Shahril was the deputy chairman for the United Kingdom and Eire Council for Malaysian Students in 2007/08. Upon returning to Malaysia, he served as an assistant to a government MP before leaving for the UK again, where he is now pursuing his Masters degree in Race, Ethnicity and Post-colonial Studies at the London School of Economics. He considers himself to be an unashamedly cosmopolitan Malay-Muslim and is quite prepared to be associated with the (pejorative) term 'Melayu liberal'. His Twitter handle is @ShahrilHamdan.