Where to start on neural networks First of all I know the question may be not suitable for the website but I'd really appreciate it if you just gave me some pointers.

I'm a 16 years old programmer, I've had experience with many different programming languages, a while ago I started a course at Coursera, titled introduction to machine learning and since that moment i got very motivated to learn about AI, I started reading about neural networks and I made a working perceptron using Java and it was really fun but when i started to do something a little more challenging (building a digit recognition software), I found out that I have to learn a lot of math, I love math but the schools here don't teach us much, now I happen to know someone who is a math teacher do you think learning math (specifically calculus) is necessary for me to learn AI or should I wait until I learn those stuff at school?

Also what other things would be helpful in the path of me learning AI and machine learning? do other techniques (like SVM) also require strong math?

Sorry if my question is long, I'd really appreciate if you could share with me any experience you have had with learning AI.
No, you should go ahead and learn the maths on your own. You will "only" need to learn calculus, statistics, and linear algebra (like the rest of machine learning). The theory of neural networks is pretty primitive at this point -- it more of an art than a science -- so I think you can understand it if you try. Ipso facto, there are a lot of tricks that you need practical experience to learn. There are lot of complicated extensions, but you can worry about them once you get that far.

Once you can understand the Coursera classes on ML and neural networks (Hinton's), I suggest getting some practice. You might like this introduction.