We’ve written in this space before about Challenge.gov, an online challenge platform administered by the GSA in partnership with ChallengePost, a web platform that lets individuals and organizations challenge the public to solve problems, innovate, and accomplish goals collectively.

Government agencies post challenges on Challenge.gov, and the public can post submissions to these challenges. Current challenges range from a $20,000 challenge by the U.S. Air Force for a fuel scrubber to remove surfactants and emulsions from fuel to a challenge calling for the best success stories from small business SBIR recipients with the award being recognition in the SBIR Hall of Fame.

OK,  so now I have a confession to make. We find these challenges fascinating, and yes, challenging. So from time to time, we visit Challenge.gov just to read about the challenges that are out there and to check out the buzz from people who are participating.

Our favorite challenge from 2011 was the U.S. Defense Department’s Shredder Challenge. This challenge asked computer-types, puzzle-solvers, and anyone else with an interest in solving complex problems to compete for up to $50,000 by putting 5 shredded documents back together again.

It took Otávio Good and his teammates the “All Your Shreds Are Belong to U.S” team just a month and three days to successfully reconstruct and solve all five puzzles. (The team’s name is a puzzle in itself, but here’s a clue.)

We heard Otávio on a radio interview in December, and he sounded like such an upbeat entrepreneur, we decided to give him a call.

Otávio’s background is in computer graphics. He used to develop video games and has been into computers and graphics since his mother, who is a computer programmer, taught him how to program when he was in the second grade.

“When this challenge came up, I just put the word out on Facebook to friends who are good computer programmers,” Otávio told us. “We got a team together and a month later we won.”

As it turns out, reverse engineering shredding is very hard.

“I didn’t think it would be possible when he started,” Otávio said. “My goal was to get two-thirds of the way there, but then we hit 100 percent. We made a computer program that is basically a puzzle assister, and got a giant novelty check — something I’ve never gotten before.”

The program that Otávio and his compatriots designed uses the computer to look at the shredded pieces as you might consider jigsaw puzzle pieces, recommending which of the available strips might be most likely to fit in a place where you want to put a piece.

“We were incredibly excited working on this outside of work,” he says. “We did this because it was a fascinating problem. We are very competitive people. If we were doing it for the money, we would have been ahead by doing a contracting job. But this was so much fun.”

When we asked Otávio his views on how to encourage more young people to get technical degrees, his answer was interesting and surprising.

Otávio says that in school he skipped doing homework in other subjects because he enjoyed science and technology and couldn’t get enough of it. He read science books on vacation, but by his own admission was a little lacking in the grades department.

“My computer background has nothing to do with my schooling,” Otávio said. “I didn’t get very far in computer science in college. My background is more playing with computers and experimenting. The people who I see that are the best at this are passionate and creative people who do fun things. It’s not necessarily about getting a degree. If you are having fun with something, there is nothing that can hold you back from learning it.”

A few other things about Otávio.

He sold his startup Secret Level to SEGA for $15 million in 2006.

He and John DeWeese co- founded Quest Visual Inc., to develop and market Word Lens, their iPhone app that translates printed words from one language to another using the iPhone’s camera.

Word Lens has been downloaded more than 2.5 million times, featured in The New York Times as a favorite innovation for 2010, Wired, and drew applause on the Ellen DeGeneres Show.

But of all of these accomplishments, the thing that impressed us most was that Otavio quickly returned our email, graciously spent time on the phone telling us about his “shredder” experience,, and shared a curiosity and openness about the possibilities of technology that made us smile.

Entrepreneurship is challenging. We often speak of the importance of balance and having fun. Otávio Good typifies that—a wonderfully creative and successful entrepreneur who has managed to keep the perspective of that second grader who learned computer programming from his mom.