wait awhile before Sutherland rolls out the company's second product. The first one took 450 days to build before he unveiled it. And Sutherland, who was recently accepted to MIT, says becoming a software magnate was never one of his career goals.
"I wanted to be a firefighter, an astronaut, a zookeeper; you know, all the typical things," he says. "I never really thought out a choice to make a career out of computers. I just got more and more into it, and now here I am."
5. The Junkyard Genius
Garrett Yazzie, 16
Garret Yazzie wasn't trying to become a teenage celebrity when he invented a solar home heater out of a 1967 Pontiac radiator and 69 aluminum soda cans. The then-13-year-old was merely trying to heat his family's trailer on Arizona's Navajo Indian Reservation, which had no running water and limited electricity.
That invention garnered Yazzie national attention. He won first place at the 2005 Arizona American Indian Science and Engineering Fair and was one of 40 finalists (out of 7500 applicants) to attend the Discovery Channel Young Scientist Challenge in Washington, D.C. Arizona State University created a scholarship in his name; and last April, ABC's Extreme Makeover TV show presented his family with a new house.
But Garrett wasn't done. The next year, he invented a water wheel using an industrial-size cable spool connected to a 10-speed bicycle and an alternator. The wheel produced enough electricity to power a refrigerator or light up a mountain cabin. Once again, he won the American Indian science fair and placed as a semifinalist in the Discovery Channel challenge.
At the challenge, Garrett met the Pierz family, who offered to take him in and provide a better education than he could get at home. Now 16, he's a sophomore at a private prep school in Clarkston, Michigan. But he hopes to return to Arizona and build a business that designs and sells alternative energy devices.
"I also want to build my business on the reservation to create jobs and futures for other kids just like me," says Yazzie. "I want those kids to know that if they get a good education they can find a good job on the reservation, near their families. I want to also remind people that living in harmony with our environment, with Mother Earth and Father Sky is not only a good idea; it is the only way that is sustainable long-term."
6. The Alchemist
Anshul Samar, 14
Like Quizlet's Andrew Sutherland, Anshul Samar began his entrepreneurial career by seeking an alternative to soporific study techniques--in this case, mastering chemistry. So he created Elementeo, a card game based on chemical elements in which players battle to reduce their opponents' electrons (and ultimately their in-game IQ) to zero.
Anshul started his company with a $500 grant from the California Association of the Gifted and is shooting for revenues of $1 million by the end of this school year. As founder and CEO of Alchemist Empire, Inc., Anshul says he spends most of his time "designing, engineering, R&D, corresponding with designers and artists, giving pitches to people that are interested, marketing, testing, and doing a lot of brainstorming." That's in addition to chatting up venture capitalists and lawyers, giving talks to parents and teachers, doing presentations at conferences, talking to the media, and finishing his homework. Because, after all, he's only an 8th-grader.
Last May, Anshul was the hit of TIEcon, a annual gathering of tech entrepreneurs, outshining such luminaries as Salesforce.com's
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