21-year-old Ghanaian tech genius who's coded for Uber, Instagram and Snapchat

The award-winning innovator learned Java at the of age 10 and has since gone on to develop his first app on the original Apple iPhone.

He has also had a hand in a couple of other projects in the tech world, including The Wireless Charging Table, Lifestyle One Wearable, Project ACDI Uber, Kera- Artificial Intelligence Operating System, Iris Scan Technology, amongst others.

As a teenager in High School, Iddris is believed to have developed a mobile software.

This gained the attention of former U.S. President Barack Obama who invited him to the White House and gave him an honorary presidential scholar award.

Currently, the young Ghanaian genius is responsible for algorithms that have made Uber, Instagram and Snapchat what they are today.

Although he had Ghanaian parents, Iddris was born in Harbor City, California in the US.

Growing up, he stayed in Ghana for nearly a year, after his father brought him down to his village.

In an interview with the Oxford University’s Music and Style Magazine, he narrated that he was inspired to go into tech when the first-ever iPhone was unveiled.

“I just got super inspired. I thought – this device is going to change the world. The reason why the iPhone was so important was because it was the first time when regular consumers could develop for other regular consumers. Before, you really had to work at a tech company for multiple years to be able to offer any sort of input or to create an app. But Apple made it so mainstream. I knew it was the future,” he said.

At age 10, Iddris was already learning programming on his own and he was lucky to be spotted by a designer from Google, who offered him an internship opportunity at the company’s headquarters.

Two years later, he started working on projects of the company, including the initial Google blogger and Google Plus.

He went on to design an app for his high school that gave students turn by turn directions to navigate their classrooms at the age of 15.

At that point the world was beginning to notice what a genius he is, and it did not take long before he finally had his breakthrough.

Iddris wrote an algorithm which he later sold to Instagram, as well as consulting for Snapchat.

However, his biggest gig came when he created a software (Autonomous Collision Detection Interface) for Uber’s self-driving cars.

“Information is one of the highest forms of class. And that is what keeps people divided. You should be able to think on a higher level, instead of being strictly consumers. And people of colour in particular are more likely to be consumers than creators. It’s really hard to get out of poverty or to change the structure of economic power if you’re always going to be a consumer rather than creating. Shifting that narrative is what I’ve been trying to do. And thus far, it’s worked, it’s successful,” the tech wizard explained.