Geoffrey Smith named Queensland’s Australian of the Year

Born and raised in a small town, our Queensland Australian of the Year went on to study at one of the state’s most prestigious high schools before founding a company that is revolutionising the workplace. This is his inspirational story.

Geoffrey Smith named Queensland’s Australian of the Year

Allora-born entrepreneur Geoffrey Smith will spend the next year working to put himself out of job.

The 2025 Queensland Australian of the Year is the founder of Australian Spatial Analytics, a data analytics contractor and social enterprise that has employed hundreds of young people with autism.

His hope is in the future there will be no need for what he does.

“We want to employ a lot more people because we can scale autism employment and we want to win larger clients,” he said.

“This award will be a great platform to get in with government departments and large infrastructure companies to support them to understand the strength of Autistics employees.

“I say to them that we are happy to be in their supply chain, but why don’t they employ people with autism themselves.”

ASA was founded in 2020, with the support of White Box Enterprises.

Today it employs about 150 people with autism and works with defence contractors, the Australian Government and major civil construction companies.

“We turn over about $700,000 a month in trade and have paid $7 million in wages to autistic analysts,” Mr Smith said.

“We are generally the starting point for people with autism who want to enter the workforce.

“The average time employees spend with us is two years, we support the team to build confidence and workplace skills to transition their employment to other organisations, but it takes different amounts of time for everyone.

“We also promote from within and we have people who started with us and now manage teams.”

Most of Mr Smith’s workers have struggled with social barriers and interpersonal skills, but technology is helping.

“Those barriers can be overcome in data-driven roles and most roles are data-driven these days,” he said.

Mr Smith was one of four finalists in the prestigious award and he was announced as the winner on Monday.

The Darling Downs man attended Allora State School and Toowoomba Grammar School, and later enrolled in a dual Arts and Business degree at the University of Queensland.

He worked as a data analyst for Linfox and Shell before taking a management role at BUSY at Work.

In 2020 he founded Australian Spatial Analytics and of his employees, 80 per cent are neurodivergent and 61 per cent have come from long-term unemployment.

Mum Debbie Smith said she was inspired by her son.

“When he was in year 11 he met a man who worked for the United Nations and he told me that was something he wanted to do,” she said.

“He tells me this didn’t happen, but I remember it.

“Later he was working in data analytics for Shell, he told me he didn’t feel like he was making a difference so he went back to university, completed a masters and got into social enterprise.

“All of his employees are paid an award wage, they have real jobs doing data analysis that would otherwise be shipped overseas.

“Geoffrey believes in humanity, he believes in that people are more good than bad and the people with challenges just need to be helped out whatever rough spot they are in.”

The other Queensland winners include Dr Bronwyn Herbert who took out Qld Senior of the Year.

Dr Katrina Wruck won Qld Young Australian of the Year, while Claire Smith was named QLD Local Hero.

Originally published as Geoffrey Smith named Queensland’s Australian of the Year