Kayla Tausche CNBC
The arrival of January seems to bring out the list-making in the media. There are reviews of the previous year and predictions for the one we are now in. Publications commonly create a list of Top 40 Business People that are under the age of 40 as top entrepreneur’s to watch for the upcoming year. It used to be that 40 was the target for career establishment. Not anymore. In today’s aggressive market place, a long track record of success prior to age 30 is not uncommon. Credit technology is the empowerment of the Millennials. The reality is that the age bracket in which 30 is considered old, don’t just have extensive resumes – they have already formed in irreversible impact. That’s why The Suit Magazine opted to highlight six of these movers and shakers in our first edition for 2015. As expected, our list contains success stories from social media. There is no denying the changes and questions the emergence of social media brings to our world. Yet, our list goes further.
The arrival of January seems to bring out the list-making in the media. There are reviews of the previous year and predictions for the one we are now in. Publications commonly create a list of Top 40 Business People that are under the age of 40 as top entrepreneur’s to watch for the upcoming year. It used to be that 40 was the target for career establishment. Not anymore. In today’s aggressive market place, a long track record of success prior to age 30 is not uncommon. Credit technology is the empowerment of the Millennials. The reality is that the age bracket in which 30 is considered old, don’t just have extensive resumes – they have already formed in irreversible impact. That’s why The Suit Magazine opted to highlight six of these movers and shakers in our first edition for 2015. As expected, our list contains success stories from social media. There is no denying the changes and questions the emergence of social media brings to our world. Yet, our list goes further.
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THE SUIT MAGAZINE EDITOR”S PICK<br />
DISTINGUISHED BUSINESS AWARD<br />
HOPSCOTCH: WINNER BEST LIFELONG LEARNING APP,<br />
NYC BIG APPS COMPETITION, JUNE 2013<br />
Making Technology Fun<br />
by judy scinta magness<br />
Samantha John left her<br />
home state of Michigan to<br />
study engineering at Columbia<br />
University in New York<br />
City. While at Columbia, she<br />
purposely avoided the computer<br />
science department. “It was<br />
the one thing I knew I wasn’t<br />
interested in,” said John. But<br />
during her senior year, she volunteered<br />
to create a website for<br />
a club she belonged to. “I really<br />
got into it, and made it much<br />
more elaborate than it needed<br />
to be because I was having so<br />
much fun.”<br />
There was no looking back<br />
for John. She went on to become<br />
the tech savvy co-founder<br />
of Hopscotch Technologies<br />
with her partner, Jocelyn<br />
Leavitt. Their goal was to help<br />
young girls understand and<br />
become involved with technology.<br />
A mobile app, “Daisy<br />
the Dinosaur,” built to teach<br />
the basics of programming to<br />
children as young as four using<br />
drag and drop blocks, was their<br />
first product. Their flagship<br />
app “Hopscotch,” followed in<br />
April of 2013 and is designed to<br />
teach children ages 9 to 13 how<br />
to program games, stories and<br />
animations. Since its launch,<br />
there have been 1.4 million<br />
downloads of the app. Approximately<br />
50,000 projects a week<br />
are created and published by<br />
Hopscotch users and shared<br />
within the app’s community.<br />
“Apple has been very helpful<br />
in promoting Hopscotch in<br />
the iTunes App Store. Many<br />
of these kids probably would<br />
never have thought to try programming,<br />
and seeing them so<br />
excited about programming is<br />
very heartwarming and very<br />
exciting – and makes me very<br />
excited to be working on this<br />
project,” said John.<br />
Hopscotch has also been noticed<br />
by prominent groups,<br />
as well as media outlets. The<br />
app received a Parents’ Choice<br />
Award and, most recently, a<br />
Kapi Award for innovation in<br />
childrens’ media. It has also<br />
been featured in “Fast Company”<br />
and The New York Times.<br />
Teachers using the app in<br />
their classrooms represent a<br />
strong distribution platform<br />
for the popular programming<br />
language. “Kids who use Hopscotch<br />
are really engaged. They<br />
love it. They are rushing home<br />
from school to play it. It is important<br />
to us to figure out how<br />
to get all the new users to that<br />
magic moment where they are<br />
just obsessed with Hopscotch,”<br />
said John, adding that an Android<br />
version is forecast for release<br />
in 2015.<br />
Hopscotch Technologies<br />
raised a round of seed-funding<br />
in August of 2013, which<br />
allowed them to hire staff<br />
members. But prior to that,<br />
their apps were conceived, designed<br />
and coded without any<br />
outside help. “Hiring a team<br />
was a big challenge. As a very<br />
small company, you don’t have<br />
a recruiter or an HR person on<br />
staff. You have to do every process<br />
of hiring yourself, which is<br />
very time consuming. But it is<br />
so important, because the people<br />
on your team make up your<br />
company – each of them is very<br />
important,” said John of the<br />
company’s seven member staff.<br />
“We hope to create a cultural<br />
phenomenon of kids getting<br />
into programming with Hopscotch<br />
at age 9- or 10-years-old,<br />
who are collaborating with<br />
other kids around the world<br />
on different coding projects,”<br />
said John. The company is also<br />
considering a version of Hopscotch<br />
that could be interesting<br />
and useful for adults.<br />
THE SUIT MAGAZINE - JAN 2015
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