Mathematics @ UIUC '30 · Maths olympiad medalist
I'm Harrison He. Although my academic path points toward Mathematics and Computer Science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, my identity extends far beyond the classroom. As an INTJ, I naturally approach challenges with analytical thinking and objective logic, yet I am equally driven by a deep curiosity to experience life from multiple perspectives.
I thrive on staying active and exploring new environments—whether I'm scaling a climbing wall, hiking a scenic trail, playing badminton, or unraveling puzzles in an escape room. When it's time to decompress, you will often find me listening to music, brewing traditional Chinese tea, getting lost in web novels, or jumping into a match of League of Legends.
Maths & Further Maths
Hours Community Service
店小力 · Dianxiaoli — AI Digital Shop Assistant | April 2026 – Present
Built and run an AI shop assistant that lives inside WeChat Customer Service and WhatsApp for wholesalers, factories and retailers: it answers buyers around the clock in their language, quotes from the shop's own catalogue, confirms orders and hands them back to the owner. Live with three paying clients across China and South Africa; shipped as a solo developer with a 21-suite, 1,458-check automated quality gate (23 versioned releases since May 2026) and model routing across DeepSeek, Anthropic and OpenAI; multi-tenant, with a staff role and four industry packs since September 2026. Read the technical write-up →
Du Xiaoman Financial (Baidu's fintech arm) | September 2026 – Present
Shortlisted for Du Xiaoman's enterprise brief in the 2026 AI Pioneer Future Talent Competition (see Achievements), then selected for its AI talent programme to develop a standardised, multi-tenant edition of Dianxiaoli for its small-business merchants under an external-collaboration arrangement — leading product and engineering with two programme-assigned contributors, and designing the consent-gated merchant-data interface with the partner's team. A joint company is planned once the product reaches scale.
Discovery | April 2024
Shadowed practising actuaries, gaining first-hand insight into risk assessment, pricing models, and the day-to-day responsibilities within one of South Africa's largest financial services groups.
Argen Actuarial Solution | May 2024
Observed actuarial consulting in action, learning about actuarial valuations, financial modelling, and client advisory services at a specialist actuarial consultancy.
Bachelor's Degree in Mathematics
Transferring into Mathematics & Computer Science
Cambridge A-Level Programme
Transferred from Crawford College Sandton (4 years) to St John's College for A-Level study.
店小力 · Dianxiaoli — a single source of truth for a small merchant's prices, stock and orders that buyers, staff and the owner all query through the chat app they already use. Quotes, negotiates, records orders and handles payment screenshots, with the safety rules enforced in code rather than prompts. Solo-built; live with three paying merchants on two continents. Technical write-up →
Built an AI study tutor that reads a student's handwritten past-paper answer, grades it by logic (accepting any valid method), explains mistakes step-by-step, and generates fresh practice problems on the spot.
Built this personal website from scratch (HTML, CSS & JavaScript) — including 青, the AI land-spirit chat.
2026 AI Pioneer Future Talent Competition (AI 先锋未来人才大赛 — Feishu/ByteDance with a PKU–Fudan–SYSU–XJTU alliance; 109 enterprise briefs) — entered solo with 店小力 · Dianxiaoli; shortlisted for both the Du Xiaoman and Tec-Do (钛动) enterprise briefs, and built a coached deployment and demo for each (Jul–Aug 2026).
L'Oréal Beauty Tech Hackathon 2026 (2nd edition, on Alibaba Tianchi) — team entry on the content-authenticity track; building the ruling pipeline, agents, web UI and the image-forensics line.
Unity Developer Challenge 2026 (Codely+ track) — team game 余数 / REMAINDER; building the game's runtime platform and integrating the team's parts.
GOSIM Agentic Observer Hackathon 2026 (智能体巡天黑客松) — entry in progress.
South African Maths Olympiad — 4th (2021), 7th (2022), Top 50 (2023), Top 20 (2024), Top 20 (2025)
Top 10 in University of Wits Maths Competition — 2023 to 2025 (Continental level)
2nd place in South Africa Team Maths Competition — 2021 to 2024; 4th in 2025
Ranked Top 20–50 in the Estonia Maths Open within South Africa
Attended South Africa IMO Selection Training Camp at Stellenbosch University — 2021 to 2024
Passed the first round of South Africa Informatics Olympiad — 2023 & 2024
Attended Estonian Informatics Open — Top 15 within South Africa
Level 2 Swimmer in South Africa
Qualified Professional Level 1 Go Player in China
Black Belt in Taekwondo
Jungler on Illini Esports League of Legends Team 3 at UIUC
I'm always open to new opportunities in actuarial science, AI, machine learning engineering, quantitative finance, mathematics, and technology. Whether you have a question or just want to say hi, feel free to reach out!
Johannesburg, South Africa
+1 (217) 202-6283