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Former QE pupil Alex Halliday made his first forays into online business while still at the school – and now, at 25, he is the youngest CEO of a company listed on London’s Alternative Investment Market (AIM).

Alex, who left QE after his A-levels in 2003, has created SocialGO.com, which allows groups and organisations to create their own social networks and even makes it possible for them to make money from these networks.

He set up the company in 2007 with Dominic Wheatley, the founder of Eidos, a company well known for games such as Football Manager and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. SocialGO launched its premium services in 2009 and has recently raised $2.2million to fund version 2 of its platform.

Writing on his own blog, Alex recalls that when he was only 13 he began building ‘fan sites’ for TV shows, pop stars and other people with a fan base. “It started as a hobby, but once the traffic started to flow, I became involved in selling ads and monetising these networks. The business grew and by 2000, we where serving nearly 30m page views a month and selling ads through agencies like Valueclick, Engage and Doubleclick and we were building an interesting business… This came to an abrupt halt in 2000 when ad rates went from a ridiculous $12 CPM [cost per mille, or per thousand, views] to (a rather more justifiable) $0.60. Suffice to say that business was no longer viable…boo hoo, back to school work!”

Notwithstanding this setback, Alex’s interest in the internet continued unabated and after completing his A-levels at QE, he spent six months in Dubai developing a news website. At the same time he started to develop the prototype of the social networking technology that became version 1 of SocialGO’s product.

The Shoreditch-based company now provides software as a service which allows groups to create, manage and control their own private social networks and provides the members of these networks with the ability to communicate with like-minded people in a controlled and secure environment. SocialGO derives its revenues from subscription premiums paid by network owners and from selling value-added services. If they choose, SocialGO’s customers – the network owners – can, in turn, make money from their networks in a variety of ways: by charging members for access to the entire network; by creating premium areas of the network that are restricted to paying members, and by hosting advertisements.

In a recent article published on Proactiveinvestors.co.uk, former Daily Mail City Editor Ian Lyall noted that in the course of his interview with Dominic Wheatley, the SocialGO chairman repeatedly likened Alex Halliday to Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg – the billionaire subject of the recent blockbuster film, The Social Network.

Lyall adds: “For every Facebook there is a Bebo or Buzz that fails to scale those heights, or an expensive white elephant such as MySpace that illustrates just how difficult it is to make money from the worldwide web. However the operative word here is difficult – it is not impossible to make money from the web, so long as you have an innovative and original way of doing business.”

The names of the School’s five new Music Scholars have been announced. Year 7 boys Jonathan Beresford, Himal Bulathsinhala, Jason Mui, Nitharsan Sathiyalingam and Kavi Shah all succeeded in the Scholarship Competition, which culminated in an evening of performances in the School hall.

Director of Music Kieron Howe explained to the audience that the Year 7 Music Scholarship Competition is an integral part of QE’s approach to learning, which involves identifying and rewarding excellence.

“Music has a special place in the life of the School and with each new intake of boys it is vitally important that we provide them with the opportunity to mark this stage of their musicianship. It is important that the competition culminates in a performance, for only on the concert platform is it possible to judge which of the candidates are most able to communicate their music to an audience,” he said.

Twelve boys played during the evening. They were the final few who had already progressed through two short-listings and had successfully completed sight-reading and aural tests designed to evaluate their all-round musicianship.

Danielle Salamon was the Guest Adjudicator and presented the certificates. Ms Salamon is a well established London piano teacher who is a widely experienced lecturer and recitalist and has taught in the Junior Department of the Royal College of Music for many years.

The repertoire performed ranged from classical western and Indian music, such as Chopin’s Waltz in E minor and two traditional Delhi Gharanas, to modern pieces such as Joanna MacGregor’s Lowside Blues. The instruments played included piano, tabla, violin, tuba, drums and miruthangam.

The evening’s programme notes gave details of each boy’s musical background. For the five winners, these details included:

• Jonathan Beresford – a tuba player for five years who belongs to a number of bands and who performed last year in concerts at the Royal Albert Hall and Watford Coliseum
• Himal Bulathsinhala – plays the tabla, accompanying devotional singers of the Sathya Sai Service Organisation in Walthamstow; also plays for the Arkley Centre
• Jason Mui – a pianist since the age of eight, Jason has performed in many festivals and concerts and has won a number of prizes at the Watford Festival
• Nitharsan Sathiyalingam – having played the piano for six years, Nitharsan has achieved Grade 7 Piano with Distinction and won the 2009 Age 10 and under pianoforte category at the Watford Festival
• Kavi Shah – a tabla player for six years, Kavi is accustomed to playing solo parts at events including the Shishakung Mela. He has also achieved Grade 3 Harmonium with Merit.

The other finalists performing at the competition concert were: Premsankar Premakathiyan, Vincent Chung, Erik Lam, Gregory Wong, Sherman Chen, Jonathan Mo and Ivan Cheung.

“I look forward to charting the progress of all the musicians in Year 7 and in particular seeing the boys who we hear tonight continue to blossom as they move through the School,” Mr Howe concluded.

The QE Sixth-Form poetry competition was won by Jed Wilsher with a poem entitled Absence. “The boys are studying Wilfred Owen and war poetry as part of A-Level English,” said English teacher Sarah Snowdon. “It was a pleasure to see how many boys took the opportunity to explore their own creative writing styles outside the classroom and submit entries.”

The competition was judged by Assistant Head and Head of Year 12 David Ryan, who described the winning poem as “excellent” and commented on the high standard of many of the entries.

First prize was a £25 book voucher; second place went to Alistair Heywood, with Jerome Singh and Naed Ladak in joint third place.

Below is the winning entry:

Absence
The halls echo empty with absence.
Fractions of families fall open to wind.
Weeping walls and windowsills croon and moan,
The open door cries; “abandonment”.
The lights cry; “glory that blinds us”.
The books read “you left us”.
The floorboards don’t creak, for the footsteps don’t fall.
But on far off, dusty plains and soggy trenches,
Bodies do.
The wind whistles ’round metal
And the chimneys puff their scent away.
This house is but stone, and stone is hollow,
Cold and cruel.
If full, this stone would be a home.
Would open its sharp sides and welcome them,
Those fractions of men, who gave their parts for a medal.
Just more metal after all;
Good job, the knives are gone from the drawer, they went with you,
Just to return as their memory, like you.
The tiles slide away,
Like ghosts of heroes and worms.

Year 13 boys Year Joseph Masters and Joseph Phelan have become the first-ever recipients of two new QE prizes being sponsored by Queen’s College, Oxford.

The prizes reward the best work done at Queen Elizabeth’s School for the Extended Project Qualification (EPQ*), with one awarded for Sciences and the other for Arts & Humanities. The two Sixth-Formers received their prizes at the School’s Senior Awards evening.

Joseph Masters, who won the Sciences prize, researched the quest for a malaria vaccine. He is likely to study Medicine at King’s College London. Joe Phelan has a place to study Geography at St John’s College, Cambridge. He won the Arts & Humanities EPQ prize for his research into solutions to food security crises.

Both received congratulatory letters from Professor Paul Madden, Provost of Queen’s.

Their awards capped an extraordinarily successful year for the School’s first EPQ cohort. Of all QE entrants 68% achieved an A* for the project.

Current Year 12 pupils have recently been taking part in an EPQ research collaboration with girls from The Henrietta Barnett School in Hampstead.

* Devised by Sir Mike Tomlinson in 2006 during his review of education for 16-19 year-olds, the EPQ is equivalent to an AS level.

A quintet from QE performed at the official opening of Barnet College’s new £50m Wood Street campus by the Duke of Gloucester, who is the Queen’s cousin. They were invited in order to celebrate the School’s historic link with the refurbished Tudor Hall, which forms part of the development.

QE was housed in Tudor Hall, the oldest education building in Barnet, from its founding in 1573 until it moved to its present site in 1932.

“The official opening marked a new era for us,” said Barnet College Principal, Marilyn Hawkins. “We were delighted to welcome the QE students who performed so excellently to mark the occasion.”

The performers were the Clarinet Quintet, rehearsed by Music teacher Mr Arijit Chakravarty. The string players were Jonathan Hollingsworth, Christopher Georgiou, Rishikesh Chakraborty and Sergei Batishchev, with Joseph Vinson on the clarinet. “I’m really glad that we were invited to play a part in the Duke’s visit and the official opening of the campus, as it also encompasses a significant part of our own School’s history,” said Mr Chakravarty.

A QE student has won a prize in a prestigious, national awards scheme. Madhi Elango, who is in Year 10, was named winner of the Best Use of Maths prize at the British Science Association’s CREST Awards.

The CREST co-ordinator for North, Central and South London, Mrs Sheila Toper, has supported Madhi throughout his bronze level project and invited him to attend the national final – called the Big Bang – in London. She said: “To put these achievements into context, the projects included in the Big Bang were the best from all over the UK, and for Madhi to then be judged as one of the best at this national event is truly a fantastic result for all his hard work and determination.”

Madhi was the runner-up in the Junior Science/Maths category, and Mrs Toper commented that he had only narrowly missed out on the top prize. He also received a limited-edition CREST medal, awarded to exceptional CREST projects at the discretion of the judges.

“Many judges I spoke to remarked on how impressed they were at his communication skills and use of scientific process,” added Mrs Toper. She predicted a bright future for Madhi in the world of scientific research.

CREST is a project-based awards scheme for the STEM subjects – Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths. It links the personal passions of students to curriculum-based learning and aims to give 11-19 year olds opportunities to explore real world projects in an exciting way. Participants are expected to carry out research for their project in their own time at home.

“The School is very proud of Madhi’s achievements, which are a fitting reward for his hard work and determination,” said the Headmaster, John Marincowitz.

Madhi is now intending to start a new CREST project at gold level.