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WEB MASTER: Gianni O’Connor is being tipped as the next Mark Zuckerbeg

A UNIVERSITY student who cracked an innovative computer programming code during his finance exam is set to become the next big thing in social media.

Gianni O’Connor, from Harrow, Middlesex, refused to leave the exam hall until he could copy the formula he needed to complete the interactive music website he had envisioned.

He said: “I had finally worked out the computer equation that I had written on the exam paper, but I had to find a way of getting the exam back as you weren’t allowed to leave with it. I had just cracked the formula and thought I wouldn’t be able to get it back, so I scribbled it down on my arm.”

The 20-year-old, who is doing a finance and business degree, said he was worried about passing the exam, as he had spent too much time thinking about his coding breakthrough.

EXCELLENCE

He said: “During the two hours I was sitting there marvelling in my own excellence thinking I was a genius. Then afterwards I ran home, literately kicked the door down and jumped on the computer and spent the whole night working on it and Micsu.net was born.”

The student enlisted friends to help design and programme the site, attracted venture capitalists to invest in the product, which launched last month.

Micsu – an anagram of the word music – works by asking users to log into their Facebook accounts to create playlists of the most current tunes.

The music tastes of users are monitored and then cross-referenced with their social groups, taking into account where they are from, and what their friends are listening to.

It could make O’Connor, who was privately-educated, a fortune.

He said: “I’ve always been a believer of Richard Branson’s approach. He never takes something that has never completely been done before. He takes something that people already need and already want and already has something that does it but just does it better.”

Inspired by Branson’s achievements, O’Connor, a music fanatic, said that he wanted to create “the best way to discover new music [in a social way]...something others sites were missing.”

He added: “You can see everybody’s activity on there, it’s like if Twitter and Spotify merged Micsu would be the end product. It’s a really social way to display and follow music, I can see what you are listening to and I can add stuff…it’s like creating a spider web connecting everybody’s music taste.”

Despite his success, the young entrepreneur said he plans to return to complete his final year at university.

However, he admitted he had not worked out how he was going to juggle both the business and his studies.

In the meantime, O’Connor has set up his own firm called Tigerjaxx. It publishes the free website and phone app of the site, and so far has attracted 50,000 users.

When not at university, the young entrepreneur lives with his mother Andrea Elliot-Grout, 48, stepfather Tommy Elliot-Grout, 46, three younger brothers and eight-year-old sister.

He said: “When you work on something for ages you never are able to explain what it’s like when it’s actually appreciated. But I’ve done a lot of things before and it’s nice you know now that we’ve actually got a product that is working. It’s not really about the press, finance or anything like that it’s just the fact that people are using it.”

He added: “You build something and it’s your dream and you love it and now everybody loves it and I think that’s the best thing for me.”