I was born and raised in Escazú in the San José Province right in front of the Pico Blanco Mountains. At 1700m above sea level, the weather is hot during the day and cool during the night. This modeled what the perfect weather is to me. Costa Rica has been an exception in Latin America in terms of democracy, stability and social cohesion. Our main treasure is nature. We do not have very old monuments or skyscrappers but nature is our ancestral treasure. Alongside this, the abolition of the army in 1949 provided new generations with a singular mindset. One in which naturally we learned that violence, force and oppression is not the right way to set a country in the right track.
I have been priviledged (and very much aware of it) to learn English from a very young age as well as to attend a private highschool. At the Model United Nations elective course, I learned about world problems, to debate, the subtle power of language and how to express my thoughts best. This ability of clearly communicating my ideas now extends to other languages I have learned and has been fundamental in helping me achieve my goals.
It was right about this time that I decided the world was too big and I had to go out there and discover it at least a little bit more, however much I could. To make matters brief, I moved to Bologna, Italy with 19 years of age taken by the excitement and fear of what I was doing. Studying Managemenet & Marketing for my bachelor in my third language (italian) allowed me to understand business processes, organization and economics. Not only this, but it shaped my mind in order to make it more flexible, having to learn in another language. However, during my second year it started to bother me that in this field I could not create as other professions do (like art and engineering) and so I set out to learn programming with Python.
While studying Python I started to ask myself what I could be useful in my life. Knowledge, in my opinion, has to be applied, and so naturally my search for programming purpose landed in Data Science with the purpose of making the decision making I had been learning in university more data-driven.
Since then I have been in what is called the rabbit-hole of Data Science and Machine Learning. I realized that since I was a kid my mindset has been very much data-driven. So much so that when I was very young I thought when people die and go to heaven they can ask God questions such as: how many steps did I take on Earth? How many times did I say specific words? To me this is hilarious now, but those questions are at the base of what Data Science is for me: measuring, storing, analyzing and extracting insights. Sometimes we do this for our own lives without even realizing it but now I have the skills and tools in order to do this very much on purpose and it extends to my work life as well.
After I graduated my Bachelor's I decided to pursue a Master in Data Science. I had been learning on my own for almost a year an a half and I thought it was about time to do this surrounded by people who had the same drive and passion. Not only this, but also having the opportunity to learn from professors whose life work has been related to data.
I have been a generalist along the way, often doing project management mixed with data analysis and ML with Python. I have built Data Engineering pipelines in Data Factory, used Azure Machine Learning for training Computer Vision models for abandoned waste proof-of-concept, which are currently in process of being deployed in the fleets in Modena.
As part master's internship I evaluated departmental autonomy for experiment with Machine Learning and AI. I have since been the technical project manager for all departmental AI initiatives, often being hands on with code as well as serving as a effective bridge between consultant's technical teams and departmental business colleagues. In this matter, technical advisory for consulting contracts but also decision making within to technically shape initiatives.
In the past year I have also been part of the company-wide process to adopt a data strategy and have knowledge on the data mesh data architecture principles.
All throughout this time I have made sure to dedicate time for reading relevant ML and Deep Learning papers and delving deeper into coding through courses and project work (both at work and personal projects). In teams I am always open to share what I know and help, learning from my colleagues along the way.
I believe my biggest asset for a company is the fact that I can think on many levels of abstraction from the code of the project all the way to how that translates into business value. The bottomline is I am a good systems thinker, understanding the impact of technical decisions in business and viceversa. I'm equally confortable taking about business strategy as I am about a new Deep Learning paper and this allows me to be hands on as needed in projects, despite my role being mainly as a Project Manager.