One of our clients, an oil company, asks for a favour and says they're sending a kid over who needs some posters made.
The guy is 16 years old living here in Calgary. He's got a harsh Russian name - Vladislav something, but speaks english like he's lived here all his life. He developed a way (and this is where it all eludes me) to extract 30% more oil that would have been lost/wasted under current extraction methods. Oil sands.
It has to do with binding enzymes and molecules, and molecular strings like mmmmcmmbbmmfc or whatever.
He wrote this in his bedroom, and walks into the oil company to present it. The engineers scoff, then examine it. Turns out it works. They become his new best friends. This thing is worth millions upon millions upon millions of dollars, appearently. No doubt there's some kind of patent application underway.
The kid needs the posters made for his presentation at the International Science Fair which is hosted this year in Portland. He's appearently got the North American science competition all sewn up, and is like, the Internation Science Fair (with $3 million in prizes) is also going to be a no brainer. Dude seems nonchalant but absolutely convinced.
He's a super nice kid, but highly distracted... eccentric. He took a cell phone call while in our office, said "Uh hum, yep, well I..." and then he abruptly hung up, put the phone in his pocket and started pacing - obviously deep in thought. Then he said "I just hung up on someone didn't I?!"
Can't even imagine the kinda future a kid like that has ahead of him. Prolly retired at the age of 17.
The geek.
