17-year-old Taj Pabari, resident of Brisbane has won the honour of Queensland Young Australian of the Year award and is now a national finalist for the prestigious Australian of the Year Awards which will be announced in January 2017.
Speaking to SBS Hindi, Taj said, "It is a great honour to win this award but I wasnt expecting it. I had not even prepared a speech."
Taj Pabari (left) with another winners of QLD Australian of the Year Awards. Source: Australian of the Year
Taj looks forward to the national Australian of the Year Awards where he will get to meet his counterparts and achievers from the other Australian states.
Entrepreneur and founder of Fiftysix Creations, Taj Pabari started his career with a technology website when he was merely 11 years old.
In 2014, he launched his enterprise Fiftysix, which creates electronic tablets, easy to assemble.
Taj’s Fiftysix creations cleverly combine hardware, software and education, enabling children to build their own tablets. He calls his build-it-yourself tablet and coding kit, the ‘LEGO of the 21st century’.
"I was inspired by people like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates and I thought why don't I try and change the world too," he said.
"The kits we create help kids to learn about computer science, as children put it together like building blocks.
"It gives young people from the age of six to 16 the opportunity to build tech and create tech instead of just consuming it."
Today, his creations are being used in schools around the world and Taj and his team have educated more than 43,000 students in Australia and internationally.
Balancing his education and entrepreneurial endeavours is not easy, and Taj wakes up at 4am every day before heading off to high school. Taj has big dreams to expand his social enterprise and has set a goal of educating one million kids by 2020.
Source: Supplied
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