Liam was born in Warwick in September 1989, just in time to witness the fall of the Berlin wall and the dawn of an age of globalisation that lasted right up until he started university in 2008.
At the age of 11, Liam decided to take the entrance exam for the oldest surviving boys school in the world, at Warwick. Having excelled in this and the follow up interviews he was offered the sole available 100% scholarship for academic excellence, and this enabled him to attend the school for free until the age of 18.
Without that scholarship, my family could never have afforded to send me to Warwick, and it's for that reason that I am eternally grateful to the governors there and in other institutions for offering these opportunities. Indeed, I'm also thankful to my parents for raising me to have the maturity to independently decide to go through such a thorough and stressful process at that age.
Warwick School went on to influence Liam's interests significantly. In addition to nurturing his already well developed artistic talents, it also provided a platform for developing strong interests in Science, History and Mathematics.
It was at secondary school where my love of Science particularly flourished. The want to understand to universe we live in, and the want to know how and why we exist, is not a desire we are born with. It's only with education that children start to ask these questions; and the answers, or even the process of finding the answers, ignites a level of understanding in life that is invaluable, not just in being successful in your career, but in developing a personality that people want to work with.
School cannot provide everything however. As a teenager in 2005, Liam became involved in an online theme park tour guide and community called TowersTimes, and quickly rose to become webmaster for the whole site.
Although completely voluntary in nature, TowersTimes is where I developed talents that have gone on to give me an advantage later in life. My web coding skills were all gained from scratch during this time of constantly creating new online experiences for over 5000 members and millions of guests each year. This - together with responsibility for writing articles, reviews, and guide entries, and combined with my talent for design - meant that I managed to gain valuable multi-disciplined experience very early on. It is rare to find people with an eye for aesthetics who also understand the technology; and importantly can communicate it all to others. I hope I'm now one of them!
Liam has always had an affection for history - especially having grown up in and around the historic towns of Warwick and Stratford-upon-Avon - and it is one of the reasons he wanted to study Architecture in central London; a city which has been the focal point of history for 2000 years.
In 2008 Liam was awarded another scholarship for academic excellence to study Architecture in Westminster. This fulfilled a long-held dream to move to central London - to be in the thick of the action and witness new history being made - but also opened a new chapter; to build up an extensive experience of the 'real world', then to make an impact on it.
I turned down good offers so that I could study in London and at a place where I could explore for myself rather than conform to a model. I do not regret it.
Being at the heart of the city, and completing one of the most intense courses on offer, has given me invaluable life skills for the future; skills that will hopefully speed up ambition to make a success that, does not necessarily make me rich, but that creates something which is useful to - or that is enjoyed by - people.
In particular, I have a work ethic which meant very late nights on school work, 80-hour weeks at university, and a dedication to my current job which is not all that common in people of my age and which has meant I've rapidly become a valuable member of an incredibly experienced team. Simply, it's not finished until it's perfect.
I was going to say that I am lucky to have such a work ethic, but in truth it isn't luck at all - you have to make a lot of sacrifices to pull it off, and just as many to maintain it. It really doesn't come naturally in a hedonistic world that is full of temptations, and I do hit 'burnout' from time to time.
