In this episode of Campus Highlights, where we shine light on gifted children, GEMA was joined by 10 year old Farhaan Samir, the winner of the consolation prize at the Python Olympiads 2025.
Farhaan loves public speaking and coding. His interest in coding started when he was in preschool when his school introduced Scratch Jr into the curriculum. With growing interest, he soon switched to Scratch and eventually Python with the help of his parents which kickstarted his coding journey and eventual participation in the Python Olympiads.
Preparations and Problems
Only having joined the competition four days before the submission date, Farhaan expressed how little time he had to actually prepare for the competition given his upcoming exams as well. Working on a new model gave rise to more difficulties as well.
He spent thirty minutes each day on the project to balance his school life with preparations and ended up learning new things as well. The biggest difficulty he faced during the entire journey was having to work with the new model.
Ironically, the most fun part of the entire journey was learning how to make a UI using the new model and the most memorable moment for Farhaan was finding out his code worked the exact way he wanted to despite all the difficulties.
A Chat With His Father
Farhaan had quoted his parents as his biggest source of motivation and his biggest supporters throughout his coding journey. His father however attributes his success to Farhaan. According to his father, Farhaan’s coding journey had been self driven ever since kindergarten when he discovered Scratch Junior in school.
When asked about how he ensures balance between school and extracurriculars, his father once again credited Farhaan for being disciplined and managing his interests with his academics on his own with support from family and teachers.
Farhaan had received full freedom from his parents to explore his interests and as a result has developed management skills on his own through self driven initiatives to try new things while focusing on school as well.
Final Thoughts
In his future, Farhaan sees himself owning a company like Google—or even better than Google. With big goals and a strong sense of self confidence Farhaan’s final message to students looking forward to taking part in the Python Olympiads next year was:“No matter what happens, you have to try. You will never know what will happen in the end. You have to keep trying until you make it.”