Lucas Roitman Becomes Youngest Self-Made Millionaire at 14 How this teen prodigy sold his Augmented Reality app and became one of the youngest self-made millionaires in the world

In a world where technology is constantly evolving, one young man has emerged as a true innovator, paving the way for a new era of tech advancement. While most kids his age spent their mornings playing video games or watching TV, this tech-savvy youngster had a different plan. After sitting in his room, pondering his next move, he began creating his own augmented reality software.

Shortly after his groundbreaking invention at 14 years old, he achieved a level of success that most people only dream of: making millions overnight.

"I feel incredibly grateful for being able to pursue my passion for technology and for having the opportunity to make a true impact in the world," says Lucas.

Lucas's passion for computer vision and programming led him to explore the possibilities of real-time video. His interests soon expanded beyond video games, and he wanted to make code that understands what cameras see in real-time and how they recognize faces, body parts, and objects and interact with body gestures. That led him to work on an innovative augmented reality software called Airhand.

While a touch screen can work with 2D screens only, Airhand can be easily used with smartphones, tablets, laptops and 3D projectors, creating a more immersive experience. Lucas explains that "Airhand allows users to experience their surroundings in a completely new way, adding virtual elements to their real-life environments to create a seamless, one-of-a-kind experience."

His work has revolutionized how people interact with technology and paved the way for new breakthroughs in computer vision and artificial intelligence. This new project empowered users to control the computer with their hand movements. By simply looking at the screen, pointing to the object they want to get, grabbing it, and opening their hand to drop it, users can interact with the computer in a whole new way.

As Lucas explains, Airhand works by using a black glove and moving your hand around to command the screen. The glove has two dots: one red and one blue. In his own words, "The program uses a webcam or a built-in camera to track the hands. The red color determines the position of the hand and the blue determines whether it is open or closed."

Lucas also explains that "Once you select the colors, you can adjust the accepted ranges for hue, saturation and brightness. This way it can filter the pixels belonging to each part of the glove. The code for image segmentation groups pixels into connected components. All algorithms are linear and can be accelerated with the video card, computing each pixel in parallel."

His achievements made him a promising figure in the tech industry. As Lucas's reputation grew, so did the interest of investors. Industry experts were amazed at the sophistication of the software and recognized its potential to change the way people interacted with the world around them.

Airhand became increasingly popular and, besides attracting investors, it caught the attention of Clarin, the most important newspaper in Latin America, and was featured in Tecnopolis, the largest technological exhibitions in the region.

When he was presenting his project at Conexa Fest, one of the largest interactive arts and technology exhibitions, Lucas was approached by a businessman in the international media industry, who offered to buy his innovative augmented reality software for a substantial sum of money. Lucas knew it was an offer he couldn't refuse, so he accepted the deal.

This request turned into his first project acquisition, which turned Lucas into one of the youngest self-made millionaires in the world.

Lucas reflects, "Creating new things that really change the game, that's what it's all about for me. The best part? Seeing how my software has touched people's lives. That's the real reward in all of this."

With his newfound success, Lucas started experimenting with a wide range of projects, some of which were in virtual and augmented reality. He caught the attention of Palmer Luckey, the original founder of Oculus/Meta Quest, one of the most popular VR headsets. Lucas ended up working directly with Palmer and his team, using his expertise to help develop new and innovative VR technologies.

In spite of being very young, he had a clear view on what technology had in store for us. Even though he developed Airhand for controlling 3D screens, the technology today is more relevant than ever because it lets you use virtual reality headsets. He clearly had the ability to foresee what society was going to need in the future.

His innovative ideas and entrepreneurial spirit are sure to lead him to even greater achievements in the future. "I'm constantly striving to improve and innovate, and I believe that there's no limit to what we can achieve with technology. I can't wait to see where this journey takes me next," says Lucas.