Work In Progress Podcast

WIPp 028 Albert Pujol: From Mechanical Engineer to Data Scientist and Entrepreneur

August 26, 2020 Dana & Angela
Work In Progress Podcast
WIPp 028 Albert Pujol: From Mechanical Engineer to Data Scientist and Entrepreneur
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From Mechanical Engineer to Data Scientist and Entrepreneur, Albert's goal is to help people reach a higher level of consciousness by means of AI.

With his unbeatable determination and positivity, Albert is making the switch from mechanical engineering to data science and entrepreneurship. He has just finished a year-long master program and is ready to get started. We learn in this episode why and how he decided to switch, and what he has in mind for the future.



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Albert :

What can go wrong? You know, even if this startup doesn't work out, which I really believe it will, but if it doesn't, I can work anywhere at the moment. And, and the fact that I also created this Instagram, which is growing, this will open me so many doors, you know, data is growing exponentially. But data scientists who can deal with this data is growing linearly.

Dana :

You're listening to the working progress podcast, and we are your hosts, Dana and Angela. We believe your work and career should evolve with you and it is therefore always a work in progress. In this podcast, you will hear stories of people who turn their careers from something that no longer serves them into something that complements who they are and their life goals. The way I like to think about it is that the careers are growing and stretching just like they are. A goal is to inspire you to get out there and to make the changes you want for yourself. Your future. So let's get started. Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening, wherever you are. Welcome back to the working pockets podcast. I'm Dana. And I'm Angela. And we're really excited for you to join us today because today we're talking to Albert. Albert was a mechanical engineer, and he recently switched to data science. And he just finished a one year long master program, and we just have a lot of questions for him. I'm really excited for you to join us today. elber. Welcome.

Albert :

Thank you very much for having here. I'm also happy to be here. And yeah, let's go for it.

Dana :

Thank you. Thank you. And so we have a lot of questions for you. But first, I was wondering if you could give us a little bit of introduction about yourself, like where you are right now and then we'll take it from there.

Albert :

So yes, my name is Albert, and I am originally from Spain from Barcelona. But I've been living the last six years in Germany and as As you said, I am a mechanical engineer. You have to at least have a was a mechanical engineer, but I am still am mechanical engineer that say guys, it's something I will ever be, because that's kind of what I've always done building things up. Yeah. I've always when it was a tail or a boy, little boy started always building things up Legos and so on. And also, through my youth, playing video games and so on. They are they were all always related to building things out. That's something that I always loved him. I was not aware about these until a few years later, but that's something that I always loved. Maybe I'll comment on that later. So he became 18 years old, and it was time to study a career which was mechanical engineering. It took me six years, even though it was three years long. And that's because I like to have lots of fun between semesters, provided some binary, I made it I finished my mechanical engineering. And I remember before starting working as a mechanical engineer, I also went to lunch. Six months to improve my English. But yeah, then I finally started working as a mechanical engineer. The first working experience was in Spain in Spain and Portugal. I worked there three and a half years. And that was, I would say, I wouldn't say the best experience professional experience. But like I will say, I couldn't start better my career, my professional experience because it was a small company. I was the only worker actually. So the company was founded by my two bosses. One of them was my uncle, actually. And it was a nice experience because they were 250 years old engineers. So a lot of experience 2030 years experience, working experience, and I was the only worker that means I was working next to them in daily basis for three and a half years. Yeah. So I could see an experience and leaf. A lot of a lot of things you have from day one, that not every fresh student is capable of Leaving. Yeah, in normal situations. There I worked in production. I also work with customers. It was really, really mechanical engineering based my job. Yeah. So I thought that was good because I applied my studies. And that's not always the case. Sometimes people study something and then they work on something completely different. But in my case, I really applied my studies. But and there, that's also important. I kind of had the first costumers which were German. So I had my first contact with the German people. And you know, in Europe, Germany is the most powerful country here. Yeah, because a lot of influence in Europe and Europe, European community. Then I realized after three and a half years that maybe when I was working with good I was learning a lot, but it was maybe a small, I'm someone that always traveled a lot, as I said, in London, but I was lucky to get to know new cultures speak or learn new languages is something that I that I love. So I decided to quit a job and go to Germany. That was a kind of an adventure. I was 28 years old. And you know, I'm really motivated always Yeah. But the first thing I had to do in German in Germany was to learn German. That took me about six months to learn German intensively, that was four days a week, three hours a day during class and then starting in the mornings. And I had to do that because in Germany otherwise, or at least in the area where I am, that's Byron, it's not easy to find a job if you if you don't speak German, maybe elsewhere, like Berlin is easier. But in buyer, I had to learn German. So yeah, it took me six months, then my money was over. So I had to also work as a waiter. Six months. That was not funny because I was coming from working as a mechanical engineer three and a half years. But yeah, I had to do that I didn't want to run. But after six months working as a waiter, then I got the job. I found a job actually at BMW, the car manufacturer and there I worked Three and a half years more. Yeah. at BMW, my first task was quality related. It was kind of making sure that the quality system of part of the company was working. And then the second test and main one was to develop Rolls Royce cars. So I was traveling often also to England to Goodwood, where Rolls Royce factory is. So yeah, that's what I was doing the three and a half years, I think working in Germany. But you know, something, it's really relevant in my career here. In Spain, as I said, I was working really hard because at the end of the day, that was a startup with my two old bosses. Yeah, we were working long hours weekends, and me even more because I was the student you know. But in Germany, things were different here. We have the Welfare Society. It's a bit different than capitalism. And yeah, I had a more comfortable life, private life professional life balance. So I had time after work to master and I did an MBA. Yeah, it took me two years. But that was really good. It was also stressful because even though we have this balance, when you do a part time, MBA plus the 40 hours working that stuff, especially during the thesis that was really, really tough. But the IB MBA kind of taught me, what's the direction there's this, that our society is where our society is going here. And that's a database so to say or, yeah, go globalized, connected, you know. And I found that so interesting. I wrote my thesis also in relation to what's the future of the connectivity of cars in the electric infrastructure. And I saw how many challenges are there in terms of data and connectivity? How many players are part of these ecosystems? It is just one example. There are a lot of ecosystems like that that are being developed at the moment. And as I said, I am a person who since I was a boy loves to build things, apps and to develop and to innovate. And I kind of realized that as a mechanical engineer, I could always, I could have a good career as a mechanical engineer, engineer good life, but the possibilities to innovate and to be creative or to create, to also receive investment and so on, are a bit harder than in the IT world. Yeah. So once I realized about that, I decided to shift my career, which is the topic here. That was actually that was one year ago that I quit my job as a mechanical engineer at BMW. And yeah, back then. Well, I had already been reading a lot about the concept of data scientists. I don't know why I think I need that because I had to make some side money back in the day and I really Right, I found this concept data scientists that I could do a little bit of ceremony. But the more I read about it, the more convinced I was that this was the perfect change for me. So yeah, after quitting, I decided to do a master's in data science. I found a short one in Spanish University. Talking Spanish, obviously online. Yeah. I'm really happy about it. I finished lectures about one month ago. And now I still have to write my master's thesis, which is due on the seventh of September, I think I will have to run because I haven't even started. And on top of that, I realized that if I Well, maybe we can, we can speak about that. I don't know. The thing is, during during studying, I also did an internship as a data scientist already, just to just it lasted six months. It was also over a month ago, and I just need that to start touching a little bit the topic and not just starting but also practicing.

Dana :

I'm really impressed with how you've been consistently working and going to school at the city. Time that didn't just happen for one job for one degree, it happened for multiple ones. That is impressive. I'm really curious, when you talk about your MBA thesis, you said that you talked about you wrote about the, I guess the future, or the connectivity of the can't really remember,

Albert :

Electric car, yeah?

Dana :

Yeah. It says, I'm interested in that. Can you talk a bit more about that? Like, what's the future like?

Albert :

Okay, in a sense, this is a little this is happening. But, Hmm, let's see in a small scale at the moment, I think that you have they're the biggest company and the promoters of this, which is Tesla, yeah. In Tesla, if you are a customer there, I think for what I read back then that was one half years ago. So I think I'm sure things are more than up now. But back then, as a customer from Tesla, you could already be part of this future. Let's say thing is that electricity is really expensive to generate. And that's mainly because if you have a surplus electricity to actually save the surplus, it's really expensive because you need a lot of batteries and they are massive and batteries are even. That's, that's expensive thing batteries. Yeah. So when we have surplus electricity, this is normally lost, okay. And then on the other side, you cannot have a lack of electricity because then you have blackouts and blackouts or even more expensive. Yeah. So that's why in electricity, you always need a surplus. And that's why I like this. This is not that efficient. Yeah. But that's where cars may play a role. If electric cars really penetrate the market, we will have the chance to safe I don't know if that's the right word. The surplus electricity in the battery. Yeah. This means we will have at At night, for example, you may have your batteries at home in your car here. And you have the chance then to to fill these batteries up. But then you can also do the other thing. Yeah, if the when there is a need for electricity, you can take the electricity from the batteries and sell it back to the system. So I think, exactly that's a baker to greet and greet to Baker. That's where the concepts Yeah. So today you have great tobacco, you bring electricity from the grid to the bagel, but the technology that's being developed is that you can then sell the electricity or bring these electricity back to the to the system Yeah, when there is a need for it. And this will kind of soften these NFC ends of electricity because now if you have a surplus you will be able to save this electricity into the batteries. And when there is a need, then you can sell it back. But that's really complex because there are a lot of players they are the energy suppliers, but which have always been there, but now that are also the car of factors which are completely separated from energy suppliers. And that the question, are they going to become a team? Are they not going to become a team? And then there is there are many roles Yeah, I don't remember some of them. But we are also a role because we are the owner of this car on this battery and we are buying this electricity but then we are someone is buying these these electricity back from our battery. So we are actually earning money there too. Yeah. And it's really difficult. These scenarios are really difficult because there are many as I said, players in there, who is the owner of worth Yeah. And yeah, that's kind of what I started back then. And, and that's what I saw these this topic with, with the data because imagine a city with I was going to say 1 million batteries, but maybe your cities are bigger there. But let's say 1 million batteries. And and let's also say 1 million houses. Yeah. With 4 million users using data devices and user consuming data. The city, the coordination of all these devices and houses and batteries, and the direction of the flows of electricity is crazy just for one city and then imagine for a state or for a whole country. And this is all controlled by data, and by machine learning mechanisms, and that's why all these is still to be invented in a way and implemented. And that's where I saw this opportunity. And that's why when I decided to, to shift my career because of that.

Dana :

That's so interesting. And yeah, I think I've read something about how you can store the excess electricity in the battery and then use that efficiently or make use of that excess. I guess this kind of sparked your interest in, in data science. Exactly. How was the school like in data science? What was that one year like? You awake at the same time, right?

Albert :

Yes, exactly. I was doing this internship because of my experience with the MBA that what I really had a tough time doing both things. In the second internship, I asked to work less than eight hours a day, I was doing 32 hours a week, so seven hours a day. But I was working every day from I don't know, nine to four or less. And one day off, Fridays normally. And then afternoons I had class every afternoon from Monday to Thursday, two hours a day. And the first insight was that IV discourse online, and that was the first time maybe the course a master or an online university. And I was really happy about it, because, you know, you think that, you know, online Master, you will have to be really consistent and be motivated to actually go there, download the PDFs and read and physically homework and so on. But in this case, this was quite innovative because they were doing lectures life everyday two hours. And so that was good. It was not a record that you could see, you know, any day or anytime you could actually assist during the live session. Masters in Germany. I don't know now in the US. within Germany the last normally four semesters I think in the US, it's three semesters, meaning one and a half years. But I was so tired from the MBA that one of my main requirements was to find a master that was short. So I found this one. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. For me, that was kind of the PhD into another PhD, obviously. But it was kind of a because it took four years at the end the whole thing. Yeah, it's taking four years. Yeah, we'll talk about the online course. And I want it to be one year long. Exactly. So maybe one year long. I haven't done a second mastering data science. I cannot compare. Obviously, two years long, long master in data science will be will have more content. But what I learned a thing is enough to have an overview of what I need. And that's actually what I'm feeling at the moment because I haven't spoken about what my intentions are now. I don't know if that's okay. That I do.

Dana :

Yeah, of course. Yeah.

Angela :

Yeah, please

Albert :

I have two options now. I guess once once someone finishes a master, this person had two options. One of them is finding a company or working for it. And the second one is learning by yourself. Yeah. I think I'm now in a sweet moment of my life because I have been working eight years including this internship in different countries with different languages with different people with different cultures because German and Spanish or Latin cultures are really different. And that was really enriching. So I decided instead of finding a company to do my own thing, yeah, I have also my MBA. I'm a mechanical engineer. So I have both technical and business backgrounds. So now I decided to do a startup which is going to be a base artificial intelligence based. I'm going to use data so yeah, I chose this the second path Yeah, the one that what I learned my by myself Yeah. And I started Two weeks ago, so I said what a month ago the intership and the lectures were over. I did some holidays or occasion. And, and weeks ago, I started with this startup. Yeah.

Dana :

Wow, congrats. I had no idea. I know you just finished a couple of weeks ago. We weren't emailing but this happened and oh my god. That's how has it been so far?

Albert :

So far, I'm alone. Yeah, I mean, I, yeah, I beat the basic things. I found myself and offer us a co working space. The cheapest one obviously. But still cool one that they offer kind of an accelerator program where they help you I still have to, or what do they exactly offer but there are other programs anyway, Munich here. It's becoming a startup hub in Germany. So yeah, I need to make some calls to find out what it's there to be offered. But yeah, so far. I mean, these places Working play. So I started the month, two weeks ago. And first I kind of settled the basic things, which is a Google sweet, by the way, really awesome tool. I can just recommend it, I think using it for seven days. But you know, my, my brother is going to give me a hand in Spain. So I wanted a global global Area Network and Google suite is the perfect solution for that. And now I'm putting a lot of thought I want to use Lean Startup methodology. So now I'm trying to figure out what's my hypothesis, which I can tell you my more or less my policies are the The goal of the startup is to I want to create an application that helps people growth personally, or in other words, reach a higher level of consciousness using data, especially using natural language processing. So at the moment, I invested almost most of the time in marketing strategy because I think that's it Important to figure out how this startup is going to look like. And then which company is going to be what's going to be the name of this company. This company has to have a fit with the vision of the startup. Also, I also have an Instagram when I speak about all the things, you know, that's a kind of personal blog. So I also want this this personal block to be under the same roof. Marketing Strategy roof. Yeah. So that's mainly what I've been doing. I actually had a one hour meeting today with a consultant from Spain to confirm what I did the tour that I did, yeah. So yeah, that's mainly what I've been doing. But you know, the next month or the first goals of the startup, or the main goal is to find investment. within the next six months. I put deadline February 2021. But I'm, I'm confident that I will get investment into two free months. Maybe what scares me is The German mentality in the US, it's, for example, easier to get investment and in here, so that's maybe what scares me a lot. But yeah, I'm confident I will get investment within the next six months. That's the main goal. And once I got this, and until then my first task or main task is to, to create a business plan where I kind of calculate what I would need in terms of development in terms of marketing, operations and so on. So that's what I'm working on at the moment. Hmm.

Dana :

I'm curious. You, you, you're going to use data and AI to help people I guess, reach higher levels of consciousness. Exactly what is higher levels of consciousness?

Albert :

Okay, I'm also figuring all these things are there. I'm also reading a book, the Lean Startup book I'm reading and it is set in there that startup at the other day is in a completely what's the word? Unknown and bidelman. That's not the word but you know And sugarcane and vitamin that were moving myself because I have a vision, but how do they get to that vision? It's not defined that it's impossible because I'm going to use technology that's completely new. It's a state of the art. But let's maybe say this is also part of my personality about three years ago, I I understood how important it is to the concept of consciousness. Okay, I understood how important it is to invest time in knowing yourself. Yeah. Because this kind of makes a few a better version, you know, in all of the sense. So, I realized about that and I started investing time reading books and, and, and seeing things in me that I didn't know. And the changes so so who there so and so beautiful, you know, that I just, I just thought that I would love people to realize about That too. Yeah. Because I can say, everybody has ego, I guess it's something that's inherent in us. Some people more some people less, that depends on our context and background here, and past everything. But in my case, I had ego. And I realized about that, you know, and now that I'm working on that, I just see how important it is or how beautiful it is to, to, to realize that my life is better since then. Yeah. And the fact that I have a technical background because in this, let's say that, I believe that in this in this area, there are not a lot of technical people, I believe, yeah, maybe it's not true. But anyway, that's what I think the thing is that I have, I have this technical background, so I kind of have the means to make it possible. For me, to bring this functionalist with with to the people you know, to to help people actually reach higher level of consciousness by means of technology. So I think that I can I can have this capability to do this. Yeah. So that's why that's that became my mission. And that's what I'm going to try to do in this startup.

Dana :

Wow. And you said your brother's joining you from Spain.

Albert :

In a little scale, let's say, I just I just want my brother to be part of it because I love him, you know, and he's also a really smart guy. He's been in banking many years. And these, this sorry for the word the claws of society, where we are part of a company you know, we are number in a company. Were working for someone else and reaching someone which is, which is capitalism. Yeah, it's okay. But I don't know I don't find it right to spend my life working 40 years for a salary. I eat an exercise once after finishing the MBA, kind of calculate it. How would you Be my capital at the age of 14 working at BMW, which when I had a good salary, and that did not convince me, Earl, you know, and I was working hard, and I made these calculations without considering family anything. Yeah. And that's what I thought that cannot be. I mean, what am I going to do here? until until retiring. I don't want to be, you know, working for few vacations a year for someone else. And I just don't want that for my family. Neither, you know. And that's why that's why or beloved ones, which also include friends. That's why I wanted my brother to be on board at the beginning, a little scary because he has family. But let's see, hopefully in the future, he can be full in.

Dana :

Wow, yeah. Um, yes, I've talked to a lot of people. I mean, a lot of people definitely share the same sentiment as you that you don't want to devote entire, you know, 3040 years, how many years people work 40 hours a week. Probably even More, even more for some people. And the at the end of the day, you know, not get a lot back. I mean, yeah, you do get compensated for what you work for. But sometimes it's it's not worth it. And I can definitely see why so, so yeah, for sure. Was there anything difficult throughout this process for you?

Albert :

Becoming data scientists, you mean, yeah?

Dana :

Yeah. Becoming data scientists or in the past in the past few years when you were going through MBA and now or probably in the future, will you foresee could be difficult for you?

Albert :

Career change for me, it was not easy now to do this internship in one aspect, because I knew that but at the end of the day, you're becoming a student here and and you're going somewhere where you have no clue how things work. In terms of content, of course, I have experienced Of course, I know I had project management capabilities. Yeah. And no one had to be on me saying do these until Friday at least until Tuesday, there was no need for that. But anyway, it's difficult to be a student that's maybe older than your colleagues that have been there working for four years, you know, because maybe they are used to have students which are younger and can be easy managed, let's say, yeah. Then a guy who's older than you and who probably has been more around the new in terms of experience in the world and so on. So that was not not not easy. Yeah. Regarding the future, I'm really positive normally, especially in when it comes to business. That's because of my first boss, I would say. So I don't really have many worries because I don't think anything can what can go wrong, you know, even if this startup doesn't work out, which I really believe it will, but if it doesn't, I can work anywhere at the moment. And and the fact that I used to created this, this Instagram block, which is growing. This will open me so many doors, you know, because I'm also getting into a field that's really in the three niche, it's really it's really new here. Not many people is going to work on that. And, and that's one of the things that people who think about becoming data scientists should should know or remember, data is growing exponentially. exponentially every second we speak Yeah, that is more and more data being generated in an exponential way. But data scientists who can deal with this data is growing linearly. Yeah. So there will always or not always but for the next years, definitely and that's what convinced me there will there will be jobs you know, so that's why I'm confident about this future because anytime Can you can always receive suddenly a message from even one of your audience could hear me you know, and offer me something you never know. Yeah. So that That's why I'm confident that the video will be positive in one way or another.

Dana :

Well, I like your I really like your confidence. And honestly, I don't really hear that a lot in people because usually when I ask people, they are, you know, pretty worried or they have like a few things that's kind of making them worried but not the case for you. So I think that's really refreshing. And I think that I like it. And I think that it's true, I'm better to be better to be more positive than to be negative and you know, not try things out. So definitely.

Angela :

I want to actually ask some questions about why you picked your one year degree over some other types of ways to learn data science. I'm not sure if this is something that you have also in the Europe, like European countries where maybe it's a little bit more common where we are in California, specifically San Francisco Bay. area, we have actually something we call boot camps, which are a little bit more like they are really what they sound like boot camps and like short shorter periods concentrated, immersive kind of situation where people learn. Usually the topics that are around something like coding or data science. So I guess I was curious to learn about your process of picking like programs Did you consider shorter programs that you learn a consider trying to learn data science online first to see if it's something that you'll actually enjoy doing? Or maybe there just weren't that many options and then you had to look at more formal like schooling for that.

Albert :

Mm hmm. The first thing I did was reading about it a lot. As I said, I discovered this concept data science, just to try to make some money on the side by then that I realized that that was not going to be that easy here. But I read a lot of audit, I read about the capabilities that you need as a data scientist. Because you if you want to of your career, you can do anything. Yeah, anything you can shift to anywhere. But if it's possible, the transition will be smoother if what you're going to do has at least few similarities to what you were doing here. And that was that was the case in data science. Just to give some examples in data science unit, mathematics unit, programming, unit statistics, unit, also presentation skills, and so on. Yeah. I don't know how to program I didn't know how to program. I still don't know how to program like a pro. Yeah. But I am a mechanical engineer. So the mathematical and statistical power was going to be something easier now. So that's why it's the first edition. Yeah, I can do that. Yeah, it can be a smooth, relatively fast transition. Yeah. And then you, again, there are two options. You can do a master or a bootcamp. I'll speak about that later. Or you can learn by yourself, I actually wrote about that on Instagram. But that again, it depends on your context. Yeah, you can learn by yourself. Definitely. And if today, there are so many things online, but it will just take you longer. Yeah, that's if you have the time if you're 22 years old, or 25, I don't know. Or if you won the lottery, and you can have to be here a couple years, then do it online. That's fine. But I was coming from the NBA. Yeah. And, and I thought if I have to lose half they have they have to leave now. I have to do it now. Because if I, I know I want to do it as fast as possible. And then I want to stop studying. So to say, Yeah, because I was tired of studying and I said, I need something short and fast. So I choose a master in a master or Bootcamp, it doesn't matter. You have professionals who design the best and fastest possible course for you. Yeah. And you have, you have contacts there you have direct contact. To scholars who are proficient in every single of the disciplines they are teaching. Yeah, if you're doing it by yourself, you don't have that you have to Google everything. maybe ask a friend, it's gonna take you twice or three times as much as doing the master. Yeah. That's why that depends on the context is my case, I chose the master because I was coming from the NBA. And I wanted to do the transition as fast as possible. And then really a question to boot camp. We also have that in here. But that came as an influence from the US. Yeah. Actually, I found two companies that were offering that in Barcelona and but one of them I don't know if the background was American, but yeah, I also did not deep dive a lot into how many things they're wearing in terms of webcams, but not many. I found two. But the thing is, and I also spoke with them and everything, but the thing is, they were asking you to be Six months, concentrated somewhere in my case it was Barcelona or Berlin. And in my case, economically speaking, I was gonna just spend money a start and stop earning money for six months. Yeah. And that was, in my case, also not a possibility. And I was coming from the experience of doing part time master. So I need I knew how tough it was. So I said, Okay, you've done it. three semesters, five semesters. Two more semesters, you can do it, you know, so I'm doing that another part time Master, I could still work and make money. Yeah. So that's why in my context, it was better to choose a master where I could work parallely and make money than to choose a bootcamp where I would be maybe more relaxed, but I wouldn't I would not make money but just have expenses. Yeah. So that was my choice, but everybody's choice may be different depending on the context. Yeah.

Dana :

Hmm, I see. And you said you did an internship during this time? What was that? Like? What did you do and where was it?

Albert :

It was also at BMW. I kind of use my network that was also one of the problems not problems I had but I had to find a solution. Germany it's good to work here because or at least spend some years because they have system which is really based on rules and and pressures and and doing things slowly but right is what makes this country working. Yeah. But at the same time, sometimes on that same time, this can be sorry for the expression but the pain in the ass. Yeah. And for finding an internship in data science, that was the case because with with zero experience in data science, but having started my master, I think I could find somewhere a position where they would teach me for a few money. Yeah. But in Germany, it wasn't possible. I applied, not too many, but I don't know, I think it was about 25 companies. And they got rejected everywhere, because my experience was still zero. Or I got maybe one offer, but it was more in a project management direction and not pure data science. And then I just used the network from BMW. And I was lucky because I found a position there. And I was lucky even more because the position was in strategy from the company. And the strategy department included marketing branding, and that's something I started in the NBA but never touched before because before I just did mechanical engineering, pure and simple. Yeah. So I was lucky with that because I was six months surrounded but the by these marketing and strategy and vitamin and it was really interesting because I could grasp a lot on how this works. And yeah, also the intership because you know, having the experience I my my boss was really a nice person, we connected a lot them. And from day one I told her what made dentures wedding industry, you have to understand that in the industry, if I was going to lose a lot of money I had German. Before the industry, I had German subsidiary notes. See, I don't know how you scored, but there was receiving help from the government, you get that when you finish a job on where you are done with a job for 12 months, Welfare Society again. So I got that and doing the internship meant losing money. So that's why I make sure with my boss during this internship, that what I was going to do is what I wanted to do, yeah. Which means really programming using Python and, and we agreed that from day one, also working less hours than what it's meant was meant to be a problem was that could only happen during this internship right in the middle of it. So yeah, I could not be in touch with the colleagues. You know, I was there. With them one month and a half or two, then two month not and then another one month and a half. So that was also maybe the best aspect of it. But in general, it was good because I could see where are the problems in data also in a massive company, and that there is a lot to do, you know, and again, I could confirm that everywhere there is so much doing data, there is so much coming, that it just started, you know, this is this customer started. And that's why I wanted to do this change come because that's going to be innovations for years until I retire no matter when it is.

Dana :

And along this journey. What was your family and friends reaction with? They're very supportive, or were they against it?

Albert :

Yeah, my family. They know me already here. When I was 20, I think I went to Ibiza, you know, Ibiza. Part of the island? Yeah. In Spain. Yeah. So back then it was 20 years old. I went there. Then the next youngest guy. There was Was 28 Maybe so, so to say, so I was kind of a really hippie but then and, and you know, enjoying life. And I did that twice, two years in a row. I've been always looking for this experimenting and always even, I'm not scared of certain things I have all other scares. That's the conscious part, let's say other fears. Sorry. But when it comes to entrepreneur or to banter I'm okay with that. And the same happened with London and also Germany because coming to Germany with no language that's not easy neither you know and, and but you know, what, what do they say they know me and things were weren't always out. Of course, maybe my mother would prefer to for me to keep on working a BMW buying a house and do what society tells you. It's meant to be or maybe what's the mainstream which is not bad, okay. It's a way of life. But I don't know I like I like that. I do. Just want to create by myself not for someone else and, and they understand that and I'm prepared. And I think I have to drive so they see that. And as I said, What can go wrong? You know, I'm capable of working somewhere else anytime anytime I can find a job. So I'm supported definitely.

Dana :

Sometimes you will not get support in their career changes, but I'm really glad that you're getting support and the important people in your life understand you and where you're coming from.

Albert :

Sometimes I think that's my situation is everybody situations, but you're right. It's a pity maybe if someone is not supported. I'm, I'm happy and blessed for that.

Dana :

So if people want to follow along your journey is mentioned that you have an Instagram where can people find you?

Albert :

As I said before today, in the morning, actually, I spoke with a consultant guy to finish up what would be my marketing strategy? Because I have a vision not only from the app, I want to make it a bit Your theme, I cannot speak about that. Sorry, because I still close up the names and domains and everything. But at the moment, I have I wanna create my personal brand at the moment. That's Instagram. You can find me there under the name controls, dot scientists. But my intention I will start actually tomorrow I wanted to vacate one day a week. That will be Friday to create my personal block. Yeah. So I'm going to slowly also connect my most trusted or trustful followers, I don't know how to say that to this block. Yeah, I want to I want, I want to have a database with my most beloved network, let's say Yeah. Because I want also these people who follow my mission to be the early adopters of the application I intend to develop. Yeah. So in terms of branding, now, it's the Instagram but in this Instagram, I'm gonna ask Announcer slowly that I created this personal block. And slowly, I would say, if things hold as I expect, which normally is not like that, but in six months, maybe one year, I intend to create a bigger community. But you know, that's still to come. That's just in like a baby. It's just an idea. But yeah, I really would like to do something bigger this consciousness and data bar. So that's what I'm working on. But so far, what I have is that the Instagram account, but definitely is going to grow into the personal blog. And one day, I hope I can create a bigger community.

Angela :

That's wonderful. I feel like I heard multiple things like, you know, you're focusing on starting your startup right now. But you do have a vision for starting and creating this bigger community around you know, what you want to do in your mission. So maybe you can come back and do a part two.

Albert :

Yeah, yeah, that would be lovely. I mean, no, no, no problem. Definitely.

Dana :

Thank you for your time today, Albert. It was wonderful talking to you and we're really excited for what you're about to create. Super excited for you and thank you so much for your time today.

Albert :

Perfect. We keep in touch. Take care.

Angela :

Thank you.

Dana :

Thank you. You just finished listening to an episode of the working progress podcast. If you like this episode, make sure you share this with someone who can benefit from it and leave us a review on iTunes. Don't forget to let us know what you think or if you have any questions. You can find our contact information in the episode description. Keep doing the good work and I look forward to speaking with you soon.