Kadian’s Apple Genius

Kadian first fell in love with Apple as a nine-year-old when he acquired his first iPod touch. He loved the aesthetics of this Apple product, its intuitive interface which allowed him to access a whole world of knowledge. He purchased his first MacBook Pro by shoveling snow and by selling his old train set, keyboard and other beloved items on Amazon. Kadian was renowned for his evangelical pursuit to convert everyone, even strangers, to Apple products. By fourteen, he had built an impressive amount of knowledge which never ceased to amaze the staff at Apple stores. On 2 August 2012, Kadian was due to fly to the USA where he had been hired to install 30 iMacs and a network for City Bikes at their their retail stores in Washington DC. Starting June 2011 Kadian Harding, then thirteen-years-old, produced 17 Apple product video podcasts. His knowledge was developed by watching every YouTube video by and about Apple, ­marketing releases, product presentations, magazines, documentaries­ going back all the way to the 1970s. His grasp of the fundamental vision that makes Apple so special was exceptional for his age. When we watched these videos after his death we were deeply moved to see all the characteristics of the Kadian that we knew: his charm, his confidence, his generosity, and his ability to relate to others. Kadian was equally in love with bicycles, the freedom that it gave him as well as the ability to interact with the wider world. Indeed, when we read Steve Job’s autobiography ­ which Kadian had been encouraging us to do for months ­we read that Jobs believed that computers were the bicycle of the mind and that he had wanted to name the first Macintosh computer “bicycle.” On 25 July 2012 Kadian was cycling in the British countryside when his brakes failed coming down a hill, he was struck by a truck and died instantly. For more information about the Kadian Project and how you can contribute to making it a safer world in which to ride a bicycle, please go to www.KadianProject.com. Thomas Debora and Sam Harding, October 2012.