By Sally Sara: Studying at high school and university simultaneously might sound like a nightmare, but it’s a dream come true for a 13-year-old computer coder in regional New South Wales. Hamish Leahy is undertaking a Bachelor of Computer Science while completing Year 8 and taking on his first commercial clients. James Paras reports.
James Paras: Hamish Leahy has never had to wonder what he wants to do when he grows up. The 13-year-old from Armidale in northern New South Wales has known for more than half his life he wants to be a computer coder.
Hamish Leahy: Coding is basically talking to a computer using a language that it understands. So we speak a language like English, but computers can’t understand plain English, so we have to use a coding language such as Python or HTML to tell the computer what we want it to do.
James Paras: It’s no ordinary hobby for Hamish. When he discovered his coding interest, he took learning it very seriously. He started with basic tutorials on YouTube at age 7, but eventually enrolled in online courses with Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Hamish Leahy: They have all the courses and video files online, so I just watched all the lectures through and then I took the quizzes and the final exam and I passed that with a distinction and that was how I did MIT. Harvard was pretty much the same process and from both of them I get certified certificates of completion.
James Paras: A certificate from Harvard may sound like the peak of a six-year obsession, but Hamish Leahy has embarked on a new challenge, enrolling in the University of New England’s Bachelor of Computer Science while he completes year 8 at a local high school.
Hamish Leahy: Regular school day like normal kids do throughout the week and after school I’ll do my homework for the regular school and then I’ll go online and watch the lecture files and do the quizzes and courses for University of New England. So it’s pretty much like a university degree on top of going to school. Yeah it is a university degree on top of going to school, but I love coding so that’s why it’s worth it.
James Paras: His subject choices reflect his belief in the growing importance of artificial intelligence.
Hamish Leahy: I chose AI and machine learning because it’s one of the biggest and most upcoming fields and it will massively impact everyone’s daily lives.
James Paras: His mum, Rechelle Leahy, says she still wants her son to enjoy teenage-hood.
Rechelle Leahy: My role is also to make sure that he doesn’t over-commit himself, so he’s still, like he said, in year 8 at high school and that school is the most important piece for him at the moment and as long as he can balance the study workload with the university as well then we’re happy for that to continue on.
James Paras: She says it’s occasionally been an expensive exercise.
Rechelle Leahy: We just kind of work away at it to find the funds. That’s sort of the only thing that we have to do but now that Hamish has his own clients he’s pretty keen to continue helping to pay for some of those courses as well which is wonderful for him.
James Paras: Those clients include Henry Moore who runs a local coffee shop. He says Hamish is developing an app for the cafe to allow customers to order their coffees in advance.
Henry Moore: Hamish has been known to my business partner for a very long time. She actually looked after him when he was a kid so yeah, she’s known him forever, known his mum, they’re good family friends so we knew he was a pretty smart kid and we thought, you know, if anyone’s going to be able to create us an app it’s going to be him.
James Paras: It’s just one of several projects he’s got on the go.
Hamish Leahy: I feel good with my clients. They’re all very flexible. I mean they chose a 13 year old so they kind of expect a bit of flexibility. My goal with it is to build up a client base so that I can eventually start my own company in software development and that is a good place to start.
Sally Sara: He’s very impressive isn’t he? 13 year old computer coder Hamish Leahy ending that report from James Paras.
