I like to think back fondly on my days as a budding entrepreneur; reselling on Ebay at 11, coding my first website shortly after… but at the end of the day, I was still just pawning off duplicate Beanie Babies and making Jelly Roll pen fan pages (thank goodness that element of my digital footprint has been firmly erased). No, my youthful tech exploits are placed decidedly in perspective with the astounding talent, creativity and technical prowess of the teens at Tomorrow’s Web 2009, the UK’s first ever by-teens, featuring-teens, for-teens tech conference.

I entered the London Keyworth Centre bright an early to grab a prime seat and was fully prepared to be one of the oldest in the room (my own 23rd birthday celebrations now becoming a receding memory). I’m not surprised to see a bevy of fresh-faced tweens and teens hooking up wifi, preparing presentations, taking their seats and (oh god, now I feel like part of the “older group”), chatting with their parents.

Despite a brief delay courtesy of the London underground’s penchant to shut down half of the lines over the weekend, the conference began without a hitch as Josh Buckley, founder of Menewsha.com, launched into a discussion on virtual worlds and virtual goods. Any doubts I may have had about the quality of the upcoming day and content of the presentations were thoroughly squashed with Josh’s incredibly well researched, well prepared and engaging presentation.

I took stock of the situation. There were attendees. Wifi. Caffeinated beverages a-plenty. Quality speakers on a range of interesting topics. The conference hall is a comfortable room temperature. Where the hell was Jeff Pulver? The organisers of Le Web? Teen techies and conference chairs Grant Bell and Rob Day had so far managed to one-up some of the biggest names in the business. The morning continued with top notch presentations from a number of speakers including Michael Dunlop of retireat21.com, Anna Debenham who spoke on effective freelancing, Nick Pellant giving advice on how to go from idea to business and Jamie Rumbelow who spoke on the more technical side of building, using and protecting APIs.

So far so fantastic and after a break for lunch where the “older group” shuffled off to down some sangria and coffee at nearby Nandos to as to better keep up with the pace of today’s fast moving and forward thinking teens, the conference reconvened for the afternoon segment.

The afternoon started off with a series of startup pitches from Simon of ZOOD, Florin of Open Uni Networks and James of Giglocator.com. Judging the pitches were London tech personalities Hermione Way (host of TechFluff TV and founder of NewsPepper) and Milo Yiannopoulos (of TechCrunch Europe and the Telegraph) as well as The Gadget Show’s Jason Bradbury.

The Startup Pitches were followed by a presentation from the UK’s most subscribed YouTuber, Charlie McDonnell, better known as charlieissocoollike and a internet celebrity in his own right who spoke about the pitfalls of internet stardom, making money as a YouTuber and Doctor Who.

With a nine hour tech conference, sustaining momentum can be tricky. During the day, the young entrepreneurs and conference organisers played to everyone’s strengths – individual passions, personal experiences, niche knowledge and the steps that worked for their own business. For a young set of presenters and a young audience, this was the ideal way to share ideas, inspire those in attendance and structure a presentation. The skill sets that these young people have acquired did not, however, lend themselves to the afternoon panel presentation on the topic of new media. Speaking broadly about the industry as a whole is tricky even for professionals with decades of experience but for a teenager without the background understanding of the industries upon which new media has been built, the multitude of uses of new media and the ways the conversation on the topic have been changing it’s nigh on impossible. I certainly wouldn’t feel comfortable speaking about the definition of new media or the way it’s replacing traditional media channels and I think everyone on the panel struggled with any challenges to their bright but less-than-researched ideas. The audience seemed lost as well, as the panel speakers rehashed old conversations without the statistics, understanding and experience of the authors of the articles and blogs on the new media industry.

An uncomfortable 45 minutes came to a close only to lead into another panel discussion, this time featuring young entrepreneurs in their 20s who had begun their business journey in their teens. While some of the advice they shared was useful – in particular the words of Nick Bell, a leading UK entrepreneur and founder of Quick.tv – some was decidedly not and the majority of their experiences mirrored those of the teen entrepreneurs, some of whom were probably making more money and had a more solid business backing than some of the success cases on the afternoon panel. The afternoon would have benefited greatly from a truly senior, experienced professional in the industry who could describe the journey from driven and skilled young entrepreneur to industry leader with decades of experience and perspective.

The long day, difficult panels and nice weather had severely diminished the audience size by the time Greg Cooper, the day’s final speaker, took the floor. It was a shame he had been slotted in so late as his talk on usability and interaction design drove home all of the points that were so exciting and successful about the morning. His talk touched on an incredibly important part of the web industry and he spoke with confidence and enthusiasm on his topic. Everyone who stayed until the end was lucky to hear his thoughts on the subject and despite the fact that the crowd was smaller, I was glad to have the day end on the positive note upon which it had begun.

There was something truly special about the individuals speaking at Tomorrow’s Web and a charming combination of nonchalance and unshakable confidence about each of the speakers. What was most amazing was that none of them, including conference organisers Grant Bell and Rob Day, seemed to recognise how amazing they truly were. From Anna’s no-nonsense tax advice for teen freelancers to Jamie’s casual chatter on YSL API codes to Greg’s preference for fixed-width headers, they all approached their respective fields without the slightest falter or confusion. Perhaps it’s this confidence that has allowed them to be so successful or perhaps they’re not yet at the age where they need to question their own skills and abilities. With any luck, that age will never come.

Tomorrow’s Web was without a doubt a success. I imagine with the positive and constructive feedback the organisers will receive, there will be Tomorrow’s Web 2010 in the works very soon. Congratulations to everyone involved and I look forward to the next one, even if by that point the audience will be too old to even remember what Beanie Babies and Jelly Roll pens are.

- Meaghan Fitzgerald