Nick D’Aloisio – Summly

Nick D’Aloisio was just a 12-year-old boy when he started to be interested in computers. Neither of his parents had jobs with technology however, he still found a interest in computers. Nick decided that he wanted to fool around in making apps at the age of 13 and when he was just 15 years old he had sold his app, named Summly, to yahoo for 30 million dollars.

When asked about what he was like pre-Summly, and what first got him excited about technology? He responded saying, “I actually got more into movie making and 3D rendering when I was like eleven or twelve. There was this professional software called Autodesk Maya, and I got into doing that. I mean, it wasn’t that good, but I was teaching myself. So I guess the two things I really enjoyed doing when I was younger were creative output and also teaching myself things. I have taught myself math before; I’ve taught myself programming; I used to do a lot of stuff on the side of school; and so I think those skills helped get me into programming in this app world.”

Summly is an news article app that allows people to get the news on their phones in a more innovative way that is easy to use. It has features that allow people to search for key words and is in the format of a swipe not a scroll design so that users don’t have to be as annoyed.

Whitney Wolfe and the creation of Bumble

Whitney Wolfe is a 27 year old entrepreneur that is the co-founder of Tinder the popular dating app. She realized that there was new potential in the dating app business. This new and improved dating app, Bumble, that is a strong contender with Tinder having over 20 million users. This has the same basic idea as Tinder, however, when there is a match between a man and a woman, the woman is the only one able to “make the first move”.

Whitney had an interesting story of how she met her husband. However, when she found out about Tinder and how it worked she was intrigued. She saw an opportunity to improve the idea of Tinder. She had made the app more based and targeted toward the use of women. However, she knew that guys would use this app because if they are looking for a mate they will conform to backing off and not making the first move.

I think that this app is a great idea because it would stop all the creepy guys from making disgusting comments toward women. I also think that guys would download this app because men are getting tired of making the first move.

3D Printed Houses

Nikita Cheniuntai is a 26 year old man from Russia who has reinvented the way we think houses should be built. There are so many different types of new technology that are only used in a couple of different businesses. 3D printing is a new technology that has not been expanded or branched out to large scale products however Nikita Cheniuntai made the impossible, possible.  

A New and Fun Look at Jewelry

 Maddie Bradshaw is a young girl that was always interested in arts and crafts when she was growing up. At the age of 10 Maddie had started to make these magnet bottle caps that she would use to decorate her locker at school. At first, it seemed like the only people who wanted to join in on the trend were her close friends. However, after a couple of weeks her product grew in popularity and there seemed to be a high demand for the bottle cap magnets. Maddie took this opportunity and expanded on it. She decided to start making different jewelry out of the custom bottle caps.

I notice that right away Maddie, at the age of 10, is unique. She is one of the youngest entrepreneurs that I have ever heard of. She created her own product and started small, however, when she saw an opportunity to grow the business, she took it.

Although Maddie was the main designer, she could not financially support herself so her mother helped with that aspect. In order to produce the product twice as fast she had her younger sister, Margot, would help her out. The product was also made out of a cheap, easily attainable material which helped in the production.

Maddie was innovative in many different ways. She made sure that she didn’t hire anyone, but instead used her family as resources in order to expand her business.

The whole idea of the bottle cap jewelry is very interesting and was obviously very popular among young girls. She had come up with something that didn’t necessarily solve a need, however, she did provide a desirable product.

The business went on the famous TV show Shark Tank where they tried to get some big investors to help them out in their business to take it to the next level.