Small Town HS Student Makes Technology Olympics History - WMDT 47 News - Delmarva's Choice

CAMDEN WYOMING, Del. - From the small town of Camden Wyoming, Delaware, a young businessman emerges. 18-year-old Jacob Blacksten is making a name for himself.

This summer, he made technology Olympics history in Las Vegas. 113 students representing 53 different countries, competed for titles at the Certiport Worldwide Competition on Microsoft Office. The first winner ever from the United States, Jacob took home the gold medal for Microsoft Powerpoint 2010. He received a $5,000 scholarship and bragging rights. "I was swarmed by like 5 different CEO's, all from Microsoft and BPA and all the other people, and they wanted to congratulate me. It took me about 10 minutes to get back to my seat. I was so overwhelmed, there was a couple times I couldn't even speak to people asking me questions," he said.

At a young age, Jacob knew he was different. "I did play video games and I did things like that, but a lot of kids kept doing it year after year. After a year, I was done with it. I wanted to go on and see something different. I was always fascinated by how things worked and I was always fascinated by how businesses were made and how they worked. At the age of 10, I realized I am more established than more people my age because of the fact that I want to know what is out there, business wise," he said. "His sister and his brother are very athletic, and he was just kind of on the computer all the time - just a home body, just very mature for his age," his mother Laura Pomatto said.

He credits his father and grandfather for his passion for business and computers. "My whole family is not computer oriented, except for my father. He's very good with computers, so I believe most of it came from him," he said. His grandfather owns a livestock auction business. "After growing up around that, I wanted to start my own business. That was my goal - to start my own business and be a business person. And I like dressing up and wearing the suits and everything," he said.

He began his journey in middle school when his 8th grade teacher started a Business Professionals of America club. "I competed in BPA for five years, and of those five years, I've always done presentations with Microsoft Office. And that's helped me become fluent with the program," he said.  

In May of 2012, he took a test to get certified in Microsoft Word, Powerpoint and Excel, mainly to get ahead in business and to help him get a job in the future. Little did he know, he was competing against more than 300,000 other students nationwide. He later discovered he was the winner for the Microsoft Powerpoint 2010 test. A couple months later, he was on a plane to Vegas, among 11 others representing the United States in the worldwide competition. "It was an amazing experience, just to be at the worldwide competition. It's the first time that I met anyone from out of our country. I've never really been in a competition worldwide, and I've never really been outside the country," he said.
   
Jacob also enjoys being involved in 4-H and has a deep interest for agriculture, horses and animals. But he spends most of his time on the computer. "In my free time, I'm mainly on my computer - I'm searching what the new technology is. I watch a lot of T.V., a lot of news about computers, and I like watching the stock market," he said.

His drive and ambition have his business dreams set high."Bill Gates has always been my idol. I would like to start my own business with technology, selling things with technology, making my own technology, my own computer systems and eventually be recognized like Microsoft is," he said. "At the competition, a gentleman came up to me. He was a CEO from one of the companies, and he asked me, 'Well, what do you think about this? Because the world is his oyster now.' And I hope so, I really hope so," his mother said.

This fall, Jacob will attend the University Of Delaware and plans to take classes in both business and engineering.