SCONE Grammar School formally recognised the massive contribution that all their students, parents and staff members have made throughout the year this week.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The school community gathered for their annual Speech and Presentation Day for years 3 to 12 on Wednesday and their K to 12 Presentation Day on Tuesday, marking another year of success.
For the first time, the Speech Day was held at the White Park undercover arena, which is within walking distance to the school and the feedback about the venue change was positive.
Guest speaker for the day was former student Dr Dominick Ng who attended Scone Grammar School from Kindergarten through to Year 12.
During an engaging speech, the Senior Software Engineer at Google addressed key messages about tapping into your own strengths and talents as well as making the most of your teachers and mentors.
Dr Dominick Ng is a tech lead and manager on the Chrome OS team in Sydney, where he works on the app platform for Chromebooks.
He was awarded Honours in Computer Science with the University Medal in 2010, and completed a Doctorate in Computer Science in 2015, both at the University of Sydney.
His research centred on artificial intelligence, specifically teaching computers to better understand the structure of the English language. During his postgraduate studies, he won a Fulbright Scholarship to study at UC Berkeley, California in 2012.
He said the moment he realised he was interested in computer science was during an assignment at Scone Grammar School where students had to create a blog.
"A moment in English, that assignment, maintaining a blog, putting some thoughts online and learning how to change the colour of that website was the thing that led to me standing in front of you today, to working at Google, to going to the US, doing a Doctorate, going to University - all of that goes back to that moment," he said.
"So the moral of this story is you never really know what is important because in the end it's the most unexpected thing that could be it.
"We are all very fortunate to be here at this school in this place, and so to the students, congratulations on all that you've achieved this year.
"But also, remember just how lucky you are to be a part of this wonderful community, this place that invests so much of its time, energy and its effort into you.
"We may be in Scone, it may feel like we may be a long way from anywhere. But we can go on and change the world."