Viante

Viante was born during a city-wide power cut. The hospital was pitch black, but the moment she let out her first cry every screen in the building flickered on by itself. Her grandmother held her tiny hands and announced that this one had been born with electricity in her fingers.

She was the smallest child in every class, and the bigger kids laughed — right up until the day the headmaster's computer died the morning of a major exam. Viante walked up, touched the keyboard, and it came back to life. Nobody laughed again.

At ten she realised she didn't really write code so much as hear it, like music only she could pick up. She taught herself from abandoned laptops and library books, and by thirteen she spoke more languages to machines than most adults speak to people.

At her first hackathon she worked alone through one night and built what entire teams had failed to finish in a week. The judges asked her how. She shrugged and smiled, because she has never been one for speeches. She lets the machines do the talking.

Now, when her screen opens, it becomes a portal. Code pours out into the room and builds things in mid-air around her, and she sits in the middle of it grinning like it's the best game ever invented. Small, sunny and completely unstoppable.