Tech whizz starts computing business just one month after leaving school

Eighteen-year-old Eldon Wigram has started his own business to help local technophobes – just a month after leaving school.

And with his new company, Homefaehome Computing, Mr Wigram has already helped a number of his former teachers to adapt to their new virtual Covid-19 workplace, as well as several struggling council staff members.

The remote computing support business allows Mr Wigram to clear space on hard drives, erase viruses and install new software on laptops and computers across Shetland, all without having to leave his home in Lerwick.

When his plans for a gap year down under were hit by coronavirus, he decided to put his computing knowledge to good use and start up a company that he said he has “dreamed of setting up” since he was young.

“This was the perfect opportunity for me to do this,” he said.

The pandemic has provided Mr Wigram not only with an excuse to finally start Homefaehome Computing, but also given him many of his first customers.

The business had started at a time when most people had become “reliant on computers”, he said, with a great number of staff across the isles struggling to adapt to a world of virtual team meetings and remote working.

He added that a “good few of my clients have been office staff” so far, with SIC workers and several of his former teachers among those that have called on him for assistance.

Mr Wigram said the response he had received so far was “absolutely fantastic”, and folk had “really rallied around” his efforts.

“I’m going down a different path than a lot of other people would do,” he said.

“It was difficult at the start to see that money draining out of your account and to think ‘what am I doing?’

“But you have to have confidence in yourself. It’s good to show folk that you that you can go out there and do this.”

Full story in Friday’s edition of The Shetland Times.