(March 20, 2002) — Clark boasts of just about every type of gifted individual: competitive athletes, exceptional artists and intelligent students. But in a technology-based school, the one thing that is missing is technological achievement. Students designing websites? Nah. Students fixing computers? Getting close. Two Clark juniors running their own company of customizing software for major businesses? Bingo! At seventeen years old, Ara Mahdessian and Arthur Chaparyan have started and are running a year-old computer software company, Blue Media. Their work includes meeting with prospective clients, identifying company concerns and developing solutions for software that enable a company to use entirely technological techniques to organize certain aspects of business operation. Ever since Mahdessian and Chaparyan won first place in the International Web Development Competition, sponsored by MIT, last year, they reached a mutual agreement to use their knowledge and abilities to begin a company to “provide comprehensive technology solutions for companies to use,” according to Mahdessian. Blue Media’s first client was a business that needed a small website and liked their work so much that they referred Blue Media to another company that needed an accounting system. From there, the company gained popularity through referrals and the success of their products. “We start from scratch to create a product geared toward the customer and to help solve future problems,” explained Chaparyan. Being teenage businessmen isn’t as difficult as they had imagined, Chaparyan said. As soon as the prospective client “sees our work and our presentation, they know we are serious,” he said. There are also several advantages to attempting a business at such a young age. The prospect of failure isn’t as big a risk. Not that Blue Media would have to worry about that as they already have an established clientele without ever even advertising. Perhaps one of the biggest difficulties in running the company is trying to fit time in between school and homework to work, said Chaparyan. The teenage entrepreneurs spend at least four hours a day designing and developing software, in addition to meeting with clients to find out the specific needs of the company to construct the software. Mahdessian says he feels that their work is also more efficient than some other companies’ because they are able to finish more in a small amount of time, while other companies sometimes have a shortage of skilled workers, taking them longer to get simple tasks done. The company co-owners, however, don’t plan on leaving school for work. Aside from getting excellent grades, Chaparyan and Mahdessian both want to go to college and major in business in order to further expand their knowledge of the business world. For now, their goals are to expand Blue Media and help “restructure companies to be entirely technological,” said Chaparyan.