In September 2013 in the first game of the football season, I tore my crucial ligament. This was really the worst thing that I could have happened.
This was killer news to me, and to makes things worse, I was told I was going to be out for twelve months. You can imagine how upset I was, considering I went from training fours times & playing three matches, to being told I wouldn't be able to do no sports at all.
While on my way back from my 3rd specialist meeting in November 2013, I had the discussion with my Dad about what I was going to do with this extra time I now had. We looked at everything I had an interest in, and came down to two things, Sports & Coding.
I had been Coding for two years now, in my local CoderDojo which I had be running for the past two years. I then came up with the idea of doing more one on one classes with young kids to concentrate on Coding, game development, design and more.
When I started, I had a few things to sort out, and I didn't waste any time. I went home, designed a logo, setup Social Media pages and got myself business cards.
This was the start of my first business, Kid Tech.
In two weeks I had sold out my first course, with twenty five kids, split into four sessions. I managed to get my local project centre free of charge for ten weeks on a Saturday.
I got up every Saturday at 8am and finished at 6pm with classes the majority of the day. I employed my brother ( Who was 21 ) to sit in the room and do nothing all day because I had to have an adult because of child protection law, you could imagine how annoyed I was paying my brother to do nothing.
After a few months I was doing well. I featured in a few newspapers, and online publications. I received my first award also, Huffington Post, Young Entrepreneur of the Week, I was delighted.
Then things began to become interesting!
I then decided that this was no longer a way of earning money, and keeping myself occupied, I wanted to be a proper business person. I contacted a few big names, and one person got back to me.
She was, Norah Casey. Norah kindly replied to a Twitter reach out, and then asked me to be on her Newstalk slot to speak about Kid Tech. This was amazing, but I was so nervous. On my way to the interview I had drank two bottles of water, and then another bottle in the elevator. When we got to the studio, I was shaking. The funny thing was, I had nothing to be afraid of, I was being silly. Norah was so kind and really helped me through the interview, and I was so grateful, and still am.
This really was the changing point!
A few months passed and nothing really happened. I began tweeting more, and began meeting new people. I still continued with my courses, and stayed in touch with Norah Casey.
Then one day a friend of mine in the UK said he had contact details for Blackberry an Stephen Fry!
He sent them on, and I contacted them both. I heard back from Blackberry and they kindly agreed to send me devices for the kids to code, this was major.
Then a week or so later I woke up to an email from a woman who was the personal assistant to, Stephen Fry!
This was crazy, I couldn't believe it. After exchanging a few emails with her, she spoke to Stephen, and he agreed to support Kid Tech!
And that was, Kid Tech!
A year went by, and I had featured on TV, radio and more. I had set a goal of teaching 600 kids, and achieved that goal. I got more businesses involved, and even spoke at events.
Kid Tech, was really the started everything, and really was an amazing few months for me that I will never forget. I had the opportunity to attend amazing events,and meet amazing people.
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