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It is always heartening to begin the New Year with positive news, so I was naturally delighted to receive the highly laudatory report that followed our Combined Cadet Force’s biennial inspection in the first few days of January.

Major Andrew Hart praised not only the numerical strength of our contingent, but also the cadets’ commitment and motivation, as well as the creative training they receive and the excellent state of their morale. There were then further encouraging external endorsements for our School during the course of the term, including articles in the Sunday Times and in Tatler magazine.

Perhaps an even more important indicator of QE’s success than these press articles has been the high level of Oxbridge offers: the 36 boys offered places at Cambridge and Oxford this year takes the total number over the past three years alone to more than 100.

This is in addition to many boys who gain places at medical school, for example, or at top universities in the USA. This year, the latter includes Valavan Ananthakumaraswamy, the first QE pupil ever to be offered a place at Stanford in California, one of the world’s leading teaching and research institutions.

It is important for our boys and parents to understand that gaining a place at one of the world’s best universities is an increasingly challenging undertaking. In my speech recently at our Senior Awards ceremony, I reminded parents of the words of American philosopher, Eric Hoffer, who said: “In times of change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.” While the acquisition of knowledge and facts certainly has value, it is the very ability to learn that is critical in life.

We have now completed our analysis of the Family Survey that was conducted last term. It is very gratifying that we enjoy such strong parental support. The survey was conducted as part of our preparation for drawing up the new School Development Plan, covering 2016–2020. The survey results therefore give us great confidence to press on with the next phase of its formulation. The Senior Leadership Team are now drawing up more detailed content, consulting with staff and with pupils through the pupil conference. The SLT will then take a complete draft to the Governing Body in the Summer Term, before presenting the approved plan to parents at the start of the new academic year. Our emerging themes for that are Within and beyond the classroom and Ability and character – with a particular emphasis on character.

It has been my privilege to receive a number of distinguished guests to the School in the past few weeks. Professor Alice Gast, President of Imperial College London, was the guest of honour at Senior Awards. We also continued with our series of lectures in assembly, which are a new element in our academic enrichment programme for 2015–16. For the boys from Years 7–10, cardiologist Professor Adam Timmis gave some valuable insights into medical advances, while meteorologist Michael Evans gave the senior pupils an excellent talk on the work of the Met Office, at the same time sharing with them some valuable careers advice. Thanks to the good offices of Year 12 political blogger, Adrian Burbie, our Politics Society again welcomed some very high-profile speakers – Sir Vince Cable, Evan Davis and Nick Robinson – whose talks were appreciated by large audiences here.

The greatest number of visitors to our site this term was of course on the day of our well respected Rugby Sevens tournament. It is 40 years since the competition began and this anniversary, combined with our Year 8 team’s barnstorming record, has made for a vintage season of rugby. We have a long and proud history of rugby at Queen Elizabeth’s School and I am pleased to see our boys continue to draw tremendous enjoyment from this robust and rewarding sport.

I send my best wishes to all our old boys and trust you enjoyed the Easter Bank Holiday weekend.

Neil Enright

In financial terms, artificial intelligence expert, neuroscientist and computer game designer & player Demis Hassabis is almost certainly the most successful ever Elizabethan, having sold his start-up technology company to Google for a reported £400 million in January 2014.

Demis is still involved with the company – DeepMind – which hit the headlines a few weeks ago when its AlphaGo program beat one of the highest-ranking players in the world in the ancient board game of Go. The program won four games in a five-game series.

While he was at QE from 1988–1990, Demis was already a chess prodigy, reaching master standard at the age of 13, with a rating that made him the second-highest rated U14 player in the world. He captained many of the England junior chess teams.

He later went on to Christ’s College in Finchley, where he took his A-levels aged 16 and then began his computer games career with the British company, Bullfrog Productions. At 17, he was co-designing and lead-programming on the classic game, Theme Park.

He left Bullfrog to read for the Computer Science Tripos at Queens’ College, Cambridge, taking a double first. Later in his career, he gained a PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience from University College London and continued his research in neuroscience and artificial intelligence (AI) as a Wellcome Trust Research Fellow at UCL and as a visiting scientist jointly at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard.

Following his graduation from Cambridge, he worked as a lead AI programmer on the Lionhead Studios title Black & White. He then founded Elixir Studios in 1998, a London-based independent games developer. He expanded the company to 60 people, signing publishing deals with Eidos Interactive, Vivendi Universal and Microsoft, and was the executive designer of the BAFTA-nominated Republic: The Revolution and Evil Genius games.

As well as designing games, Demis was also an expert player, winning the Pentamind world games championship a record five times before retiring from competitive play in 2003. He is an expert player of games including chess, the Diplomacy board game and shogi board games and poker. The Mind Sports Olympiad website describes him as probably the best games player in history.

In April 2005, his company’s intellectual property and technology rights were sold to various publishers and the studio was closed. Demis left the games industry and turned his attention to neuroscience, winning wide acclaim from experts in the field for his research into memory and amnesia. His work was listed as in the top 10 scientific breakthroughs of 2007 by Science magazine.

In 2010, he co-founded and became Chief Executive Officer of London-based DeepMind Technologies, a company working on machine learning, which is a branch of computer science. DeepMind specialises in building ‘general algorithms’ – algorithms that are capable of learning for themselves directly from raw experience or data and are general in that they can perform well across a wide variety of tasks straight ‘out of the box’.

Following Google’s acquisition of DeepMind, he is now Vice President of Engineering, leading the company’s general AI projects. Google DeepMind’s website proclaims that its aim is to ‘Solve intelligence: use it to make the world a better place.”

Interviewed by the Evening Standard shortly after the deal, Demis said he had no plans to leave London, where he enjoyed living with his wife – a molecular biologist – and two young sons. “I think we punch above our weight,” he told the reporter. “We have some of the world’s best universities producing all these amazingly smart people, scientists and programmers who want to work in technology that might change the world. There are not as many opportunities in the UK as in San Francisco, so if you’re that kind of company and you base yourself here you have a lot more available talent of the highest calibre that is looking for something more interesting than going into finance or down the usual routes in London.”

Demis was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA) in 2009 for his game design work. He was awarded the prestigious Mullard Award by the Royal Society in 2014. He was included in the 2013 Smart 50 list by Wired, listed as the third most influential Londoner in 2014 by the Evening Standard and in the Financial Times’ top 50 entrepreneurs in Europe.

A friendship forged at QE between Jonathan Ho and Johan Byran has remained strong – despite their careers following very different paths: Jonathan is a successful film and video-maker, while Johan is a medical doctor.

Now Jonathan is making a documentary about Johan’s marathon-running exploits and his determination to beat his own rheumatoid arthritis, focusing especially on his training for next year’s famous Marathon des Sables (the Sahara marathon), billed as the ‘toughest footrace on earth’.

In preparation, Johan has already been training in a special laboratory-type environment which emulates the desert’s heat and Jonathan is interviewing him in various locations – in a classroom at QE, where the photo above was taken, and also at University College London, his old university, and in Morocco.

Both Jonathan and Johan were at QE from 1997 until 2004. Jonathan went on to study at London College of Fashion for a year then to Kent Institute of Art and Design (now known as UCA Rochester), where he gained a degree in Photography. He has since: made a number of music videos for acts including Rudimental; filmed fashion shoots for top names such as Victoria Beckham; shot corporate videos for blue chips like Marks & Spencer and Ernst & Young, and made short films and documentaries on varied subjects.

For his part, Johan studied Medicine at UCL and now practices as a GP in Enfield. He also works in palliative medicine at St Francis Hospice near Romford in Essex.

Johan has run many marathons and in 2015 set himself the challenge of completing one per month. His JustGiving page explains why: “I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis at the age of 18, just weeks before I was due to go to Medical School. At 18 years old, most people probably thought they were invincible and, sure enough, so did I. However, in a matter of weeks, I was dependent on my brother to care for me in university halls. It was hardly the life of Med School I had imagined. I was destroyed physically and felt powerless to change my circumstances.

“My turning point was running my first marathon in 2008 – the Flora London Marathon. The significance of completing the race was that at one point I would struggle to walk 200 yards down the street to get to my lectures – so the idea of running 26.2 miles was my challenge to not allow this disease to dominate my life. What I took away from that day was that I was able to overcome my physical adversity through a great support network and determination.”

In the following years, he completed multiple marathons as well as an Ironman triathlon and the London2Brighton 100km run. His next is the Stockholm Marathon on 4th June this year and he plans to run the Marathon des Sables in April 2017.

It is run over six days and is more than 150 miles long and the event’s website spells out to potential competitors what they can expect: “Conditions: Stating the obvious – it will be hot. Very hot. Midday temperatures in the Sahara can get up to 120 Fahrenheit. So you will need something on your head. But your feet are just as important, if not more so. You will be running or walking on uneven, rocky or stony ground, with up to 20 per cent of the distance in sand dunes.”

Dr Robert Aldridge has been named the winner of a national medical prize for his research into tuberculosis among vulnerable people.

In a varied career to date, Robert (OE 1988–1995) has been a management consultant in the City, a hospital doctor and is now a medical academic.

On leaving QE, he went to Nottingham, where he gained an MEng degree in Mechanical Engineering in 1999. He then spent some time in management consultancy, before a volunteering trip to India inspired him to make a career change.

“After my engineering degree, I took a year out to volunteer in India and, whilst there, I worked with several doctors in very poor areas of the country, delivering services and education to women and working children,” Robert said.  “It was during this time that I realised that medicine was actually what I wanted to do.”

He returned to England to take up an existing job offer from Accenture and worked for a period in the investment banking industry, but eventually decided that he needed to follow his true vocation.

He duly went to University College London, gaining his degree in Medicine in 2007. He was then appointed a junior doctor at the Royal Free Hospital and at Barnet and Chase Farm. He subsequently trained as a Public Health doctor in Bromley Primary Care Trust, Bromley Local Authority and Public Health England. Robert is currently an Academic Clinical Lecturer at the Institute of Health Informatics, University College London, and also works in the Data Science team at Public Health England.

Research has been a key interest, and he has written numerous scientific articles in peer-reviewed publications and various policy documents for the Government, including chapters of the Chief Medical Officer’s annual report. In 2010, he gained an MSc in Epidemiology at The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

“I’m interested in public engagement with scientific research and recently conducted a project in which I worked with schools across England to see whether schools absence data can be used to detect levels of influenza in the community,” he says.

“My current and future research focuses on infectious disease epidemiology and the health inequalities faced by vulnerable, and often invisible populations such as homeless, migrants, prisoners and intravenous drug users.”

He won the national prize – the 2016 Lancet Young Investigator award – after presenting work from his PhD on Screening of tuberculosis in migrants before entry to the UK: a population-based cohort study. The award, which he won jointly with Dr Vanessa Wong of the Cambridge Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, included a £2,500 prize and the opportunity to write an editorial for The Lancet on the wider implications of his research. Robert describes the award as a “great honour”.

“Most of my spare time is spent with my two-year-old daughter, Hazel, who keeps me grounded,” he concludes.

Richard Davis (OE 2001–2008) is celebrating the publication of his first book – a hard-boiled thriller set in the USA.

Chosen by Amazon to be in its monthly book promotion alongside blockbuster authors Harlan Coben, Clive Cussler and Marcia Clark, he now shares a publisher with Eric Idle and the New York Times best-selling crime novelist C J Lyons.

After leaving QE, Richard took up a place reading English Literature and Language at University College London. Graduating with a first-class degree in 2011, he then took an M.Phil in American Literature at Queens’ College, Cambridge, which he completed in 2012.

“I wrote a novel while taking my Master’s, though it hasn’t seen the light of day,” he says. But Richard persevered: “After university, I set about writing a different type of novel – an American-style thriller. This involved in-depth research into the FBI, cultic groups, psychopathy and weaponry – and eventually led to a 100,000-word manuscript.”

This gained the attention of leading London literary agent The Hanbury Agency, and a new, up-and-coming publisher, Canelo.

The novel, False Prophet, is about Saul Marshall, a con-artist-turned-FBI-agent, who finds his son taken hostage by a serial-killing cult obsessed with having victims take their own lives. The promotional material accompanying its publication states: “Fast-paced, relentless and brutally exciting, False Prophet marks the entrance of a major new thriller talent.”

Richard drew inspiration from childhood holidays spent in the US, when he developed a taste for American thrillers.

In an interview with the Crime Thriller Fella blog, Richard said: “I am lucky enough to have travelled a good deal around America: I have visited some 14 states, and have been to most major locations featured in False Prophet – New York, Boston, Washington DC. In fact, I have stayed in a couple of the hotels I write about.

“There are no short cuts to writing a novel,” he added. “The hard way is the only way if you want to produce something worthwhile.”

His own favourite authors include G K Chesterton, Patricia Highsmith, Paul Auster and Lee Child – like Richard, another British author who is currently the biggest writer of American thriller fiction.

Richard – pictured here in unsmiling pose as instructed by his publisher! – says he spends most of his free time reading. He is already working on a sequel.

Intellectual property specialist Joel Vertes is – officially – a rising star of the legal industry and has just been promoted to Partner at his international law firm.

In each of the past three years, Joel (OE 1991–1998) has been named both as a Rising Star in IP law and a Super Lawyer for Intellectual Property in Thomson Reuters’ Super Lawyers publications. He has also been ranked by the influential Legal 500 guide to leading lawyers and described as an ‘excellent IP specialist’.

Joel is still in touch with some of his old teachers at QE – where he is fondly remembered for his early ambition and ability – and has also remained very close with many old School friends. A member of Harrisons’ House, he was a Prefect and Senior Lieutenant.

After gaining straight As in English, French and Mathematics in his A-levels, Joel went up to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, to read Law. After graduating in 2001, he took the Legal Practice Course at the College of Law (now University of Law).  In 2006, he gained a distinction in his postgraduate diploma in Commercial IP at Nottingham Law School.

Joel has established a highly successful career with global lawyers Olswang LLP, which he joined as a trainee solicitor in 2003, having first travelled the world for a year. He became part of Olswang’s specialist IP team – one of the largest such teams in Europe – and has just been promoted to Partner in the same team. He specialises in both enforcement and commercial exploitation of intellectual property rights such as copyright, trademarks, patents and designs. He has a particular focus on the leisure, retail, technology and sport sectors, with clients including Microsoft, Chelsea FC, ITV and LinkedIn.

Joel is the head of Olswang’s international, Franchising & Licensing Group. In this role, he regularly advises clients on complex international deals exploiting brands overseas. He has acted for many clients, including major fashion brands, restaurant groups, hotels and sports brands, exploiting their brands in territories such as China, India, Morocco and Greece, or importing foreign concepts into the UK market.  Joel is also an experienced litigator, especially in anti-piracy, anti-counterfeiting, copyright and brand enforcement. He has worked on many high profile litigation matters at every level of the English and European Courts.

Joel is also a lecturer on the British Association for Sport and the Law (BASL) Sports Law course at De Montfort University.

Joel is married and has recently celebrated the birth of his third child. In his spare time, he enjoys following Manchester United.

In a career that has taken in City trading floors, learning high-speed driving manoeuvres, postings in Africa and senior management with a FTSE250 insurance company, Paresh Thakrar has learned a few things!

A keen advocate of ‘portfolio careers’ – “more interesting and more fun” – OE Paresh believes one of the key lessons is that it is important to continue to learn and renew yourself throughout your career.

“There is no substitute for ‘experiential learning’, taking risks in your career choices and following your interests, so long as you can demonstrate some consistent thought around your decisions.”

“As careers have become so specialised in every field of work from law to medicine to finance, there is more need than ever for people who can bring together the various threads into a coherent strategy,” adds Paresh, who is now Chief Operating Officer at Hiscox.

Paresh left the School in 1993 with an unusual collection of A-levels – Physics, Maths, Economics and Russian – but it gave him plenty of options for university. He chose to do Natural Sciences at Cambridge, enjoying the freedom to mix ‘hard’ subjects like physics with options such as zoology or history, and philosophy of science and psychology. “Churchill College was a great choice – out of town, tranquil and with the Cavendish Laboratories on the doorstep. QE had developed good links with the college over time, too.”

On graduating, he headed for the City, working at Deutsche Bank. “The mix of ‘quant’ skills and problem-solving rigour imparted through a Natural Sciences degree is a hugely valuable asset on a trading floor.” He spent five years as an emerging markets trader, trading everything from equity derivatives to foreign exchange and thriving in the “pacey, meritocratic culture”. During an exciting time in the financial industry, he enjoyed opportunities to spend time in South Africa and Eastern Europe.

Deciding it was time for a new challenge, he then served in various roles at the Ministry of Defence and the Foreign Office from 2001–2008. “Following a gruelling training programme, I came in after the 9/11 turmoil.” His financial background proved valuable in trying to unravel and understand the new world that emerged after the terrorist attacks in the US. “It gave me a fascinating insight into a fast-paced area of government and a huge amount of autonomy in a career where you could find yourself chasing down leads in the Far East one week and the Middle East the next. I never dreamt I would be posted in Nairobi, doing “j-turns” in a Ford Focus on an abandoned airfield, or jumping out of a helicopter into the English Channel. Whatever your best-laid career plans, sometimes it’s just best to follow what you find fun.”

Finding the travel demands of diplomatic life at odds with being a good parent after the birth of his first child, Paresh went back to studying and in 2008–10 he took an MBA at London Business School, looking to move back into the private sector.

After an enjoyable two years, he took a role at management consultants McKinsey, “working with some of the smartest and inspiring of colleagues”. The highlights included “pulling my first all-nighter at the ripe age of 35” and working for financial institutions after the international financial crisis alongside some of the most senior leaders at the big banks. “The lessons I learnt were to never be afraid to network and reach out to mentors and colleagues who can often be the source of the most unexpected opportunities – and always to look for ways to reinvent yourself.”

In 2013, he began his present role, as Chief Operating Officer at FTSE250 insurance company Hiscox. “I was attracted to the small, rewarding and entrepreneurial culture with a distinctive market positioning and a hugely ambitious management team I wanted to work with.” Paresh’s areas of responsibility include strategy, IT and operations for the reinsurance business.

Paresh still lives in Hertfordshire; he is married and now has three boys.

The School marked half a century of dinner debates with an evening that included a stimulating speech about OE Joe Sheffer’s experience as a war journalist.

The 50th Annual Dinner Debate brought together current Year 12 boys and Old Elizabethans to debate the motion ‘This House Believes that prosperity is the best measure of success’. The special anniversary was mentioned several times by the chairman, Pranesh Varadarajan, in his introductory and concluding remarks.

“The school was wonderfully represented by Omar Haider and Zaheer Badat,” said Nisha Mayer, teacher in charge of debating. However, it was the OEs opposing the motion, Arjun Sajip (2004-2011) and Joseph Masters (2004-2011), who carried the day.

“The chairman, Pranesh, noted that the vote at the beginning of proceedings was heavily in favour of the visiting OE opposition and then swung at the end of a fascinating debate and floor discussion more in favour of the proposition, but with the opposition still winning overall,” Mrs Mayer said.

The event began around 6pm with a drinks reception for guests and VIPs, including several OEs, and “concluded around 10pm after a very enjoyable evening”, reports Mrs Mayer.

There were the traditional toasts to ‘Her Majesty, the Queen’ and ‘The Pious Memory of Queen Elizabeth I’. School Captain Norbert Sobolak proposed the toast to ‘The Visitors’, while the toast to ‘The Elizabethan Union’ was proposed by the after-dinner speaker, Joe Sheffer (2000-2007).

The diners enjoyed a starter of houmous with olives and pitta bread. The main course comprised Cajun butterfly chicken supremes with savoury saffron rice and coleslaw pot, or a vegetarian alternative of Mediterranean vegetable & butter bean ragout. The desserts of chocolate gateau with cream, or lemon tart with raspberry coulis, were followed by coffee or tea with petits fours.

Paresh Thakrar has embraced both risk and variety in the course of his fascinating and successful career.

Paresh left the School in 1993 with an eclectic collection of A-levels – Physics, Maths, Economics and Russian – but it gave him plenty of options for university. He chose to do Natural Sciences at Cambridge, enjoying the freedom to mix ‘hard’ subjects like physics with options such as zoology or history, and philosophy of science and psychology. “Churchill College was a great choice – out of town, tranquil and with the Cavendish Laboratories on the doorstep. QE had developed good links with the college over time, too.”

On graduating, he headed for the City, working at Deutsche Bank. “The mix of ‘quant’ skills and problem-solving rigour imparted through a Natural Sciences degree is a hugely valuable asset on a trading floor.” He spent five years as an emerging markets trader, trading everything from equity derivatives to foreign exchange, and thriving in the “pacey, meritocratic culture”. During an exciting time in the financial industry, he enjoyed opportunities to spend time in South Africa and Eastern Europe.

Deciding it was time for a new challenge, he then served in various roles at the Ministry of Defence and the Foreign Office from 2001–2008. “Following a gruelling training programme, I came in after the 9/11 turmoil.” His financial background proved valuable in trying to unravel and understand the new world that emerged after the terrorist attacks in the US. “It gave me a fascinating insight into a fast-paced area of government and a huge amount of autonomy in a career where you could find yourself chasing down leads in the Far East one week and the Middle East the next. I never dreamt I would be posted in Nairobi, doing “j-turns” in a Ford Focus on an abandoned airfield, or jumping out of a helicopter into the English Channel. Whatever your best-laid career plans, sometimes it's just best to follow what you find fun.”

Finding the travel demands of diplomatic life at odds with being a good parent after the birth of his first child, Paresh went back to studying and in 2008–10 he took an MBA at London Business School, looking to move back into the private sector.

After an enjoyable two years, he took a role at management consultants McKinsey, “working with some of the smartest and most inspiring of colleagues”. The highlights included “pulling my first all-nighter at the ripe age of 35” and working for financial institutions after the international financial crisis alongside some of the most senior leaders at the big banks. “The lessons I learnt were to never be afraid to network and reach out to mentors and colleagues, who can often be the source of the most unexpected opportunities – and always to look for ways to reinvent yourself.”

In 2013, he was appointed Chief Operating Officer at FTSE250 insurance company Hiscox. “I was attracted to the small, rewarding and entrepreneurial culture with a distinctive market positioning and a hugely ambitious management team I wanted to work with.” Paresh’s areas of responsibility include strategy, IT and operations for the reinsurance business.

A keen advocate of ‘portfolio careers’ – “more interesting and more fun” – OE Paresh believes one of the key lessons is that it is important to continue to learn and renew yourself throughout your career. “There is no substitute for ‘experiential learning’, taking risks in your career choices and following your interests, so long as you can demonstrate some consistent thought around your decisions.”

“As careers have become so specialised in every field of work from law to medicine to finance, there is more need than ever for people who can bring together the various threads into a coherent strategy,” he adds.

Paresh still lives in Hertfordshire; he is married and has three boys.

With the launch of his own company, Antony Pink has realised a long-standing ambition to become an entrepreneur.

Antony (OE 2000-2007) was a keen rugby-player during his time at School, when he was known as Kishan. He later began to use his middle name Antony and went on to study Business Management at Nottingham University, where he developed a fascination with business, which has been a constant theme in his life.

“While at Nottingham I was involved in business start-up societies and it was always in my mind that one day I would like to launch a business of my own.”

After university, Antony joined multinational management consultancy Accenture as a consultant, aligned to Accenture’s IT Strategy practice and working predominantly within the financial services sector and in communications and media sectors.

Nearly four years later, in 2014, he took the decision to leave a secure job and instead launch a mobile start-up company, Laundrapp, with two business partners. They have raised £1.5million of seed funding from well-known investors Rupert Hambro (former Chairman of Hambros Bank) and Dominic Perks.

Laundrapp offers customers a door-to-door laundry and dry-cleaning collection and delivery service, initially operating in London and five other UK cities.

One of Laundrapp’s strategies was to advertise heavily and to invest in PR. A six-figure marketing investment resulted in TV and radio commercials, online and outdoor advertising, and posters on the Underground (in stations and in trains). Features in the Daily Telegraph, Guardian and Daily Mail, as well as articles in the specialist business and technology press, have also formed part of the marketing mix.

Laundrapp is available on iOS (iPhone/iPad) and Android.