Petru Rogojanu, 12, was accidentally discovered by
newspaper reporters during last November's presidential
election campaign in Romania when they visited the small
Transylvanian city of Sibiu to investigate the background
of a leading, but not yet well known candidate.
Candidate Klaus Iohannis had grown up in Sibiu, attended schools
there, had been a physics professor at a local university,
then served as the city's mayor for 12 years before seeking his
nation's highest office -- which office he now holds, by the way.
When reporters went looking for details about Iohannis's background,
and inevitably saw the website of the Bruckenthal
National College High School where Iohannis
had once been a student, they were amazed, not merely
by that site's well-conceived structure, but by the fact that
it had been designed and implemented by a child only 11 years old
who already had earned the equivalent of a Masters
Degree in Web Design from attending adult classes at the
local Swiss WebAcademy.
Moreover, that website had been implemented, not in Romanian,
but in German, which is the Bruckenthal College's official
language of instruction.
       
       
       
Samuel von Bruckenthal National College website
According to Romania's NINE O'CLOCK newspaper, Petru's
astonishing story began two years ago
when he showed up, at age 10, holding his mother's hand,
at the front door of the Swiss WebAcademy's vocational
association, wanting to enroll in its Web Design classes.
However, because of Petru's age, the academy's head
initially refused to enroll him, suggesting to the mother
that he should wait at least two more years. Then, seeing the
child's determination, she relented and agreed to accept Petru for an
initial trial period, subject to seeing how well he would do.
Within less than a year, Petru became one of the best
web designers in his class.
His first project was to build the website of the Children's
Palace in Sibiu
       
       
       
       
       
As the reporters visiting Sibiu soon learned, Petru Rogojanu
already was famous in his small city: he had been awarded
a plaque by the local Rotary Club in a public acknowledgement of his
web design "genius":
But the rest of Romania would probably not have heard
about Petru if Sibiu's Mayor had not decided to run for
President.
ALLAN CRUSE
27 JUN 2015
UPDATE:
Television news-coverage, showing Petru's mom, the Swiss
WebAcademy's head administrator, teachers at Brukenthal,
and Petru demonstrating his website, was uploaded to
YouTube, in case you are interested:
Petru Rogojanu: An IT expert at age 12 (3-1/2 minutes, in Romanian)