Willian Ver Valem Paiva has come a long way—both geographically, and in his career. He’s gone from Brazil to France, via Ireland, and he’s recently landed an incredible new role as a Lead Artificial Intelligence Engineer at a start-up in Bordeaux.
Growing up in Sao Paulo, Willian spent hours working out how to program his computer. It became his passion, and he knew he wanted a career working with computers. When he started looking at universities, he found he simply couldn’t afford the expensive fees to pursue a computer science program in Brazil. What he found instead was a company that would sponsor him to study engineering. It wasn’t the subject he loved, but at least it was a degree program. Within a few years however, he realized he’d made the wrong choice, so he did something very bold. He emptied his savings, left his program, and got on a plane.
This is the story of what happened next.
