Given Vedant’s ability to code, his parents plan to give him a new laptop soon. (Represent)
Fifteen-year-old Vedant Deokate from Nagpur of Maharashtra has much to be proud of. The teenager entered and won a web development contest organized by a US based company. Vedant won the contest by writing up to 2,066 lines of code in a two-day period.
After winning a coding contest with more than 1,000 participants, Vedant was offered a job by the same company with a salary of Rs 33 lakh per year. However, the job offer for a position on the HRD team of the New Jersey advertising agency was withdrawn after the organization was informed of Vedant’s age, India’s period reported.
The bittersweet moment was followed by a message of encouragement from the company. Asking Vedant – a 10th grader – to not lose heart, the advertising agency encouraged him to complete his studies and then contact them. “We are impressed with your experience, professionalism and approach,” the company wrote to Vedant, the report added.
Vedant, a self-trained programmer, honed his skills on his mother’s laptop. He has participated in more than two dozen online tutorials about laptops that are described as “slow” and “outdated”. It was also on his mother’s Instagram account that he came across an ad for a coding contest.
Vedant’s parents Rajesh and Ashwini Deokate are assistant professors at a technical college in Nagpur. Talking about their son’s achievements, Mr. Deokate said, “We have no clue. It was a call from my son’s school telling us about this offer.” Mr. Deokate said it was the school that helped Vedant rewrite and share his age and other details with the company.
Given Vedant’s ability to code and win the competition, his parents plan to give him a new laptop soon.
