 |
Canadian cyberchild
heads to China
Trade Trip to China
February 4,
2001
By Julie Remy
The 12-year-old boss of a Web
site design company will be one of 300 business and
political leaders accompanying Canadian Prime Minister
Jean Chretien on a trade mission to China next month.
Keith Peiris, who founded award-winning Cyberteks
Design in June 1999 and now has some 25 clients in North
America, insisted in an interview that he is "just like
any other kid." But few kids face his decisions, like
whether to sell out to U.S. or Hong Kong investors for
several million dollars, and what to do about would-be
clients scared away by his tender years.
He and his
father will spend nine days on the Team Canada trip to
Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong, where Chretien aims to
showcase the best of Canadian business in the world's
most populous country.
Sitting in his office in the
basement of his London, Ontario, home, Peiris told
Reuters he discovered his passion for Web design when he
was 10 and was "playing around" with software downloaded
from a Web site. Bored with pop singing star Britney
Spears and the Pokemon cards and TV reruns his peers
enjoyed, he experimented with interactive tools as a
hobby.
"There was nothing else to do," the
dark-haired boy said in a serious voice.
Demonstrating his music- and animation-laden
interactive Web sites, he summed up his strategy: "You
find the best sites out there and you see if you can do
better. Of course, I am not the best designer out there
yet, but I will strive to be."
A glance at the
complex, elegant animations on his
http://www.cyberteks.com site shows both the extent of
Peiris' talent and why news agencies and broadcasters
like CNN, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and
Australian television are calling daily to ask for
interviews.
"He doesn't want to be No. 2," his
father, Deepal, said proudly, his eyes sparkling behind
square glasses. Impressed by his son's first Web site,
the former accountant, president and marketing manager
for Canadian computer companies presented him with a
complete kit of Macromedia applications for his 11th
birthday in February 1999.
A few months later
Macromedia Chairman Robert Burgess introduced Keith to
the public as the youngest user of Flash animation and
interactive tools.
PLAY BECOMES WORK
That
launched his career as an entrepreneur and led to the
creation of Cyberteks Design.
"It was his idea,"
said his father, who is now vice president of operations
at Cyberteks. "I am teaching my son what I know. We make
decisions together. I haven't done anything my son
disagreed with. He makes the final decision."
The
family business is already thriving. Cyberteks grew an
astounding 600 percent in the last seven months, helped
in part by publicity about its young founder and the
inclusion of the Web design company in the gallery of
Macromedia clients, along with Kodak, MSNBC and Cisco
Systems.
With a revenue the family coyly admits is
in six figures (in Canadian dollars), the company has
seven offices in the United States and five part-time
employees who, like the Peiris family, work from their
homes in London.
Keith says he enjoys being able to
work in his pajamas but scoffs at suggestions that he
might eat in the office. "It's my loss if I drop cola on
the keyboard. It's my work that is going to be ruined,
so I am taking it seriously."
An eighth-grade
student who earns top marks for his schoolwork, he also
finds time to play goalie three times a week for the
London Knights ice hockey team, while working nights and
weekends on Web design contracts.
"I really don't
consider it work, I consider it fun. I just had to
rearrange a few things," he said casually when asked
about his heavy schedule. He admitted some potential
clients change their minds when they find out his age,
but the well-informed not-yet-teenager tries to ignore
them.
"There are a few people who don't understand
me, but I try not to think about that. It's just one
person in 6 billion (in the world)," he said.
"Suddenly, I've been known as the whiz kid or geek,
which I can't say I am too happy about. Some people --
very, very few -- have asked if they should call me
'Mister,' but I try to stay as casual as possible,
simply because I am a kid still."
But when offered a
children's menu in a local bar and grill, he looks
offended and asks for a regular menu.
Already
planning ahead, he is saving money to study business and
computer engineering. "People who take things for
granted will be left behind eventually. You have to
continue to work hard to be part of the new era," he
said.
His parents, Deepal and Sryia Peiris, left
wartorn Sri Lanka in 1981 to settle in Canada -- first
Montreal, where Sryia was working on a doctorate in
organic chemistry, then London, a city of 300,000 125
miles (200 km) southwest of Toronto.
Now the family
admits it is at a crossroads, mulling whether to sell
Cyberteks or keep it.
"The question is whether to
grow slowly or expand very fast," Deepal said, adding
that the family may leave Canada but would leave their
head office in Toronto if it did. "We don't know where
we are going to be in the next few years."
Click here for more
| |
| |
|
