Former Saltus Grammar School top student Rowan Border has been named as Bermuda’s 2015 Rhodes Scholar.

“We are obviously very proud that he received the scholarship,” Mr Border’s thrilled parents, Karen and Alistair Border, told The Royal Gazette last night. Mrs Border said her son came back to Bermuda for the interview and that it was a tough competition.

“He was up against a lot of very talented, impressive young people, but we were over the moon when we found out. He has always been very hard-working and he’s always known what he wanted to do.”

Mr Border, 22, plans to read for a DPhil at the Centre for Doctoral Training in Autonomous Intelligent Machines and Systems with the Department of Engineering Science and the Department of Computer Science at Lincoln College in Oxford, England.

“He’s always had a fascination with computers; taking them apart, putting them back together,” Mrs Border explained. “He taught himself to programme when he was quite young, so it’s not a surprise to us that he should end up in the field of robotics.”

Mr Border, of Warwick, attended Gilbert Institute and then moved to Saltus Grammar School where he graduated with top results in his GCSEs and won the Headmaster’s Award for GCSE Excellence in 2008.

At the age of 16, Mr Border (below) went to Sevenoaks School in the United Kingdom and obtained his International Baccalaureate in 2010.

While at Sevenoaks, he was a senior prefect and won the Sevenoaks Creative Award for developing the yearbook website.

Mr Border then studied for a BSc in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.

He was the holder of the XL Scholarship to attend University and he won the Marks and Clerk Prize for Innovation for a robotics project in 2014. In 2013, with a group of friends, Mr Border started a 3D printing company which was selected by the Scottish Institute for Enterprise to represent Scotland at the Global Founders’ Skills Accelerator programme at MIT in Boston.

Mrs Border added that her son, a qualified skydiver, is a very fun-loving young man, who enjoys sailing, spending time with his friends, and all of the other activities that Bermuda has to offer.

Mr Border also rode with Bermuda Riding for the Disabled for ten years and was a senior member of the Bermuda Boys Brigade, where he introduced younger members to technology based activities. He volunteered his technical skills in community projects to help them to take full advantage of technology on many occasions.

After completing his four-year PhD, Mrs Border said that “his ultimate dream would be to come to Bermuda and form his own start-up company in the field of robotics”.

But she added that his immediate future will likely be abroad so that he can gain enough experience to do so.

Mr Border will be back on the Island in the summer and will be working at XL.