Ivan Semenenko

I am a sixth-form student at Heathfield School, taking A-levels in Economics, Mathematics, Further Mathematics and Chemistry. Most of what I do outside those subjects returns to the same question: how an economy behaves once it meets actual people, and what separates an argument that works on paper from one that survives contact with them.

That question is easier to ask honestly if you have tried to build something. In 2024 I founded VRhino, which builds VR fitness software to make sport accessible to more people and has been trading since September 2025. This year I started CourtDesk, booking software for padel clubs, and co-founded BoatXchange, a resale marketplace for rowing boats. Since 2022 I have taught English to Ukrainian refugees displaced by the invasion, and since 2025 I have spent Wednesdays working with children at a local state primary school for special educational needs. None of it is large. All of it has been more instructive than reading about it would have been.

The essays here are the longer version of the same interest, and the rest of the site is the record they are written against: what I have studied, founded, and given time to. Both are set out so they can be checked.

What I am studying

I am in the sixth form at Heathfield School, reading Economics, Mathematics, Further Mathematics and Chemistry at A-level. I sat my GCSEs at Tonbridge School, taking ten subjects: grade 9 in Mathematics and Drama, grade 8 in Biology, Physics, English Language, English Literature, History and Religious Studies, and grade 7 in French. Chemistry stands at a 7 and has gone back for a remark. I took Russian a year early and was awarded a 9.

Outside school I have looked for the parts of economics that a syllabus does not reach. A virtual course at Rice University on the business of economics, with a capstone project, took me through mortgages, the difference between micro and macro, and regional economics, and was the first time I saw how wide the subject is. In August 2026 I attended Yale Young Global Scholars on the Innovations in Science and Technology session.

What I write about

The essays return to one question in different forms: what happens to an economic argument when it meets the people it is about. The cashless society essay is the clearest example. The efficiency case is strong and the transparency case is stronger, and neither of them says anything to the 2.6 billion people without internet access. Working out how much weight that objection can bear is the actual work.

The second essay here moves into international law, on how new states are created and why almost every informal attempt at founding a country fails. It is a longer piece and a more technical one, and it is marked as AI assisted, with an account of what the tools did and what remained mine.

What I do

In April 2024 I founded VRhino to improve equality in sport by adapting and building software for it. Since June 2022 I have taught English to Ukrainian refugees displaced by the invasion, and since September 2025 I have spent Wednesdays at a local state primary school working with children with special educational needs. I have played for my local football club since 2018 and have been working through the drum grades since 2023.

How to read this site

The essays are the considered work and carry abstracts. The notes are looser and should be read as thinking in progress. The timeline and the achievements page are the plain record, with dates and credential numbers so they can be checked. My commitments set out what I hold myself to, including how I disclose the use of AI tools.