“I have NOT been going to enough school recently…”
Not a quote one would immediately associate with success, but 18-year-old Harry Moran has been taking the world by storm from a young age.
He became the world’s youngest Mac app developer when his six-week project, PizzaBot, hit the #1 game spot in the App Store, overtaking powerhouses like Angry Birds.
App development is one of the newest and most exciting fields of work out there, and there are countless opportunities for tech-savvy entrepreneurs. According to Moran: “Anyone can be a programmer these days.”
Harry sat down with Nick Webb and the Capital B panel to discuss his future in robotics and app development, from the beginning of his journey at Cork’s CoderDojo sessions to his burgeoning app developing career.
The chief question: what’s next?
After some probing from the panel, the young Corkman admitted that programming is one of the best ways to be your own boss, which is high on his list of priorities.
Moran agreed with panellist Bobby Healy’s opinion that programming is a trade, though a rather peculiar one – often spending twelve hours alone in his room, working on his coding skills. He has already produced three apps, with his latest venture being PizzaBot Reheated, a sequel to his earliest hit. He juggles this with hitting the books, and hopes to go to college to study his trade.
However, Healy had a different view:
“Developing socially? Hanging out with friends? Waste of time,” Healy, Chief Technology Officer of CarTrawler, stated.
“Playing pool? Waste of time. Programming is a hugely intensive activity. If you’re programming you’re going to be spending 12 hours a day, MINIMUM 12 hours a day at it.”
Healy, who left school shortly after beginning his own wildly successful journey in tech, went on to offer further career advice to Moran, saying his time was best spent getting experience in a company so that he has the skills to build an app he loves.
Moran’s insights on launching an app on the App Store, securing advertising revenue and more can be heard on this week’s episode of The Capital B.
