April 5, 2015 at 16:40A year and a half has passed. Homeless programmer Leo still lives on the street
In August 2013, New York-based developer and entrepreneur Patrick McConlogue began an unusual experiment . Instead of giving alms as usual to a beggar on the street, Patrick decided to teach the homeless to programming so that he would earn his living by intellectual labor.
Patrick found a homeless man named Leo in New York (pictured left) and faced him with a choice: either you will now receive $ 100 in cash, or you will receive books and a chrombook totaling $ 300 (with 3G and solar charging) and private programming lessons worth at $ 700.
To get started, they gave a homeless man a chromebook and sent them to the CodeAcademy training site . He got a book " JavaScript for beginners". Later he was given more advanced textbooks. Every day Patrick got up an hour earlier in order to look at the homeless on the way to work and conduct another lesson.
In general, the training went well until Leo was arrested. After that, the police did not give away a chromebook and a smartphone for a long time, which they sent to him as a Tizen developer.
After several months of training, the homeless has released the Trees for Cars mobile app for carpooling (car sharing).
The Patrick McConlog experiment has attracted widespread media attention. Homeless people were shown on several television channels and invited to participate in talk shows.
“I can work on Google, I can work on SpaceX!” Said the joyful Leo a couple of hours after the official release of the application in the Google Play catalog. “It will change my life radically!”
Unfortunately, the fate of the homeless programmer was not so happy. Now he lives on the same street where Patrick McConlog met him a year and a half ago. True, over the past time, the financial condition of the homeless has improved. The Trees for Cars mobile app has brought several thousand dollars, so now it rents a garage for storing personal belongings.
Leo no longer programs every day, does not release new versions of the application. A self-taught programmer earns random part-time jobs like welding and spends time walking in New York's High Line public park.
From time to time, passersby recognize him, stop him and ask why he is still on the street. Grand hesitates to answer this question: he usually says that he just likes nature and fresh air. And so the plans of Leo Grand - to release a second, more successful application, and move to a luxury residential complex with apartments.
Good luck to you, Leo!
Patrick found a homeless man named Leo in New York (pictured left) and faced him with a choice: either you will now receive $ 100 in cash, or you will receive books and a chrombook totaling $ 300 (with 3G and solar charging) and private programming lessons worth at $ 700.
To get started, they gave a homeless man a chromebook and sent them to the CodeAcademy training site . He got a book " JavaScript for beginners". Later he was given more advanced textbooks. Every day Patrick got up an hour earlier in order to look at the homeless on the way to work and conduct another lesson.
In general, the training went well until Leo was arrested. After that, the police did not give away a chromebook and a smartphone for a long time, which they sent to him as a Tizen developer.
After several months of training, the homeless has released the Trees for Cars mobile app for carpooling (car sharing).
The Patrick McConlog experiment has attracted widespread media attention. Homeless people were shown on several television channels and invited to participate in talk shows.
“I can work on Google, I can work on SpaceX!” Said the joyful Leo a couple of hours after the official release of the application in the Google Play catalog. “It will change my life radically!”
Unfortunately, the fate of the homeless programmer was not so happy. Now he lives on the same street where Patrick McConlog met him a year and a half ago. True, over the past time, the financial condition of the homeless has improved. The Trees for Cars mobile app has brought several thousand dollars, so now it rents a garage for storing personal belongings.
Leo no longer programs every day, does not release new versions of the application. A self-taught programmer earns random part-time jobs like welding and spends time walking in New York's High Line public park.
From time to time, passersby recognize him, stop him and ask why he is still on the street. Grand hesitates to answer this question: he usually says that he just likes nature and fresh air. And so the plans of Leo Grand - to release a second, more successful application, and move to a luxury residential complex with apartments.
Good luck to you, Leo!
