It’s not every day that an 11-year-old boy becomes a key contributor to a major tech platform, but that’s exactly what Damir Buldakov, a young programmer from Vietnam, has done.While most kids his age are just playing games, Damir was busy building a new plugin for Playgama, a gaming platform with over 300 million monthly users.His contribution, a Scratch language extension, allows millions of young coders to connect their projects to Playgama’s global network.Is there a lesson for the developer community in these contributions from an 11-year-old boy? “Age doesn’t mean anything,” Buldakov told The New Stack. “What really matters is knowledge.”And maybe somewhere in his experience is a message for any young programmer who’s ever had a dream.“I hope other kids feel like they can build cool things, too.”Solving Real-World Coding ProblemsPlaygama’s SDK supports a wide variety of frameworks and tools. Yet despite this mission, their open source developer kit hadn’t included support for MIT’s popular programming language, Scratch.“The plugin was originally initiated by Damir, who built its core functionality,” said a Playgama spokesperson. And Damir’s plugin “is now maintained and distributed by our team as part of the Playgama Bridge SDK,” published under its MIT License.All 931 lines of it.MIT estimates Scratch is used by over 20 million developers every year — and Playgama’s founder, Dmitry Kachmar, is genuinely appreciative of this contribution by Damir. “Thanks to his work, even students and beginners coding in Scratch can now connect their projects to Playgama and reach our global distribution network.”“I built the SDK extension using JavaScript,” Buldakov told The New Stack — following the documentation on Playgama’s Wiki. (“You can integrate our SDK with any common game development framework,” it explains.)“I also studied with SoloLearn, YouTube tutorials, Stack Overflow and other forums,” Buldakov explained. “It took me a few months to feel confident with the basics and then keep improving through practice.”But there’s a wealth of information online, Buldakov discovered, asking for advice and feedback in online forums, developer groups and chat channels. He even met other kids who were also programming in JavaScript and other languages. “I think adults should understand that kids are not just ‘playing on the computer,'” Buldakov said. “We are actually learning and solving real problems.”After all the careful preparations, Buldakov was ready to make his move. “The hardest part was the initialization of the SDK, because it’s the most important step and everything else depends on it.”“At first I really struggled,” Buldakov remembered. “But after practicing with SoloLearn, I understood how to set it up correctly for Playgama. After that, adding functions like ads or saving progress became much easier!”And it turns out Buldakov’s contribution was exactly what Playgama wanted to see. The “Playgama Bridge SDK” is an open source solution — and “as a team, we’re continuously developing this SDK by adding new integrations,” explained Playgama’s founder, Kachmar.In a press release, Kachmar said Buldakov’s code “met every technical standard, integrated flawlessly with our release pipeline, and most importantly, made it easy for millions of young coders to reach millions more players.”A Meaningful Contribution To Game DevelopmentKachmar told The New Stack that when he’d first heard about Buldakov’s code, “I was really happy. It reminded me of myself at that age, when I was just beginning my professional journey as a developer.“So I wasn’t exactly surprised that an 11-year-old could do this, because I know from my own experience that it’s possible. What I felt instead was a strong motivation to bring his work into Playgama — and to support Damir in his first steps as a developer.” With a programmer’s eye, Kachmar realized that Buldakov had “created something meaningful” — not just a side project, but a new integration that became “a real product.”Playgama wanted to do something special to recognize Buldakov’s contribution — and created a mentorship program, along with a financial award. “I know that this kind of external recognition can give even more motivation,” says Kachmar. “Our devs team will always be available to Damir to provide guidance and support he may need as he continues his path as a programmer.”“It has strengthened Damir’s confidence,” his mother said in an email interview, saying Playgama’s response had shown Damir “that his efforts are recognized, and motivated him even more.“He now feels that what he’s doing is not only fun, but also valuable and meaningful and that others see it that way, too.”The Importance of Parental and Community SupportBuldakov’s parents seem happy, grateful — and proud. “As his mom, I’ve always just tried to support my son’s interests,” says Damir’s mother, who enrolled him in a robotics class at his elementary school, and later a course on Scratch (plus a summer programming course). When he was in third grade, Damir asked his mother to buy him what she describes as “a big book on programming.” And last year, she bought him a subscription to the coding education app, SoloLearn.“It helps a lot when adults support us, buy courses or subscriptions, and explain difficult topics,” Buldakov told The New Stack. “That kind of support makes you feel like you can really build something cool.” But his mother said, “Honestly, I think it’s Damir’s own achievement that he knows so much at his age. He’s always been curious and eager to learn.”“Even though I don’t understand programming myself, I love seeing his eyes light up when he’s working on something, and I’m even happier than he is when he succeeds.”Going forward, she said, “We’re very glad that Damir now has access to Playgama’s developers, who are ready to treat him as an equal and help him in his professional growth.“It’s important for him to know that he can reach out at any time with any question and that he’ll get real support and guidance.”The Future Aspirations of a Young ProgrammerWhat’s next for the young Buldakov? “I am already working in a small team of about five people on my own Scratch/TurboWarp modification called Dash (DashBlocks), which adds new colors, blocks and extensions.”Buldakov said that it’s been “a fun collaboration.” And soon he may even be collaborating with the programmers at Playgama.So does he want to become a professional programmer? Yes, Buldakov said, and “My dream is to build an application that would be useful for everyone, something ‘all-in-one,’ with things like taxi, marketplace, games and more.“I also want to study more advanced programming languages and game engines, go to university.“And maybe even start my own company one day.”The post Meet the 11-Year-Old Whose Code Was Adopted by a Gaming Giant appeared first on The New Stack.