Say hello to a 14-year AI Scientist, Tanmay Bakshi who happens to be the world’s youngest IBM Watson Developer. A self-taught teen tech prodigy and educationist, Tanmay Bakshi has made it big in the world of information technology on his own. He describes himself as:
“A software and cognitive developer, an algorithm-ist, a keynote speaker, author and of course an IBM champion for Cloud and Honorary IBM Cloud Adviser.”
Tanmay took the initial steps in the world of programming at the age of 5 when he got inspired by his father who is a Computer Programmer. He learnt FoxPro and batch programming his father and then made the most of the learning resources available online to further advance his interest in coding. He is also the author of “Hello Swift! – iOS Programming for Kids and Other Beginners” which is a book that teaches young programmers how to Learn Swift Programming Language.
At the age of 7, he set up a YouTube channel called “Tanmay Teaches”he publishes tutorials on web development and coding. His current subscriber base on YouTube is 267,013 as of June 5, 2018. At age 9, he created his first iOS app called tTables which was designed to teach basic mathematics concepts such as addition and multiplication to kids.
Tanmay later stumbled upon a documentary which aroused his interest in IBM Watson and the world of Artificial Intelligence. Watson is IBM’s question-answering computing system that uses technologies such as machine learning to process natural language queries. He made his first IBM Watson app and named it “Ask Tanmay” using AI technology to deliver responses to questions posed by the app users.
Tanmay’s tryst with IBM started with an IBM service called Document Conversion that made him quite popular with IBM employees, as it is while fiddling with this app that Tanmay noticed a bug and reported it to IBM’s technical team through the programming website and on Twitter.
Tanmay was even invited to be the Keynote Speaker at IBM’s Interconnect Conference and there he addressed an audience of more than 25,000 tech enthusiasts.
He also spoke at the IBM Developer Conference in Bengaluru, India, he spoke in front of 10,000 people. He has had many other speaking opportunities, most recently at the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA) at Dubai as a keynote speaker. Weighing in on the AI debate, he said:
“It’s impossible to regulate the use of AI; it’s just another algorithm that will be used by anyone who has access to a computer. But AI will be used to counter those misuses.”
Success Stories such as that of Tanmay Bakshi reinforces the belief that there is no right age to learn. If you are planning to make it big in the world of programming, there is no dearth of opportunities available to you. TechGig Code Gladiators is one such coding contest designed to channelize the skills of developers and programmers in the right direction. Our 2017 Edition of Code Gladiators made it to the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest programming event in the world by managing to attract 81,641 unique submissions thereby beating the previous record of 30,634 submissions set by China’s Baidu Online Network Technology. Stay connected with TechGig and we will give wings to your dreams.