For as long as she can remember, Dr Anne-Marie Imafidon has wanted to know how the things around her work. While her classmates were in the soft play area, she was taking apart the VCR player, rewiring the washing machine and commandeering Microsoft Word on her dad’s research computer. “I was fascinated by the devices at home and wanted to learn how they worked,” she says. “I was excited to see what problems I could solve with all that new information.” The budding technologist showed exceptional brilliance early on and her penchant for deconstructing household gadgets flourished into record-breaking talent. By ten, she was speaking six languages and had gained two GCSEs in maths and computing; and by 11, she was the youngest girl in the country to pass A-level computing.
Prior to that, as an as-yet undiscovered genius, the pace and method of teaching at primary school had led Anne-Marie to play the class clown. “I always wanted to entertain my friends, rather than listen to what the teacher was saying – yet again,” she explains. “It was more out of frustration with the slow and repetitive style of learning, rather than me just being disruptive.” Fortunately both her teachers and parents recognised this, and Anne-Marie was put on an accelerated learning track, which included lessons and study outside of school.
