Studying mathematics at the University of Queensland (UQ), Old Boy Billy Jeremijenko (2018) is already making his mark as a budding tech entrepreneur and space enthusiast. Billy’s initiative was to launch the first ever UQ Stargazing and Astronomy Society (UQSA), becoming its first president. In 2020 he was one of the youngest recipients of a ventures scholarship through UQ ventures, visiting all the big names in San Francisco, including Google and Tesla. This trip led to remote work for a San Francisco startup Atmos, developing their machine learning recommendation engine. As a project in the summer straight after leaving school, Billy taught himself machine learning and subsequently in his first and second years at university worked on machine learning projects with a number of Brisbane tech firms. Last month Billy and his team won a UQ proactive innovation-themed Hackathon as well as the JCI Creative Young Entrepreneur Prize. The team’s winning concept, which uses machine learning to help owners of household batteries generate income, will be presented by a team member in Taiwan JCI Asia Pacific area conference in 6 weeks. Billy has also worked in genomics, anomaly detection and automated triangulation and mapping using computer vision. Earlier this year, he launched a travel recommendation platform, with details found here. His role of UQIES Education Officer enables him to assist others with entrepreneurial ideas.

At UQ, Billy found his niche in maths and coding, and has become involved in leadership and networking — these skills were not always natural to him in his younger years. He was a shy, dreamy and forgetful youngster, as it turns out, because he had a rich inner world and was a deep thinker. Whilst he didn’t start school at all strongly academic-wise at Churchie in year 2, he grew over the years to become an OP1 scholar, graduating in the top 0.45% of the state. It is inspiring to see how Billy’s particular focus on the learnings from mathematics at school, has led to coding as well as an interest in space and other big tech ideas. Congratulations Billy! A great Churchie growth story!