Ayan Qureshi isn’t your typical first grader.

Ayan’s father Asim Qureshi, an IT consultant, introduced him to the world of computers when he was just three years old, letting Ayan play with old computers so that he could learn about how hard-drives and motherboards work.

“I found whatever I was telling him, the next day he’d remember everything I said, so I started to feed him more information,”

Mr. Qureshi told the BBC.

Ayan was indeed a fast learner – so fast that at the age of five years and 11 months, he took and passed Microsoft’s IT Technician Exam, making Ayan the youngest certified computer specialist in the world. The previous record was held by six-year-old Mehroz Yawar of Pakistan.

“There were multiple choice questions, drag and drop questions, hotspot questions and scenario-based questions,”

Ayan told BBC Asia in a recent interview. He told the interviewers that he found the exam difficult but enjoyable.

“The hardest challenge was explaining the language of the test to a five-year-old. But he seemed to pick it up and has a very good memory,”

Ayan’s father added.

Ayan’s family moved to the UK from Pakistan in 2009. Since then, Ayan (now six) has built his own computer network at his home in Coventry, and spends about two hours a day learning about operating systems and program installation.

But despite Ayan’s clear promise in the field of computing, his father is careful to regulate how much time he spends with his computers.

“Too much computing at this age can cause a negative effect, but in Ayan’s case he has cached this opportunity… I’m very happy and very proud – I don’t want to see him set a world record every day, but I want him to do his best [at] whatever he does in his life,”

Mr. Qureshi said.

So what are Ayan’s plans for the future? Well, besides starting his own company, the six-year-old says he hopes to launch a tech hub in the UK that could one day rival America’s Silicon Valley – he intends to call it “E-Valley”.

Read the original story from the BBC.

Feature photo courtesy of Newsteam.