I wanted to share a few moments from my life that have shaped who I am—not necessarily the ones that look best on a CV, but the ones that still mean something to me. I hope they give you a clearer picture of where I come from.
When I was 14 I joined EMMA, a math talent school in my region. I ended up in a mentor role quite early—I was the youngest in the group—and together with others I gave talks on math popularization. We covered things like hyperbolic trigonometry, algebra, and geometry. I stayed for three years.
What I remember most are the math camps we ran: sleepovers where we worked on puzzles like Einstein's riddle, built da Vinci's bridge with wooden blocks, and in our free time played chess, tennis, and other games. It was a good place to grow.
In high school I often preferred chess to football. I played with friends and then with some teachers, and bit by bit got a bit better. By the end of the year, a few of us had put together a chess tournament and a bunch of people showed up. It was simple and fun, and it stayed with me.
When the pandemic hit I was in my first year of university. I had a strong sense that the university was about to go through something very hard—for the rectorate, for staff, for everyone. I also felt that crises like that could teach you a lot about how institutions and procedures actually work, and how to get things done for people when things are messy.
So I put myself forward as class delegate. That year I was the only one who did, and the role kept me busy. I tried to be useful. My classmates re-elected me for the next four years, even when others presented themselves too, and later I was also delegate during my master's. I'm grateful they trusted me with it.
In my fourth year I was looking for people who also wanted to build something. I went to a lot of talks, and one Friday evening in the middle of summer—at a conference about productivity—I met four people who were asking the same questions. We stayed in touch, created a WhatsApp group, and from there SparkEd grew. We ran events that brought in more than 300 people, met a lot of company CEOs, other entrepreneurs, and through it I met Claudia, who's now my closest friend and now, my business partner and CEO of Mycrospace. That period meant a lot to me. Thank you Pau Martinez
This one is a bit of an honest failure on my side.
CDTM (Center for Digital Technology and Management) runs strong programs for people who want to lead in big companies or start their own. I joined while I was already stretched thin with other commitments, and the workload was heavy. I met many people I liked.
In the end I realized that a lot of what they were teaching—entrepreneurship, market research, running large events—I was already learning by doing elsewhere. It wasn't a good fit for that moment in my life, so I left. No hard feelings; it just wasn't for me then.
My first three years at university were tough for reasons unrelated to my degree. I went through long periods of anxiety—shaking, nausea, losing weight—and it showed in my work and in how I felt.
What helped was keeping moving: doing things, small and large, gave me something to hold on to. I'm aware that in that state I still managed to keep my grades in a good place (around 8.3 in my bachelor's, 8.7 in my master's), but the thing I care about more is that I learned how much it matters to keep going when everything feels unstable. If I had stopped completely, I think I would have lost my footing.
I share this because it's part of my story, and because I know many people go through similar phases. You're not alone in it.