But in an era when social media carries a certain cachet and influencers make gobs of money posing with products, Laurent is not your typical child prodigy. He’s into Instagram, for one. And as of Friday, he had more than 13,000 followers.

Laurent, who was born in Ostende, Belgium, studies electrical engineering at the Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands. He entered when he was 8 and is set to complete a three-year program in 10 months.

If all goes well and he completes his final project — about a brain-connected electrical chip — he will walk out a graduate in December.

“Then, I want to study medicine, and do a Ph.D. and make artificial organs,” he said.

Laurent grew up in Belgium with his grandparents while his parents worked in the Netherlands. He started primary school when he was 4, and went to high school at 6, according to his father. He now lives with his parents in Amsterdam.

“His grandparents always taught us he’s very special,” Alexander Simons said about his son. “We thought they were taking him too seriously.”