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Business & Tech

Bustin Jieber App Made in Beach Cities by 11-Year-Old

Eleven-year-old Thomas Suarez's programming genius makes CarrotCorp a winner.

When someone says, "There's an app for that," they could be talking about something 11-year-old Thomas Suarez has made. Thomas' newest pop-culture-inspired app—called Bustin Jieber—is making waves.

While other kids his age may be playing sports, Thomas has chosen a different path—to learn to program software as an iOS app programmer. The term iOS refers to Apple products' operating system.

About a year and a half into his journey to become a programmer, Thomas' app company, CarrotCorp, is listed as being run by his father, Ralph Suarez, due to Apple's app store regulations that require an adult to co-sign with a minor, but the family assures Patch that Thomas, of Manhattan Beach, does all of the programming himself.

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Patch: What got you into programming?

Thomas Suarez: I started when I was very young. I started liking electronics and the computer, and then I moved on to more advanced stuff. I got into programming, and started programming into different languages. I started Python, then I moved on to Java, from there I went to Objective C. Objective C is the iPhone programming language, so that's what I use mostly.

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Patch: What do your friends think—do they think it's cool or nerdy?

Thomas: They think it's pretty cool, they think it's great that I'm programming. For the Bustin Jieber app, to advertise it a little more, my teacher let me do a presentation to the class about it. I did a demo and had people come over and try it out—people loved it.

Patch: Why did you make the Bustin Jieber app?

Thomas: I just saw a lot of kids at school, they didn't like Justin Bieber. I thought why not make an app about where you can express how much you don't like Justin Bieber by hitting his face in a challenging game?

Patch: What is your favorite program you've made thus far?

Thomas: Probably Bustin Jieber.

Patch: What do you want to program in the future?

Thomas: I think I'd like to stick with Objective C mostly for apps, and then this year I've made a New Year's resolution, I want to make hardware. I put Bustin Jieber under my company—CarrotCorp—and in the future, maybe this year, I want to start making some hardware for the IOS devices—I think iOS, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. I think they're very good platforms for both software and hardware. I see a big market for that.

Patch: What would you say to other kids out there who might be doing the same thing as you, and where they can go with it? Marketing, that type of thing?

Thomas: I went on Leo Laporte's Tech Guy radio show. I had already gone on his radio show about a year before, asking him how I could start programming. He kind of remembered me. He kind of promoted it [my work] for me. I've got signs up at school. I did some marketing at the Apple Store. A week before it launched, I loaded my app up on the computers [at the Apple Store]).  I know a lot of Apple Store employees—pretty much all of them at the Apple Store, and they were all helping me market it [Bustin Jieber].

Patch: What would you say to kids who want to get into programming but might think it's nerdy?

Thomas: It shouldn't be a nerdy thing, it's a cool thing. Most kids don't know how to program at this age, and that would be a very cool skill to say, "I program apps, it's a very good skill."

Patch: How do you fit working on apps for your company CarrotCorp and school?

Thomas: When I get home from school, I usually go on the computer for a long time. Of course, I do my  homework, I do my computer, I do dinner, and I do my computer more. I love programming apps—even times when it's very frustrating, it's still very fun. People shouldn't get discouraged if they are frustrated or think they can't do it anymore. You can always solve a problem in your code, even if it takes sometimes days to figure out this one problem. All of a sudden it's one stinkin' little thing. I say “Oh!” I run the program, and it works.

Patch: What other activities do you enjoy doing, tech- and non-tech-related?

Thomas: Other than coding apps, I like making videos. I have a green screen, and stop motion. I have a huge green screen we assembled—my dad and I—ourselves, in a special room. So, I have some software, we can do green screen, we can do explosions. Oh yeah, and I like fixing the teachers' problems at school. All the time, they'll have a problem with their digital whiteboard, with their computer. One teacher—I was actually in the middle of social studies class—she calls my social studies teacher, and says, “Oh, I need Thomas' help,” so I came to the rescue pretty quick. What she was trying to fix in 30 minutes I fixed in about a few minutes.

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