Daniel Lightwing

Daniel James Lightwing is a co-founder of the London-based Internet business Castella Research. He was previously a web developer for the London offices of Google. In 2006, he represented the United Kingdom at the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) in Ljubljana, Slovenia, where he won a silver medal. His experience at the IMO was described in the 2007 BBC Two British television documentary, Beautiful Young Minds, and the 2014 British dramatic film, X+Y (released in the United States as A Brilliant Young Mind).

Early life and education

Lightwing was born in about 1990 in Warthill, England.^[1] In 2015, he described that, before the age of nine, he “had no particular attraction to mathematics. I learnt to read very young, before attending primary school. And I did read all kinds of things—books aimed at children 5–10 years older. At primary school, I read the entire library.”^[2]

As his education developed, his teachers “were a little perplexed what to do with me.” He described how he wasn’t learning anything he hadn’t already learned and was bullied by one of his teachers who expected him to “sit under her desk and be ridiculed” for no apparent reason. The bullying increased after he “got extremely angry and jumped on top of the desk to denounce her.”^[2]

After some intensive personal instruction within a special ‘one-to-one’ mathematics class with another teacher, he learned that he enjoyed those classes, and stated that, “before long, I had made my mind up that maths was what I wanted to do.”^[2]

At home, his mother, Carolyn, a maths and science teacher, had researched Asperger syndrome (AS) when he was 16 years of age after reading the 2003 mystery novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, and, later, took him to a diagnostic consultation with University of Cambridge autism researcher and Professor Simon Baron-Cohen FBA who diagnosed Daniel with AS.^[1][3][4][5] Parts of the consultation were included in the 2007 BBC Two British television documentary, Beautiful Young Minds.^[6]

His interest in mathematics led him to being recruited as a member of the 2006 International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) team where he represented the United Kingdom and won a silver medal in Ljubljana, Slovenia.^[7]

He attended Peking University where he studied computer science from 2009 to 2011 and the University of Cambridge where he received a Master of Arts degree in mathematics in 2009. He attended York College in York, England, previously where he studied mathematics, and St Peter’s School, a public school in York.^[8]

Films

Lightwing’s life story was presented in two films. In 2007, the British television documentary Beautiful Young Minds was broadcast by BBC Two, and described his medal-winning competition at the 2006 International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO). In 2014, the British dramatic film X+Y (released in the United States as A Brilliant Young Mind), starring Asa Butterfield as Nathan Ellis, a character based on Lightwing, was released and portrayed Lightwing’s experiences before and during the IMO competition.

Career

Lightwing’s professional career includes co-founding the London-based Internet business Castella Research. He was previously a web developer for the London offices of Google, and was recruited as an IT and marketing manager for the Chinese company Greenland Group. He is fluent in speaking Mandarin Chinese.^[9]

His time with Google, however, changed his opinion about workplace socializing. In 2015, he admitted that he had “a problem with office culture,” adding that he sometimes wants “to join in with other people,” but is too shy, and doesn’t know what to say when it isn't work-related.^[3]

References

External links

• The Huffington Post UK: Daniel Lightwing
• IMDb.com: Daniel Lightwing
• Zhihu: Lightwing (mostly Chinese)