British boy, 5, becomes world's youngest computer specialist

Last month, Ayan Qureshi passed the requisite exam that made him a Microsoft Certified Professional.

This month, he turned 6.

Despite concerns that he was too young to take the two-hour test — exam invigilators called Microsoft to confirm the young boy could write it — Ayan got through the entire exam at Birmingham City University with time to spare.

The test is usually taken by adults hoping to become IT technicians.

"There were multiple choice questions, drag and drop questions, hotspot questions and scenario-based questions," Ayan’s father Asim told the BBC Asian Network.

"The hardest challenge was explaining the language of the test to a five-year-old. But he seemed to pick it up and has a very good memory.”

The young resident of Coventry, England, who built his own computer in the computer lab his father created for him, is now the youngest officially recognized computer specialist in the world.

The previous record holder was 6-year-old Mehroz Yawar from Pakistan, who completed the exam at the age of 6 and a half.

Asim, an IT consultant, moved his family to the UK from Pakistan in 2009.

When Ayan was just 3 years old, he was already playing with old computers, familiarizing himself with motherboards and hard drives.

"I found whatever I was telling him, the next day he’d remember everything I said, so I started to feed him more information," Asim told the BBC.

"Too much computing at this age can cause a negative effect, but in Ayan’s case he has cached this opportunity."

Ayan now spends about 2 hours a day installing programs and learning about operating systems.

The computer prodigy hopes to start his own company — and even launch a UK-based IT hub modelled after Silicon Valley called E-Valley.

"He has plans to take an advanced test in the future but he has to concentrate on school for now," his father told the Daily Mail.

His mother, Mamoona, who is training to become a general practitioner, just wants him to do his best.

"I’m very happy and very proud, I don’t want to see him set a world record every day. But I want him to do his best whatever he does in his life," she said.