From time to time, when journalists are doing a story on tech – be it in print, on TV or on the radio – they’ll wheel out a futurologist. The Taskmaster remains a sceptic.

Like a lot of Year 12 students, Zeryab Cheema is not sure what he wants to study next year, unlike most of them he’s making up his mind while running a startup that already employs 30 people, both in Australia and overseas.

He may be based in New York as a chief technology officer now, but four years ago this startup cofounder was out in Western Australia on a mine site.