As a young programmer and internet entrepreneur Mark Zuckerberg changed the way people connect when he helped found Facebook, one of the most popular and widest reaching social networks. Find out more in Kidzworld's Mark Zuckerberg Bio.
Mini Mark
We may know him as the ingenue that changed the face of social networking for everyone, but there's a lot more to the 28-year-old internet whiz than just Facebook. Mark is the son of dentist and a psychiatrist and grew up in a Jewish household with his sisters Randi, Arielle and Donna in Dobbs Ferry, New York. Mark was an outstanding academic talent evne as a teenager, winning prizes in math, astronomy, physics and classical studies as well as becoming captain of his high school fencing team.
Mark learned how to program when he was in middle school, and was so talented that his father hired a special tutor for him who considered him a computer prodigy in the programming.
College and Computers
When Mark was accepted to Harvard University he was already known as an internet wonderkid, having created early versions of messaging systems. At Harvard he studied psychology and computer science, but it was his work outside of class that would eventually make him a householed name and a leader in the internet industry. An early attempt at creating social programs that connect people was CourseMatch, a porgram that helped students at Harvard form study groups and pick the courses that suited their needs best after putting in their information. There was a demand among Harvard students for a way to connect with each other students and alumni online, and Mark devised the perfect idea but didn't see any reason for restricting it to just students at his university. In February 2004 mark launched Facebook from his dormitory room and overnight the social networking site became a success, attracting people everywhere and starting his career as an entrepreneur and internet celebrity and owner of one of the most used social networking sites.
The idea wasn't Mark's alone though, and he ran into legal trouble with former Harvard classmates Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and Divya Narendra, who had originally come up with the idea for ConnectU, a social networking site for Harvard students.
The Social Network
In October 2010 a movie based on Mark and the story of the rise of Facebook came out called The Social Network and Mark was protrayed by Jesse Eisenberg. The movie was a box office smash, but received criticism for not being wholly truthful, and Mark himself mentioned that he had hoped no one would make a movie about his life until after he was dead!
In early 2012 Mark married his longtime girlfriend Priscilla Chan, who he met at Harvard.
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