Foundation Day 2020

Foundation Day in February gave the BGS community an opportunity to celebrate the School’s 152-year history, congratulate a Rhodes scholar and think about the technology of the future.

In his opening remarks, Headmaster Anthony Micallef spoke of the School’s foundation in 1868, and how the years from 1869 to 1918 were interrupted by conflict. “During that first 80 years of the School’s history, Brisbane Grammar School benefited from the sacrifices of those who had gone before, and an educational philosophy of hard work,” Mr Micallef said. “Today’s modern school owes a great debt to this period.”

Mr Micallef also asked the boys to reflect on how they could continue the School’s legacy and make a difference to a quickly changing world. “Rapid developments in robotics and artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, fifth generation wireless technologies, 3D printing, nanotechnology and biotechnology are all shaping our world, and we need to know how to respond,” he said.

BGS Old Boy Arjuna Kumarasuriyar ‘98 took up this theme as the Foundation Day guest speaker. He told the boys that answering the question, ‘What will you do when you finish school?’ requires flexibility. The fields of biotechnology and genome sequencing were just emerging when he finished at BGS in 1998.

“The company I work for was founded in 1999, the $3 billion human genome project was published the year after that, and my current role has only been around for five years,” Kumarasuriyar said. “How do you plan to work in an industry that barely exists, for a company that hasn’t been founded, in a job that no one has heard of yet? The answer is you don’t; not really. You embrace the non-linear career path… The degree you do doesn’t dictate what you spend the rest of your life doing, it’s just the start.”

Kumarasuriyar also spoke of the importance of living by the dictum nil sine labore, and shared anecdotes with the boys from his school days and career that taught him important lessons: seek to belong; embrace the help offered by your teachers and others who believe in you; try new things.

“While you’re seeking a sense of belonging and learning to be adaptable to try new things, I implore you to find your why,” he said. “My why is to keep finding better ways for people to do what they do, so they can spend time and energy adding value to others. Your why should be what drives you, and it absolutely needs to be about the difference you make to others.”

“Best of all, you don’t need to know your why now. You get to spend the rest of your life exploring to find it.”

The Foundation Day assembly also honoured Old Boy Nicholas Salmon ’12, Queensland’s Rhodes Scholar for 2019. Special guest Queensland Minister for Education and Industrial Relations The Hon. Grace Grace awarded Salmon the Prince Albert Cup, which is held by the School attended by the most recently awarded Rhodes Scholar. Salmon will undertake a Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) Engineering Science at the University of Oxford.

Scholarships honouring the service of former Headmaster Reginald Heber Roe, acclaimed student Arthur Stanley Roe and teacher AJ Mason were also awarded to recent graduates. Congratulations to:

> Nicholas Miller – RH Roe Scholarship

> Timothy Weber – AS Roe Scholarship

> Noah Rosemann – AJ Mason Scholarship

Other historically significant scholarships were awarded to Year 7 students who did particularly well on last year’s Scholarship Examination. The JG Nowlan Bursary for the student who performed commendably in the Scholarship Examination was awarded to Dennis Zhou, and the Frank Shaw Bursary was awarded to Alex Prowse, a boarder who performed well in the examination.

To conclude the awards, former Chair of the Board of Trustees Howard Stack presented the Trustees’ Scholarships for 2020. These young men have an important responsibility in setting an example of good scholarship. Congratulations to Sebastian Hazzard, Jackson Leong, Benjamin Li and Anson Qiu-Tang.