How a 13 Year Old Built an App For His School of 1200 Students
Pares M. is a 13 year old student from Johannesburg, South Africa. He’s probably one of the youngest developers publishing his first app “Dainfern College (DC) Reads” on the first try. His app is now being used across his school of 1200 students to promote reading. An amazing accomplishment by someone so young.
In my interview with Pares, he reveals how he got started and how he achieved success!
Please, tell me about yourself, share your story. You can start in your early childhood. Try to cover such topics as your family and educational background and what led you to mobile development and programming.
My name is Pares Malindi I’m a 13-year boy from Johannesburg, South Africa.
I’m in grade 8 at Dainfern College. I began my journey coding at the age of 7 when my parents bought me a laptop for my birthday, and I realised I had a passion for technology. I was curious to how electronics work and surprised by how these devices are able to benefit people. This made me want to create apps that would benefit people in the world.
My parents were the main role players in my coding career, but there were many other people that encouraged and helped me to learn code such as teachers and friends. I enrolled in various learn to code classes, including robotics and online tutorials from Codecademy and CodeWithChris. This allowed me to learn at my own pace and go back so I understood what I was learning.
Dainfern College implemented iPads for students at an early age so that we were exposed to technology. In higher grades Dainfern College had ICT lessons that taught me some of the basics of coding such as functions and variables. This gave me a strong foundation which I could build upon as I learnt more. My mother works at an IT consulting company and arranged for me to visit their offices a few times during my school holidays. My mother’s colleagues helped me improve my coding skills. It was a fantastic opportunity and experience because it allowed me to talk to people who knew about coding and ask questions that I couldn’t ask my parents or teachers.
It’s amazing that you’ve already published your first app at age 13! Can you tell us how that came about?
Miss Dupont, our school librarian, held a book review competition where students were required to record themselves and share their book reviews with her. I saw this as an opportunity to apply my coding skills and create an app that would benefit the librarian, students and the school.
I created DC Reads, which stands for Dainfern College Reads. It allows students to review and rate books from the school library and publish these reviews online. Other students could then use the reviews to select which books to read. Making it easier for our school librarian to reward students for their book reviews.
One of the most memorable days in my life was the 18th of August 2018 at 01:00 when I received an email letting me know that DC Reads had been successfully published on the App Store. I couldn’t believe that my first ever app had been accepted first try!
Out of all the free YouTube content out there, why did you choose to learn with CodeWithChris?
This is an easy one, the one thing that stood out with the courses from CodeWithChris was how easy they are to understand. Many of the other courses assumed that you had coding experience. It was much easier to learn using the CodeWithChris courses because they explained the concepts as if you’ve never written a line of code!
The CodeWithChris courses and content are also updated frequently which is great because it ensures that the students are always learning the latest content and are on top of the latest updates.
The quality of visual graphics on CodeWithChris courses make it easy to understand the concepts and make the courses fun and enjoyable.
Lastly, CodeWithChris has a huge online community where students can communicate and provide support to each other. Students can learn from these questions so when they experience a specific error, they know how to solve it.
You mentioned you want to be an exceptional developer because you’re passionate about iOS development. Being only 13, you already know this is the career you want to pursue! Truly amazing, because it’s rare! Can you explain a little bit about how you came to this conclusion being so young?
Through technology exposure and encouragement from my parents and teachers at an early age I was able to find my talent.
Also, after doing research and finding out that there will be over 1.4 million jobs in computer sciences in the next 10 years, I knew I could make my passion my career.
Another point that confirms that I want to become an iOS developer is that as I code, I learn more skills and feel confident that I have all the skills required to become a great iOS developer.
Coding is the future, the 21st century digital language and it is important for everyone to learn to code because it teaches you how to think – Steve Jobs.
Now that you are a registered student for our CodeWithChris courses, what would that do for your life and/or future career?
I believe becoming a registered student of CodeWithChris will make my dream of being an iOS developer a reality. CodeWithChris courses will create a bridge between being a beginner developer and an intermediate one. It’s the next step to me becoming a better iOS developer.
Any advice you can give to other young students trying to pursue a dream?
My number one piece of advice is it’s never too late or too early to start and don’t be afraid to fail.
I want to thank Pares for sharing his inspiring story!
App development is truly for everyone and all ages.
We also want to inspire more young minds like Pares and recently launched our licensing program for schools. Applications are NOW open!!! Learn More
If you have your own inspiring story to share, please get in contact with us!