World's youngest computer professional

While most twelve-year-olds are wondering how they will get past their secondary school exams, whiz kid Aditya Kishore Patil is dreaming of creating the fastest computer in the world that runs on solar energy. Aditya can afford to dream - he is the youngest Microsoft Certified System Engineer (MCSE) in the world and is now all set to get his name entered in the Guinness Book of World Records. He would have liked this feat as his birthday gift this coming Monday, when he turns 13, but certain technical details have yet to be completed.

Studying in the seventh grade in a Pune school, the dimunitive but highly confident young lad has put his heart and soul into studying a course in three months. It is a course that most 20-plus students complete in three years and sometimes more if they don't get through in the first attempt. Aditya earned his Diploma in Software Development in December 1999, the Microsoft Certified Professional course in June 2000, the Microsoft Certified Professional plus Internet course in July 2000 and finally the MCSE in August 2000.

Studying has been all along online with online friends of all ages from all over the world egging him on to achieve what he thought was impossible. Above all, he is grateful to his parents who have made a big sacrifice of giving up a business in Akola to settle down in Pune so that the child does not miss out on educational opportunities in this field.

"There was this friend of mine, 24-year-old Robert Eric from Los Angeles, who encouraged me to take up this challenge of appearing for the exams online," Aditya told the media yesterday as he launched his own website called www.adityakpatil.bigstep.com. Dressed in formal clothes and talking in a self-assured manner, Aditya said he was grateful to all his Internet friends, including a 90-year-old, the oldest, Microsoft engineer from U.K., who helped him with information and inspiration.

He is now an exclusive member of Microsoft Personal Chat meant for only certified engineers. His future plan is to leave in August this year for Oxford University where he has got admission for MSc in Software Engineering. He also hopes to become a Cisco Certified Internet Work Expert in the years, or is it months, ahead.

Hailing from the remote town of Akola in the Vidarbha region where facilities for computer knowledge is limited, his father Kishore noticed Aditya's interest and got him a computer when he was seven years old. "I gave him the freedom to do what he wanted," says his father. At a time when DOS was popular, Aditya said, "I started learning through Help Command and asked my parents if I could attend an institute to learn programming. Wherever I went, no one would admit me as they said I was too young."

It was then that his parents approached Tata Infotech who gave him three tests and then decided to enrol him as a special case. He became a merit student in Maharashtra and then set his heart on taking up engineering. This was at the age of 11 when his father realised that his child was endowed with exceptional intelligence. "I wanted nothing to come in the way of my child's education" the former contractor for the Maharashtra State Electricity Board (MSEB) said.