Darin Morris was in grade 11 when he developed a software tool that gave business owners the freedom to change and update their own websites.
His technology is simple - users just need to be able to type - and so affordable that a Web presence is now within reach of the smallest business.
Now in his first year out of school, Morris has a business, FullScap; a business plan; a mentor; some funding; and at least a dozen clients. His goal is to have 55 websites using his software by June.
The son of chef Jenny Morris, also known as the Giggling Gourmet, he had been tinkering with computers and developing software for years. But it was a suggestion from his father that encouraged him to focus on finding a way for people to update their own sites. He says he designed the product with his mother - great cook, hopeless IT user - in mind. His parents then encouraged him to refine the technology and try to sell it commercially.
He found a backer in the person of Mary Anne Flanagan, who runs MambaVen, an incubator and seed-finance company in Cape Town. Morris says he won't be in this for life, however - his long-term goal is to study aeronautical or space engineering.
See www.fullscap.com
