 15.
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LikeIn the same vein, I would point your attention to Rishi - a 9 year old 4th grader who pitched his business idea at Startup Weekend last week.
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48SZYmASY7c
Awesome!
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LikeI would kill to have grown up in the internet generation. My childhood was spent aimlessly wondering how to accomplish things no one around me was capable of teaching.
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LikeJusta Dood but how cool is it that we grew up with and without the internet? that kind of perspective is priceless.
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LikeThis kid talks just like Steve, bless him.
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LikeMs. Myers: You're the editor, but you can't spell or punctuate correctly? Wow.
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LikeThis kid is amazing. You can tell he's watched a lot of Apple keynotes, from his presenting style. It works well too.
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Likelol i have 14 yrs old and i'm beginning to program stuff and i'm feeling old too :D :(
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Likeabelia Umm.. don't mean to burst your bubble but, YOU CANT EVEN USE GRAMMAR RIGHT! Gah..
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LikeTo the author: Learn to write, learn to spell. Seriously.
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Likeecafsub hey, we all make mistakes especially when we're pumping out content all day long. but at least i'm not an asshole. seriously.
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LikeYou're not? Sure fooled me. That would explain why you don't have a better way of expressing yourself and your opinions than resorting to ad-hominem attacks and profanity.
Spelling, grammar, punctuation, have nothing whatsoever to do with "pumping out content all day long." In fact, people who do "pump out content all day long" should be far more cognizant of those errors and quick to correct them before they see print in any form. Based on your argument, authors should see tons of errors because they certainly "pump out content all day long." Right? Your position seems to be that more content=more errors. What happened to "practice makes perfect"?
The careful writer checks for errors and corrects them. It's one thing to misspell a word; it's an entirely different issue to simply make one up out of ignorance or laziness (I'm not sure which is worse.) "Kleets"? Seriously? I did notice that "whose" has been corrected and is now "who's".
Thanks for your valued input. It's gratifying to know there is no shortage of those who would defend ignorance, laziness and incompetence so readily. Birds of a feather, right?
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Likeecafsub you sir, need to chill. 3 paragraph response lol, you mad.
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LikeFeeling old and dumb... all i did as a kid was play tennis and have friends without the help of any apps or social communities...
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LikeYou had friends without social communities? Pretty sure friends ARE social communities...
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LikeYou had friends without social communities? Pretty sure friends ARE social communities...
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LikeMe too!!!!!
>> Willy Lim
>> I'm feeling old.....
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LikeI just found myself cheering at the screen at the end of the video.
Keep at it Thomas!
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LikeI'm feeling old.....
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LikeThere's your ego killer for the day...
A whole new meaning to "Kids these days...."
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Likeholy crap
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LikeHe speaks like Scott Forstall
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LikeI go to school with him.
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Likewow. amazing presentation for a sixth-grader.
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LikeLove this. Is the content groundbreaking? Absolutely not. Is his presentation style pretty amazing for a sixth-grader? Absolutely.
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LikeAmazing? No. Creative? Perhaps.
Where's the amazing glory and press coverage for people in my generation that didn't have SDKs, didnt have IDEs, didnt have gobs of help - yet were able to write programs, spreadsheet utils, games, speech synthesis starting at this point:
[image : c=64 start] http://goo.gl/QT9tu
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LikeOh, poor james didn't have SDKs or IDEs. Hey james, would you like me to make you some milk and cookies? Perhaps tuck you into bed?
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Likejamie rishaw How far was your uphill-both-ways walk to school each day?
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LikeIn the second paragraph, "whose" should be spelled "who's". Otherwise, I love this kid.
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LikeConversation from Twitter
attias_david he has amazing communication skills but try the apps, they are not that great :/
ismaelhenchi I'll try! But he's still amazing to do that at that age!
bizfan Hawaii: We’ll keep it interesting... @ The Big Island Reporter: http:\/\/t.co\/gULqF6qy
ca_nu omg...
Danielebr_ Umorismo, tono brillante e ipad in mano..manca solo il dolcevita
Amazing: RT JenaSteinbach 6th grade iphone app developer giving TED talks. Awesome, and kind of scary. http://t.co/8v8wJyvJ
whizhouse after watching that video I feel like an ass hat now.
patrickbjohnson seriously. It's inspiring though. Make me want to keep leaning to keep up.
whizhouse yea I think I'm going to set a schedule for myself. Certain things to study on weekdays, study dev on weekends.
Rashid_Shahid Am I the youngest Android app developer in Grade 10? Dunno, but unlikely.
RichMulholland how classy is he at public speaking as well! Flippen little legend.
milancermak Podobnej mladik (z naky google akce) me kdysi donutil naucit se jquery. Kdyz to zvladnul on, tak ja prece musim taky! :)
Pitlik nice :) presne to si hovorim i ja, tito mladi su fakt husti
shibinss shareables WOW this is amazing to see such young promising talents in the Tech field
stefgonzaga hello steph senxa la pa ang file mo. down ang site ng bsp cant get the forex rates. im finding out ways dont worry
appangad1987 Okay Abs let me know if you can send it by next week.
EtienneDepaulis J'avoue c'est fou ! Je serais curieux de savoir si on a les mêmes en France.
susanotkids cocktaildeeva I know... and he looks so confident on stage!
bigdaddykreativ cocktaildeeva I know!!!...he can give me some of his confidence.... a typical grade 6 student ?!!
susanotkids cocktaildeeva ya no kidding! He can share some of that confidence with all of us. #Inspiration
rosiesiman because he has nothing to lose yet. #inspiring I gotta say