Young, smart and online

In 1996, company executive Tom Williams was seventeen. Designer Benjamin Carson was thirteen. Webmaster Monika Bough was twelve. If rock and roll and television defined the generation of their parents, now a new technology and culture are destined to define theirs.

At age twelve, just before Tomwent to high school, in Canada, he started his company, making and selling computer games. Shortly after that he spent three years with Apple Computer in California.

Tom came back to Canada in early 1996 with a plan to combine his programming skills, his frustration with the school system and his knowledge of the Internet. He and his colleagues created a new type of Internet educational magazine, aimed first at the schools across Canada and then the U.S. The irony is that the boy who left school at fourteen because he didn't like it, is now developing material which will help other kids stay in school.

Monika Bough's dad is in the U.S. Navy and he is always moving. The family has already lived in Japan, Spain, California andArgentina.

Now they moved to Whidbey Island,Washington, but that isn't a problem for Monika. No matter where they are she is always talking to all the members of GIRL (Girls Internationally wRiting Letters), the club she formed on the Internet.

GIRL started as a group of e-pals who were interested in writing and now it has hundreds of girls from all over the place who want to discover the world together, write poems, share secrets, and keep in touch with their pal Monika.

The Internet has also made a connection on the streets of East Palo Alto, California, where Benjamin Carson developed a slightly different relationship with the technology. In East Palo Alto unemployment is high, salaries low, and cyberspace seems to be a place very far away, until you come to the home of Plugged In. Here the staff and volunteers introduce local kids to the Internet.

It began about six years ago and Benjamin Carson was here at the start. Ben has a natural talent for design and working at Plugged In is helping him to focus on finishing school and going to university.

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Definitely these kids are part of the first generation to grow up with life on the Internet.

Adapted from COSTA, Marcelo Baccarin. Globetrotter: Inglês para o ensino médio. Macmillan 2001. Page 41.