#Top15YoungGeeks - Meet Rio Modiba

The Geek ecosystem in South Africa is vibrant and ready to play a critical role in helping with the digital transformation of our common society. With a community of over 9 000 students, Geekulcha celebrates some of the coolest young Geeks in the country. Honouring Top 15 Young Geeks in the country who are playing a part in the Digital Revolution.

Meet Reabetswe "Rio" Bodiba

Reabetswe (Rio) Bodiba was born and raised in Pretoria. He patented an invention for a universal remote that you can call with a cellphone at the age of 12, making him arguably the youngest person to register a patent in South Africa. Check it out: bitly.com/riosfamouspatent

A few years later, through a suggestion from his Headmaster, Rio took an IQ test and was given the opportunity to skip 1.5 years of school, taking him from the end of Gr.8 to the middle of Gr.10.

In the middle of matric, Rio weaseled himself into a job at Geekulcha. When he wasn't at school, he was working.

With this experience, Rio skipped the usual university process.

Instead, he continued working for Geekulcha on various projects, he then applied and made it into The Digital Academy's Barclays Africa unit as the youngest intern there and the only intern without a university certification and bolstered his team to first place by a large margin.

Rio's currently working on a hair&beauty startup that reached the Top 8 at the 2016's Gauteng Accelerator Programme competition, he's working on revolutionizing insurance as a product developer in Old Mutual Insure's Digital Solutions & Innovation team and he's also piloting an agritech solution in the next few months.

Connect with him:

Twitter: @ImNotRio