MEET SAMAIRA MEHTA, THE 10-YEAR-OLD CHILD PRODIGY WHO TURNED DOWN A JOB OFFER FROM GOOGLE

At an age when most of us were grinning over our school homework, 10-year-old Samaira Mehta has taken Silicon Valley by storm. Mehta is a highly skilled programmer and to an extent, an inspiration to aspiring coders.

Samaira has developed Coder Bunnyz - a coding board game than helps children learn all the necessary concepts in programming. She has already attended events by technology majors like Google and Microsoft as a keynote speaker.

Speaking to Medium, the coding prodigy says, “I always loved board games, and I always loved computer programming, but I didn’t like the fact that I had to do both of them separately, so I thought if I can’t bring board game onto a computer coding screen, so why not bring the computer coding to a board game. And that’s when I got the idea to create a coding board game, and that’s what I’m doing today.”

It all started with young Samaira testing the game with her friends so they could point errors and share feedback. Accordingly, Samaira refined Coder Bunnyz to perfection. She didn’t stop at that. She arranged for coding workshops for kid coders which Samaira conducted herself. Along with her father, she also established a company to launch the game.

From the moment she launched the game, Samaira has conducted over 60 workshops in the Silicon Valley, which has been attended by about 2,000 kids. Within a year, she also sold about 1,000 copies of her game, worth $35,000.

One of the best moments of her journey came when she met Google’s Chief Culture Officer, Stacy Sullivan. “After my back-to-back workshops at Google headquarters, we talked for an hour. She told me I was doing great and once I get out of college, I can come work for Google,” Samaira told Business Insider. 

An open offer from Google is a dream come true for many across the globe. But Samaira replied, saying that she’s happy being an entrepreneur and didn’t know if she wanted to join Google!