Was a geeky kid, so I got sent on an "IT summer camp" where the organizers were coincidentally linux afficinados, and there I saw the power of the command line, shell scripting and subsequently programming for the first time, and it absolutely blew my little 12-year old mind. So I installed Linux on my home computer (with my parent's permission, of course), and started to learn C++, and the rest is history :) I'm now a full-time software developer, and worked on everything from research software to military GIS stuff.

Bottom line: Encouraging kids works!