Dmitri is Full of Awsomeness
I have attended lots of conferences in different fields, and they usually have a lot of professional adults in varying shapes and costumes. At the Drupal web developer's conference at U.C. Bekeley, I had a remarkable moment. I took a workshop taught by
Dmitri Dmitrigoi, a programmer who was brilliant, funny, and self-composed and passionate presenter. Here's the kicker. Dmitri is 11 yrs. old. It blew my mind to watch him teach a full lecture hall packed with 20-60 yr. old experienced technologists, who sat in rapt attention, as Dimitri stood on a step to see above the lecturn and demonstrated PHP and CSS coding. He patiently answered our questions and guided us step by step. Gesturing to the future, he talked about the upcoming release in our content management system, which he has worked on. He described the new features that are "full of awsomeness".
I can't wait to tell the children, parents and educators I know about Dmitri. Because I can't help but think that much of what he can do has been encouraged by people around him believing in the capacity to learn and not buying into society's tendencies to infantalize and marginalize children as being less than full contributing members of society.
Soon, DaveO, also writing about Dmitri, will release a podcast with Dmitri.
Thanks, Dmitri, for being "full of awsomeness".