Video Professor

Some people think that business intelligence comes from age and experience, but in this technological age, we are learning that this ideal does not necessarily hold water any longer. Nothing proved it to me more than an article I read today, “Meet the Whiz Kids: 10 Overachievers Under 21” on http://tech.msn.com/news, about 10 young people who have taken business intelligence and gave it a new number, and that new number is under 21 – 21 years of age, that is. Here are two of the young entrepreneurs, inventors and innovators who took their business intelligence and helped communities.

Ben Casnocha, 19 – Business Intelligence for the People

Few people of any age have started a software company and written a book — and considerably fewer 19-year-olds have. But Ben Casnocha is one of them.

Inspired by a teacher who made him memorize Apple’s Think Different ads, Casnocha founded Comcate, which sells software designed to help local governments resolve citizen complaints. The specific impetus came from having “a personal experience where I realized how poor some local governments were at dealing with customer service.” It was the second company Casnocha had started; he was 14 years old.

At age 17, Casnocha was named one of the nation’s top 25 entrepreneurs under 25 by Business Week for his work running Comcate, yet he also found time to be captain of his high school basketball team and editor of his school newspaper.

Cosnocha defines business intelligence by taking a feeling and an idea and turning it into a mission that is truly needed.

Garrett Yazzie, 16 – Business Intelligence that Saves the Environment

Garret Yazzie wasn’t trying to become a teenage celebrity when he invented a solar home heater out of a 1967 Pontiac radiator and 69 aluminum soda cans. The then-13-year-old was merely trying to heat his family’s trailer on Arizona’s Navajo Indian Reservation, which had no running water and limited electricity.

That invention garnered Yazzie national attention. He won first place at the 2005 Arizona American Indian Science and Engineering Fair and was one of 40 finalists (out of 7,500 applicants) to attend the Discovery Channel Young Scientist Challenge in Washington, D.C. Arizona State University created a scholarship in his name.

The next year, he invented a water wheel using an industrial-size cable spool connected to a 10-speed bicycle and an alternator. The wheel produced enough electricity to power a refrigerator or light up a mountain cabin. He again won the American Indian science fair and placed as a semifinalist in the Discovery Channel challenge.

At the challenge, Garrett met the Pierz family, who offered to take him in and provide a better education than he could get at home. Now 16, he’s a sophomore at a private prep school in Clarkston, Mich. He hopes to take his business intelligence and return to Arizona and build a business that designs and sells alternative energy devices.