About Ian McCallum
Founder & AI Engineer · Naperville, Illinois
Who is Ian McCallum?
Ian McCallum is an 18-year-old innovator, entrepreneur, futurist, and Finance & Data Science student at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
What did Ian do for Luminate?
Ian designed, developed, and maintained the website for his Virtual Enterprises International firm, Luminate. Instead of relying on a conventional site builder, he combined his coding skills with AI-assisted development.
Luminate earned first place in the 2025 Midwest E-Commerce Website competition, followed by first place nationally in the 2026 E-Commerce Website competition, competing against more than 500 firms in the national website competition.
What is Beat the Clock?
Beat the Clock is a software business founded by Ian McCallum. It helps residential service companies keep customer work organized, with an initial focus on HVAC service and repair.
Its principal product, Clockwork, is in development. Beat the Clock is currently seeking HVAC design partners to review demonstrations and help shape the product around real operating needs.
What is Clockwork?
Clockwork is a pre-launch service operations CRM being developed by Ian McCallum through Beat the Clock. It connects customer requests, scheduling, technician findings, repair approvals, parts, return visits, and invoicing.
A working development build has been tested locally. The new HVAC product is not yet available for general production use. Its planned assistant, Tock, is not yet operating the new service workflow.
Selected work
I founded Beat the Clock, design and build Clockwork, and led development of Luminate’s award-winning VEI e-commerce website. My portfolio also includes client websites and creative work. I write about what I’m building on the blog.
Education
Gies College of Business · Finance & Data Science
4.25 GPA · Illinois State Scholar · Magna Cum Laude · National Honor Society
Skills & technologies
Away from the screen
Soccer, Weightlifting, MMA, Fishing, Photography & videography, Video editing & content creation.
Official profiles
You can also find me on these profiles, or contact me through this site.