Hermione and Harry together - Busy on a keyboard

With the right mix of curiosity and wisdom, this ambitious genius is busy re-creating or debugging world-class million-dollar apps already. But he is also busy creating world-class developers among his age group - right here in India. What drives this young wizard?

- Pratima H

Saion Gupta was barely 12 years old when he worked towards the Guinness World Record title of ‘The youngest computer programmer (male)’. Accolades and crowns aside, he is already occupied working towards a new future of coding and coders. Let’s see the world of low-code, open-source, citizencode, APIs and what’s next from the eyes of a prodigy. A chat with this Wunderkind who is happy about Guinness World Record but most excited about India shining in AI.

Hi Saion! How does it feel to achieve this feat? How hard or easy was it?

I am extremely thrilled and deeply humbled that my efforts paid off. It wasn’t easy achieving this feat as there were many instances where it was difficult to keep myself motivated—many issues arose while coding which wouldn’t solve for days and overcoming them was a challenge.

What spurred this idea? And what were the most exciting and challenging parts of this journey to get here?

My father got me started with coding. I just kept learning new technologies and doing new things on a daily basis which helped me to develop lots of apps, take coding workshops, pass LinkedIn assessments for various coding skills. All of these boosted my confidence and gave me the courage to apply for the record.

How important was the role of your parents and teachers in this achievement?

Both my parents inspired me in some way or the other to become a programmer. While my father helped me with attaining the knowledge of programming, my mother always gave me ideas and encouraged me to develop new apps.