Profile: Aiden Cunniffe
4.30.2014
His complexion looked slightly blue from the glow of his computer screen. The clock read 2:30 a.m. He had been sitting in the same chair, staring at the same screen since eight o’clock that evening.
Even after five and a half hours, his eyes still didn’t hurt.
Maybe it was because his glasses were acting as a shield from the light exuding from his computer. Or, maybe it was because it was just common practice.
Late nights spent giving hours of his undivided attention to his favorite mode of technology is his norm. It’s what he does on Monday night, and Thursday night, and Saturday night, and every other night of the week.
Why does he do it? Because Aidan Cunniffe is the next Steve Jobs. It’s not a question – it’s a fact. And it’s not because he dressed up as Jobs for Halloween either.
Cunniffe started teaching himself how to program at age 10. He started his first venture at 16. At 18 he started a non-profit, which raised over $10,000 in two weeks using algorithms he wrote to find people on social media who were most likely to donate.
Now at age 20, Cunniffe, a Syracuse University sophomore management major, has developed his own software development company. And he’s completely self-taught. He has never taken a single programming class in his entire life – something almost unheard of, since almost every single successful person in the technology development business learn it from taking classes. “Literally everything I know is from watching YouTube tutorials and reading how-to articles on the Internet,” says Cunniffe.
His love for technology started at a young age with Star Trek TV marathons and his obsession with the Star Wars movie series. Science fiction was the only thing he would let play on the TV.
Images of drones, tricorders, and other high-tech galactic control centers plastered his walls. Anything that could shoot lasers, find any information you needed to know with the click of a button, or change the time-space continuum had him fascinated. You could hardly ever find him without a piece of technology in his hand or his face in front of a screen. Pretty soon he wanted to start making the technology that he saw in his favorite shows and movies.
At first, he started out making strategy games – nothing too complicated, but enough to let him be able to say he knew how to program. “I made the games where you had to hit the up and down keys to move the blocks and the ones where the characters have to overcome challenges to get to the finish line,” says Cunniffe.
As time went on, his skills became more advanced; he learned how to code and develop his own websites, develop backend applications, and develop applications for various types of technologies, including iPhones and iPads.
In 2012, Cunniffe released his first app, Droppin, after winning $10,000 an app competition in the Martin J. Whitman School of Management. Droppin was an app that focused on social interaction. The app allowed users to write messages and take photos while in a certain area so others within that same area can discover and interact with them. With the app, students were able to see what’s going on around them at any given time from any given person who posted.
It was like a combination of Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Foursquare all in one. Recently Cunniffe decided to shut down Droppin because he didn’t like it anymore and because “there is no money in social media.”
Instead Cunniffe started developing apps for other people. “They would give me XYZ amount of money, tell me what they wanted, and I would make their app for them,” says Cunniffe.
Within the past year, Cunniffe has started developing Queue, a software development company focused on delivering disruptive technologies to market. Cunniffe and 2013 Le Moyne College graduate Nate Frechette developed Queue with 2013 SU graduate Paul Berg as the lead designer.
“Basically Queue is artificial intelligence that knows how to program,” says Cunniffe. “You put in different attributes about your app and the software will develop it itself.” In human terms, it means it allows people to develop software without knowing how to program.
Users are able to tell Cunniffe and his team what they want and they can make it for them. They are able to make it completely personal and let commercials determine the face of the product that they develop for their customer.
“Pretty soon computers are going to be the ones writing the programs for you,” says Cunniffe. “What we really want to do is democratize programming ability, so people don’t have to pay $50,000 for programming.”
Tony Kershaw, assistant director of IDEA, the entrepreneurship accelerator at SU, has been the team’s advisor throughout the whole process and believes QueueCode has potential to be something big. “I think it could be a very successful development company,” he said. “There is definitely the possibility that they could be bought out by a large corporation. They could stay private, sell their technologies, and just manage the operations.”
Cunniffe believes so much in his company that two weeks ago he made the decision to take a year off from school to invest all of his time and effort into his growing company. Their goal is to launch Queue by the end of the year or by Jan. 1, 2015. “If worse comes to worst, I will just return to school, but hopefully that won’t happen,” says Cunniffe. “I really just want to fix all the kinks in the company and expand our opportunity.”
Within the next 10 years, Cunniffe says he sees computers completely writing the program for the consumer – everything is going towards automation.
What will he be doing in 10 years? Cunniffe has no idea. But one thing is for sure: he will be behind a computer screen while doing it.