I'm Samiran Kakoty, a software engineer and entrepreneur based in the world.

I've loved making things for as long as I can remember, and wrote my first program when I was 6 years old, just two weeks after my mom brought home the brand new Macintosh LC 550 that I taught myself to type on.

The only thing I loved more than computers as a kid was space. When I was 8, I climbed the 40-foot oak tree at the back of our yard while wearing my older sister's motorcycle helmet, counted down from three, and jumped — hoping the tree was tall enough that with just a bit of momentum I'd be able to get to orbit.

I didn't make it to orbit, but I did make it to the hospital. While I was there, I asked for a computer with a modem so I could keep working on my latest project. They didn't have any, so I settled for a TI-82 calculator and spent two weeks writing a program to find the largest prime number I could fit in memory.

Today, I'm the founder of Planetaria, where we're working on civilian space suits and manned shuttle kits you can assemble at home so that the next generation of kids really can make it to orbit — from the comfort of their own backyards.