BBC Homepage
  • Skip to content
  • Accessibility Help
  • Your account
  • Notifications
  • Home
  • News
  • Sport
  • Weather
  • iPlayer
  • Sounds
  • Bitesize
  • CBBC
  • CBeebies
  • Food
  • More menu
More menu
Search BBC
  • Home
  • News
  • Sport
  • Weather
  • iPlayer
  • Sounds
  • Bitesize
  • CBBC
  • CBeebies
  • Food
Close menu
BBC News
Menu
  • Home
  • InDepth
  • Israel-Gaza war
  • War in Ukraine
  • Climate
  • UK
  • World
  • Business
  • Politics
  • Culture
More
  • Tech
  • Science
  • Health
  • Family & Education
  • In Pictures
  • Newsbeat
  • BBC Verify
  • Disability
  • Trending

How one boy from Ireland became an app developer at 12

  • Published
    24 December 2014
Share page
About sharing
Irish teenager Jordan CaseyImage source, CBBC
ByBBC Trending
What's popular and why

At the age of 12, Jordan Casey created a game that trended in the Apple iTunes store. Now 15, he's the chief executive of his own business, Casey Games, external. BBC Trending caught up with him to find out how he became a tech prodigy.

Casey first developed an interest in games when he was nine because he "thought it would be a fun hobby to blog about". After a short time writing about the games he was playing, he decided to make his own apps.

"At the time I was playing a game which had a tool to make your own house. So I figured this is how making your own game would work, only a bit more complex," he says. "I went to a store, bought a book on programming and started watching videos on YouTube. It all took off from there."

In 2012 he topped the charts in the Apple Store in his native Ireland with a game called Alien Ball. It was his first attempt to make a game suitable for iPhone, and the success came as a surprise.

"Alien Ball was a version of Space Invaders. Originally it was just an experimental game to test out the iPhone technology. I didn't expect it to do so well," he says.

The fact that the game was made by someone so young also helped. During the Apple review process, Casey wrote "by a 12 year old" in the description. That caught the company's attention. They contacted him and subsequently featured the game on their site. He's made several apps since then, including a sequel to Alien Ball.

AlienBallImage source, Casey Games

In 2013 Casey ventured into more complicated software with the launch of TeachWare, external, an app which allows teachers to manage student information.

"I came up with the idea when my teacher lost her big black book with all of the students details of attendance and test results. I wanted to make something reliable. It's encrypted and saved in the cloud so you can't lose your information." TeachWare is now being used in parts of Asia, Africa and Europe and it won an award at an exhibition for young scientists, external.

When we meet him, Jordan Casey is confident, unassuming and relaxed. But he says that wasn't always the case. "I used to be really shy and I wasn't used to all of this attention. When I was 12 I was invited to the Cannes Lions festival. They treated me like I was famous and put me in a limo and stuff. It was really surreal and it happened really fast. In January I was making my own game and four months later I'm being shipped off to talk about my story."

Casey lives with his parents in Waterford in the Republic of Ireland. He goes to school and has a schedule for homework and his business. Like any ordinary teenager he enjoys spending time with his friends and playing football. And his coding expertise has come in handy for some teenage pranks.

"For my mum on Mother's Day I made an app and it looked like a search engine. Every time she tried to search something on it, it would just come up with 'Happy Mother's Day.' I was also trying to persuade her to let me have a sleepover so under the Mother's Day greeting it said 'Can I please have a sleepover?' in the search results," he says.

Despite his success he still considers his business a hobby - one that he's glad is catching on.

"When I started out at age nine, there weren't a lot of kids coding. But in the last four or five years, it's completely changed. Coding has become a normal hobby now - I think that's really cool."

Jordan CaseyImage source, Web Summit
Image caption,

Jordan addressing a large audience at this year's Web Summit in Dublin

Reporting by Anne-Marie Tomchak

You can follow BBC Trending on Twitter @BBCtrending

All our stories are at bbc.com/trending

Top stories

  • Live. 

    Gaza ceasefire to begin within 24 hours of cabinet approval, Israeli spokesperson says

    • 17104 viewing17k viewing
  • Lyse Doucet: Gaza deal is a huge moment but this is just the beginning

    • Published
      2 hours ago
  • What we know about the 'first phase' of the Gaza peace deal

    • Published
      7 hours ago

More to explore

  • Stars, secrets and slip-ups: Celebrity Traitors is off to a cracking start

    Alan Carr on the Celebrity Traitors, sitting in an armchair and smiling
  • Young children taking knives to school, BBC finds

    Graphic: Knives in foreground, in background children sitting at school desks.
  • 'It was like a movie' - How immigration raid on Chicago apartments unfolded

    Image of law enforcement officer pointing a gun, with sparks in the background
  • Inside the room where Nobel Peace Prize is decided – but will Trump get his wish?

    Members of the Nobel Peace Prize committee and secretary sit around a table in the room where they make their decision
  • 'I missed a £100 council tax bill while in hospital – the debt ballooned to £6k'

    A young man, with long dark brown hair and a brown beard and moustache , sits next to a hospital bed. He has a bandage on his neck.
  • My eating disorder made me good at lying, says Victoria Beckham

    Victoria Beckham waves while wearing a white suit with other people in the background as she attends the Victoria Beckham premiere in London on Wednesday.
  • The battle for Scotland's flag: Why the right has adopted the saltire

    A man raises his fist while standing in front of a group of people waving flags, including saltires and a union flag.
  • Would leaving the ECHR really 'stop the boats'?

    Montage image showing Nigel Farage, Kemi Badenoch and Sir Keir Starmer
  • The Upbeat newsletter: Start your week on a high with uplifting stories delivered to your inbox

    A graphic of a wave in the colours of yellow, amber and orange against a pink sky
loading elsewhere stories

Most read

  1. 1

    My eating disorder made me good at lying, says Victoria Beckham

  2. 2

    America's top banker sounds warning on US stock market fall

  3. 3

    'I missed a £100 council tax bill while in hospital – the debt ballooned to £6k'

  4. 4

    Pubs could stay open longer under licensing reforms

  5. 5

    Water bills to rise further for millions after appeal

  6. 6

    What we know about the 'first phase' of the Gaza peace deal

  7. 7

    Hate crime in England and Wales rises for first time in three years

  8. 8

    Stars, secrets and slip-ups: Celebrity Traitors is off to a cracking start

  9. 9

    Have Russians set up a military base in my childhood home?

  10. 10

    Lyse Doucet: Gaza deal is a huge moment but this is just the beginning

BBC News Services

  • On your mobile
  • On smart speakers
  • Get news alerts
  • Contact BBC News

The Celebrity Traitors

  • An all-star cast enters the ultimate game of deceit

    • Attribution
      iPlayer

    Added to Watchlist
    The Celebrity Traitors has been added to your iPlayer Watchlist.
    The Celebrity Traitors
  • All the betrayal and drama unpacked

    • Attribution
      iPlayer

    Added to Watchlist
    The Celebrity Traitors: Uncloaked has been added to your iPlayer Watchlist.
    The Celebrity Traitors: Uncloaked
  • Meet the Celebrity Traitors as the mind games begin

    • Attribution
      iPlayer

    Added to Watchlist
    The Celebrity Traitors has been added to your iPlayer Watchlist.
    The Celebrity Traitors
  • A treacherously good version of a pop classic

    • Attribution
      iPlayer

    Added to Watchlist
    BBC Proms has been added to your iPlayer Watchlist.
    BBC Proms 2025: Britney Spears
  • Home
  • News
  • Sport
  • Weather
  • iPlayer
  • Sounds
  • Bitesize
  • CBBC
  • CBeebies
  • Food
  • Terms of Use
  • About the BBC
  • Privacy Policy
  • Cookies
  • Accessibility Help
  • Parental Guidance
  • Contact the BBC
  • Make an editorial complaint
  • BBC emails for you

Copyright © 2025 BBC. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read about our approach to external linking.