Engleski A - 2020. jesen, reading 2.

British teenage app designer wins investment

16-year-old South Londoner Kent Dallaglio has developed an app which has made international headlines and attracted a big investment from a Hong Kong-based billionaire. It is an iPhone app which summarises the content of web pages.

Dallaglio was nine years old when he begged his parents for a Macintosh laptop and set about teaching himself animation software before progressing through iMovie, Final Cut Express and Final Cut Pro. “I was doing it for fun,” he says, “just playing around.” He is no computer addict – he enjoys playing rugby and cricket and regularly goes jogging. “I get my best ideas while jogging through the park,” he says.

The idea for the app came while he was revising for a history exam. “It was late and I had a lot of work to do for school, preparing for the national exams, and was using Google, clicking in and out of search results, and it was taking too much time. If I found myself on a site that was interesting, I was reading it and that was wasting time,” he said. “It was then that I had the brainwave for this app. I thought that what I needed was a way of simplifying and summarising these web searches. What I wanted was a content preview.” This app is going to make Dallaglio a wealthy man. The first version of the app recorded 100,000 downloads and caught the eye of a private investment firm controlled by a Chinese billionaire that has put $250,000 (£159,000) into the project.

Dallaglio says that learning to program “wasn’t that difficult.” He didn’t even take computing at school. “I really enjoy humanities, arts and philosophy. I also study Mandarin and would like to visit Asia.” He has been granted time off to travel to San Francisco for a meeting with his backers, but he quickly adds that he has no intention of turning his back on school. “I enjoy it, seeing my friends, the sport, the whole thing,” he says.

Dallaglio considers the media attention to be a completely surreal experience. “I don’t think it’s quite hit me that I’m going to Silicon Valley next month with something that began in my London bedroom. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time. My lucky break came when the investment firm found me – before that I was completely unknown. If you think you have a good idea, you should try it out. It might not work, but on the other hand, it might. When you are completely unknown, you have nothing to lose, so just go and take a risk.”

Dallaglio goes to a school that is known for academic excellence, but he is an all-rounder, not just in the classroom but also on the football field: according to his gym teacher, he has a natural talent. He has already surpassed his parents’ expectations. After teaching himself software, he started experimenting with apps. It was his hobby that took him to the world of algorithms, and provided the IT skills needed for designing his app.

Currently, his app can condense reference pages, news articles and reviews but has the potential to go a lot further. Dallaglio says it is a journey that has only just started. I believe we will be hearing about the exploits of this young man for a very long time.