Apps to all-nighters: Meet the three tech stars at uni with big ideas

You’ll probably be working for them in five years time

| UPDATED

Forget the stereotype of the lanky, enter-Shikari listening teenager in the computer labs, the next generation of tech entrepreneurs are all over campus and Silicon Valley is in their sights. 

But who are the ones blazing new trails?

Callam Poynter, co-founder and chief technology officer at Zentry

On a year out from his Computer Science degree at York

Idea: Zentry, a social management app which tells you all about the events you’re attending, including the boy-to-girl ratio.

Callam is going to continue his degree at Manchester or York next year

Callam took a year out of York so he could focus all of his energy on developing Zentry, the app which lets you know everything about your night out.

The Computer Scientist is working tirelessly to release a re-engineered version of the app on Christmas day.

What does Callam’s day look like?

“I’ll go on nights out and then kick myself that I should of been doing work, so I will stay up all night working. I will stay up all day as well. I’ve had a mad couple of days, staying up for 24 hours straight and falling asleep at weird times.

“I live off it though, it feels like a race, I imagine it’s how Zuckerberg felt in uni when he was trying to get Facebook started.”

Money and ambition

“At the moment every single hour is spent working on Zentry. I recently quit my other job so I could just focus on Zentry, I’m surviving on what I made from the job and a tax rebate, by the time the money runs out hopefully Zentry will be running successfully.

“We estimate for Zentry to be pretty lucrative pretty soon, we’re already selling tickets to these events.

“Silicon Valley could be an option. I was talking to one of my friends from Zentry yesterday and we were chatting about some ideas and we are considering moving to the US after uni, a garage set-up in Palo Alto.”

Callam has been into computers since he was in year 6

Why tech?

“I got into computers in year six. I was always obsessed with making my own games, I met a guy called Alex Thorne when I went to high school. He was a boy genius, he ended up going to uni and getting a maths degree when he was 16 and he did his GCSEs when he was in year six.

“I used to sit next to him in the ICT room and he was programming, I just ended up learning the language he was using.”

Callam got deeper into tech after cheating in a year ten Maths test.

“I did well in a maths test because I copied the answers off a girl and I did better than her. I got put in the top set, I didn’t really think it through, so I was in the top set and I had to work hard from then on.”

“Since then, I’ve had the mantra ‘fake it until you make it’.”

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Sumita and Risha Jindal, co-founders of Digimeal

English and American Studies third year at Leicester (Sumita) and Economics and International Development fresher at Sussex (Risha)

Idea: Digimeal, an app which generates quick and healthy recipes from the ingredients you put in.

The sisters came up with Digimeal around the dinner table with their mum and dad when older sister Sumita was a fresher at Leicester.

Since then, Sumita has become a finalist and Risha is enjoying her time as a fresher at Sussex and the app has now been active for a month and a half.

The sisters even appeared on The One Show

Working with your family

“In uni I would ring my mum up every day and she would tell me what to make. It got to about Christmas and my mum was joking, “Wouldn’t it be good if there was an app for it”.

“The company is family orientated, my mum does a lot of the videos, my dad is on the board, and me and my sisters run it.

“Working with my sister is a love-hate relationship. There will be times where we agree on everything and then there will be times when we will argue on the tiniest detail but we will still be thinking the same thing.”

Living in the spotlight 

Since the idea has taken off they’ve been all over the press with younger sister Risha featuring in The Sunday Times’ list of  top women in British tech.

“We launched about a month and half ago and we have 200-300 users on the app and we’ve had a lot of publicity.

“We’ve been in The Guardian, The Sunday Telegraph, we went on The One Show, which was really cool.

“My sister was invited to meet the chancellor and went to the Houses of Parliament”

Sumita’s younger sister Risha meeting George Osbourne

Snapchat and Facebook are huge now, what’s exciting you about tech?

“What’s exciting is the tech industry is all about the younger generation rather than those who have been in the industry for 20 years.

“It’s changing all the time, our generation is more involved and up-to-date with the trends which are coming.”

Money and their ambitions

“We only launched a month and a half ago so we haven’t made any money yet. The plan is to develop a premium product, but we just want to improve what we have at the moment.

“It would be great to end up in Silcon Valley one day, not for ourselves but to help other people. We want to give people the confidence to cook through our app.”

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Alex Kontos, founder of Waterfox

Engineering grad at York

Idea: A web browser which has been optimised to load as fast as possible and is being used by 700,000 people

Alex got into tech because of his Dad when he was 13. He quickly began messing around with really small computer programs, at 16 he founded Waterfox and soon after he was funding uni with his profits.

Alex founded the company when he was 16

How does Alex balance everything?

“There were many nights where I’d get no sleep and then have assignments to hand in at the same time.

“There were times where I wanted to drop it all and just run away, but I knew that wouldn’t be the right choice.

“Sometimes my degree suffered, but I don’t regret any of the choices at all and it was a great learning experience. I don’t think I will face anything as challenging as that.

“A lot of the time I work late until I reach a certain goal. So I’ll wake up as soon as possible the next day and start working again.

“Social life is important too, so whenever there are things happening with my friends I’ll go out with them.

“It’s a good balance which keeps me sane.”

The future?

“The cost of doing anything in Silicon Valley outweigh the benefits it brings. I’m content with London and the government are very keen to help start-ups here. It’s hard to see with the future, things are going great at the moment, so for now it’s sticking to what has worked for the last five years.”

Alex won the Duke of York Young Entrepreneurs Award

What makes him tick?

“At the time Waterfox was a side project which I did for fun – I never expected it to become so gigantic as it did.

“Now because so many people use it, I’m trying to follow the precedent Mozilla have set for a free and open web and just trying to contribute – even if it’s a small way comparatively to such large organisations as Mozilla or Google.”


Bianca Polizzi recently won Pot Noodle’s national competition to find the best time-saving invention with her idea, The Kettle Kup

The Bath second year is going to Vegas in January to showcase the Kettle Kup, a wireless, mini-rechargeable kettle to investors and the media.

Read all about Bianca’s story.

#YouCanMakeIt