On May 20, a geeky 19-year-old from Lucknow inadvertently demonstrated to the government the perils of leaving an institutional asset - a national digital property - unattended. Four days after the election results, outgoing prime minister Manmohan Singh's media team shifted his official Twitter account, @PMOIndia, to @PMOIndiaArchive. Around the same time, techie Qaiser Ali, whose Twitter account is @iamqaiserali, happened to be searching for a smaller Twitter handle. As luck would have it, he thought of checking out @PMOIndia - it was available! Ali promptly acquired it and was in control of @PMOIndia for the next one hour. Among other tweets, he let the world know about the "prize" catch.
His tweets not only sent the authorities in New Delhi into a tizzy, but also left Ali bewildered. No sooner had his parents found out than they made him apologise to the nation on Twitter. "Apology for taking the name of @PMOIndia. I did it because it was vacant. Apologies. @abpnewstv - Qaiser (@iamqaiserali)," he tweeted. But word got out and Ali was soon on primetime television. As the magnitude of what he had done sank in, Ali became nervous. "It was inadvertent. I realised my mistake pretty soon and sent an apology to Pankaj Pachauri, the media advisor to Singh," says the teenager. "It is a huge relief that none of my apprehensions came true - neither the authorities nor the Twitter people contacted me over the episode." Twitter has since reclaimed @PMOIndia and has given the handle back to the Prime Minister's Office.
Those who have met Ali describe him as the quintessential geek: a bespectacled, starry-eyed Dilton Doiley. His ambition is to have his name on the Forbes list of billionaires before he turns 25 - a la Mark Zuckerberg. Ali, who is the older of two siblings, has already taken small steps in that direction. He runs a social networking site, Picxter.com, the USP of which is that it focuses on "real social relationships". Thus, one cannot have more than 150 social relationships on his site. Ali is now trying to introduce e-commerce on the platform so that the project generates "a sustainable revenue stream".
Ali has, over the last few years, sent about 500 emails to venture capitalists and the media seeking funds and publicity for his projects. The media discovered him last week and Ali claims he has got some seed capital for his startup. He is currently working on a 'virtual computer' project, which, he says, aims to do away with laptops. He claims he has teamed up with likeminded techies from the Indian Institute of Technology for the project. "I am also planning to pursue higher education from Bangalore. That would bring me closer to my project partner based there," he says.
Most comfortable in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, he is not too bothered about his looks. Those who know him say he's the kind who will step out for a meeting in a pair of slippers, his focus entirely on his work. Like any other middle-income family, Ali's parents wanted him to study medicine or engineering - his father is an engineer. But as his fascination with computers grew during his days at school, he realised his true calling. "I survive on minimal sleep and devote all my time to my passion, which is to dig deeper into the world of computer hardware and software, though hardware is closer to my heart," he says.
Ali's life has changed since the PMO incident. His Twitter followers have doubled and Picxter.com users have shot up from 15,000 to 200,000.
