Mr Smith is a Launceston police officer, the director of JCP Empowering Youth, an organiser of Edmund Rice Camps Tasmania which connect police officers to act as role models for vulnerable youth, and also went to Syria this year to set up soccer teams for young people in ISIS recruitment areas.

But despite his incredible list of achievements ticket off by the age of 26, he said he had no expectation to win the award.

"I feel really humbled - very, very appreciative, and very humbled," he said.

"When I looked at the other nominations, I decided to just enjoy the day to be honest, see Government House for the first time - it was a shock [to win]," he said.

"Meeting the other nominees was a privilege, they are amazing people. Amazing people."

Mr Smith attended the award ceremony with his mum, and with the woman who nominated him: Donna McWilliam.

Ms McWilliam, now retired, taught Mr Smith at St Patrick's College. Even though they hadn't spoken in ten years, she had kept track of the young man's accomplishments and all the things he has done to help others, and nominated him for Young Australian of the Year without telling him.

Mr Smith said he would use the award to keep helping young people, on a bigger scale.

"The award gives me an opportunity and a platform," he said.

It will help me to try and reach and impact as many young people as possible, who may be disengaged in society at the moment, because of a range of factors in their background."

He will now travel to Canberra on January 25 for the Australian of the Year announcements, going up against the Young Australian of the Year from each state.

Also nominated from the North was Lola Greeno, an Indigenous woman from Cape Barren Island, who was up for Tasmania Senior Australian of the Year for her 30 years of award-winning shell artistry, but unfortunately lost out to 74-year-old Somerset landcare activist Dr Graham Stevenson.

Jess Melbourne-Thomas, a 38-year-old scientist from Hobart who is studying how climate change effects underwater ecosystems, was named Tasmanian of the Year.

Ms Melbourne-Thomas, who grew up on the East Coast, does her important work through the CSIRO, and was previously with the Australian Antarctic Division.