Watch: ‘Gifted’ 12-year-old Canadian boy in Dubai aces tough Johns Hopkins University course

Watch: ‘Gifted’ 12-year-old Canadian boy in Dubai aces tough Johns Hopkins University course

Dubai: A 12-year-old Canadian student in Dubai was invited by the prestigious Johns Hopkins University Centre, USA, to join it’s Talented Youth Programme in which he scored an A in his first course on Cryptology. Arik Sharma, a Grade 7 student at Dubai American Academy (DAA), which identified him as a “gifted child”, recommended him to Johns Hopkins, which held a test before accepting him for its course in Cryptology that uses mathematics in computer algorithms to encrypt and decrypt messages. Arik, who is of Indian origin, has always shown a great interest in numbers, said his grandfather Madhu Payan Sharma. Speaking about the Cryptology course, Arik said: “It was an online tutored programme guided by a professor at Johns Hopkins. It was a self-learning programme over 12 weeks, where I got to learn various cryptographic algorithms and applications. I scored an A with 96 per cent... I love maths and science.” Arik added that he also achieved 99 per cent in MAP (Measures of Academic Progress) tests by John Hopkins held on a quarterly basis within a class group. “I am so blessed to be able to take my dream to an all new level. Having said that, creative