The Kid's Got It Not afraid to ask for advice, this self-starter is already making waves in the IT field.

Barely 20 when he founded San Jose, California-based LokTechnology in 1999, engineer Simon Lok had trouble connecting withpotential customers. So he called three people he met as an ITconsultant. Their referrals helped Lok, now 26, seal his firstintegrated security hardware sales. "The lesson to be learnedis that you never know what the repercussions of the things you dowill be," he says.

Although his first line didn't take off, Lok used input fromthose first customers to fashion Airlok, which combines securityand network management functions normally associated with separatefirewalls, routers and authentication servers. Lok Technology nowhas 12 employees and about $1 million in 2004 sales. It hopes to atleast double that number in 2005 by selling Airlok directly towireless ISPs while inking manufacturing contracts for thetechnology with larger networking vendors interested in producingvolume editions under their own brands. At press time, several suchdeals were in the works.