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This 16-Year-Old Genius Scored Funding From A Hong Kong Billionaire For An iPhone App

While many young entrepreneurs say they want to create the next Facebook, 16-year-old Nick D'Aloisio wants to solve the problem social networks have created in the first place.

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The teenager built an iPhone app called Summly, which automatically generates summaries in the form of bullet points to help you filter through all that information.

With more than $250,000 in seed funding from Hong Kong billionaire businessman Li Ka-shing, D'Aloisio spent the last six months in his parents' London house building Summly.

Nick Summly
Nick D'Aloisio

It was Sunday at 4 a.m. London time when D'Aloisio enthusiastically IMed me over AOL Messenger to make sure the news of his app made it to my Twitter stream. He was excited that 23,000 people have downloaded the app since it launched last week.

D'Aloisio was inspired to build the app after he signed up for Twitter, and got a flood of information from AP, Reuters, and other people's Twitter handles.

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Interested in finding out more about D'Aloisio, we called him to ask him about this machine learning technology and how he balances his startup with school work. We could hear his faint Australian accent -- he's originally from Perth, Australia, but moved to London when he was seven years old.

Summly business insider
Here's how Summly summarized a recent Business Insider story.

Business Insider: How do you see the future of search and the Internet?

Nick D'Aloisio:  Consumers want information instantaneously and the search interface needs to accommodate this.

We don't need more social networks. The new wave of technology will now stop encouraging content creation. Twitter and Facebook is enough...we have too much information. We need to try to filter the content and make it more digestible. Zite and Flipboard attempt to provide the user with the content.

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We want people to use Summly once they have found content they are interested in or know what they are searching for.

BI: So how did the app evolve into what it is today?

ND: Six months ago, we released something called Trimit. It was about content creation. It was a more gimmicky app, where you'd input an article and summarize to 140 characters for Twitter or other restrictions for Tumblr, Facebook, and email. But I found that people were using for consuming content.

Trimit taught me people want content consumption tools not content creation. Now with Summly, you can have a computer to aid that process.

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BI: What's the market for it?

ND: It's Cliff Notes for a mobile device. It takes a second to return any search result.

It's a bit magical. People don't believe what it can do, then they have a "wow" moment. You can share the summary. You can quickly evaluate the content now. 

In the future, it can be applied to email. It's easy to train it for colloquial language used in email. And eventually it can be used in other areas such as enterprise, consumer markets, and education. We will probably license the technology though monthly fees.

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BI: How did you learn to program at age 12?

ND: Books. C For Dummies. Online Tutorials. Trial and Error. 

The first app I built was called Facemood when I was 14. It automatically deduced the mood of a Facebook friend using their latest Facebook status.

Even now, I'm not that confident. As I said I prefer the graphical/product aspect.

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BI: What do your classmates think of you?

ND: I'm in year 11 here. I just turned 16 in November.  I hope they just think I'm a nice guy. You wouldn't know I do this stuff. I'm really happy with the response I've been getting. People are amazed.

With all that, I don't feel like I need to change my life in anyway. I play sport -- rugby and cricket. And I go out.

I work on the app when I can from like 9-11 pm. And on Sundays. Between school work. It's pretty hectic.

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BI: Who inspires you?

ND: Anyone who is crazy enough to create what's in their mind. Steve Jobs for his obsession with attention to detail and his advice on failure and success. I'm inspired by designers and typography designers. And innovators like Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the founders of Google, and Jack Dorsey and the other founders of Twitter.

BI: What's next for you?

ND: I still have three years left of schooling and plan to continue with my education into university, where I hope to study a combination of philosophy and economics, and perhaps continue learning Mandarin. I learn Mandarin because I'm interested in Chinese culture and enjoy languages.

Now, check out more about the app in this video:

Apps Startups Entrepreneurship
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