About Me — Omar Bougacha
Quiet avid learner eager to share his insights.
Hey there! My name is Omar. I’m closing on my 31st birthday! I’m the youngest of 4 children. My siblings, two brothers, and one sister, are at least 11 years older than me. Most of my siblings are high achievers, very brilliant, and top of their domains. This means that I had a lot to live up to which explains the imposter syndrome I lived my entire life with. But it also means that I am very lucky to have such intelligent people surrounding me with so much to learn from. I have math running in my veins. Not very surprising since my father is a middle school math teacher. My mother had a management degree but she gave up working so she could take care of us and make sure we got the education we deserved.
I grew up in a big city called Sfax in Tunisia. Although the city was big, there was little to nothing to do besides working/studying and the essentials of life. As “sfaxian” we are known as very hard-working citizens. To be honest, it wasn’t the best environment to grow up in, but it could have been worse. Our only focus was to study hard and reach a higher level of education, have the best degree possible to get a good job, and build a successful career. So comparing yourself to others was the baseline.
Education:
I’d like to assume that you have guessed it by now. I have received a high education. I graduated high school with honorable results. Yet It wasn’t enough to allow me to get a full scholarship for France or Germany. So I aimed to be one of the best engineering schools in Tunisia. I got my engineering degree in industrial control at the age of 23. I was top of my class for the majority of my university years. Therefore, I was offered a Ph.D. position in France. Since I always wanted to leave Tunisia, I accepted the offer without hesitation.
I got my Ph.D. in computer science at the age of 26. My research focused on the optimization of decision-making based on the output of predictive models. During my PhD, I had the chance to work alongside very insightful people, allowing me to gain a lot of experience and knowledge in a very short time. My PhD main application was in a domain called Prognostics and Health Management. Don’t get over-excited about the health management part because it is the health management of industrial machines.
I was lucky, I guess because the pandemic happened during the third year of my PhD when I was writing my thesis. Since all outdoor activities were forbidden, I spent my whole time in front of my computer or cooking. COVID-19 created unlimited learning opportunities that I made sure not to miss! So I enrolled in several online training and courses mainly about data science. That’s when I decided to become a data scientist.
Career:
After having my PhD, I worked as a temporary university lecturer for about 8 months. That allowed me to sort all the administrative papers to have my stay permit in France and look for a data scientist job. Afterward, I moved to Paris to start my first job as a data scientist in the healthcare industry. This time it was about human healthcare! I worked there for one and a half years before realizing I was overqualified for the job and I’m not learning anything new.
The world of finance and insurance has always fascinated me. As long as I can remember, I have always wanted to learn how money works! Therefore, I aimed for the next adventure to be in actuary science!
Currently, I am a senior data scientist in an insurance company. I build models that propose the best price for car insurance.
Personality:
All the factors of my family, childhood, and living environment forged my personality. I have always been a very quiet, reserved kind of person, most of my friends know me as an observer as I rarely speak. Here is a secret about me, I don’t know how to make first contact and I am not comfortable with small talk. It was very awkward for me.
There is this quote that says “You learn a lot of things being the quiet one. And at some point, you start to think ‘I feel like I can lead people.’ But then you say: ‘But who would follow me? I’m just the quiet one.’” — Unknown Woman in the Humans of New York Facebook Page. I feel this quote describes me!
I am very curious! I want to learn it all and know everything. You can see that through my education and my career path, I have studied different domains and worked in various industries. It won’t be a surprise when I tell you that I love reading books.
I am a perfectionnist. I always want to make things more efficient and I’m often unfulfilled with my achievements and results. Therefore, I always aim higher and higher.
Hobbies:
My curious trait nourished my interest in a variety of hobbies.
My love for books started at a young age. My mother introduced me to my first books. Later, I signed up for the public library in our neighborhood. Through my teenage and university years, I and books grew apart. And the only books I read in that period were those needed for my studies. During my PhD, I found back my passion for books. Since then, I have been a constant reader. I read in different languages and different kinds.
During my university years, I have fulfilled one of my childhood dreams. I made robots. It was very fun and a very emotionally rich experience! I always love to have some DIY projects.
Sometimes when I am not buried in analytics, I like to spend my time painting or drawing. This is a hobby I picked up when I was a kid. I used to watch some TV shows for kids in which the artist teaches how you draw. I used to watch and follow the instructions and I was quite good at it.
I also do a lot of sports activities. It’s more than just a hobby for me it is a lifestyle. When I was in middle and high school I used to play Handball. Since I moved to France I started jogging very often. Two years ago, I became more serious about running. I did my first Half-Marathon in March 2023. And I did my first Marathon in October 2023. I’m not saying I’m an athlete. I’m not even a fast runner but I’m a consistent one!
Lately, I signed up for a triathlon club. I want to learn the proper way to swim crawl and discover the world of triathletes. For this, I set myself a crazy goal: I want to become a half-IronMan by the age of 32. And my ultimate goal is to celebrate my 35th birthday as an IronMan.
Would it be surprising if I told you that I am a “travelholic”? I enjoy discovering new places, countries, and cultures. The more I travel the more I feel how little we are as humans. The more I learn about other cultures the more I realize how little I know about the world!
When I was a kid, my father used to give me a fixed amount of money each week. I used to save that money and then buy something significant with it. One of the things I bought was a numeric camera! At the time, I wanted to take pictures of moments I enjoyed and I wanted to last forever. Mostly, I wanted to take pictures of my niece whom I adore! Then it became a hobby. So very often I would take my camera and drive to a natural resort and take pictures of everything and anything.
But the list does not stop here, as I enjoy several other activities; like playing video games, watching movies or TV series, playing music (I learned playing guitar through watching YouTube videos), fishing, hiking, and the list goes on…
But what brings me here?
I have always been a quiet observer. The activities and the opportunities I had in life taught me several important lessons. Reading, researching, watching videos, and traveling have changed my perspective on several subjects.
For a long period, I was only focusing on learning. You can say it was selfish of me to learn and not to want to give back and teach. But, I always thought ‘Who would listen to me? Who would read my articles or my books? Who am I to tell people what or what not to do?’
Sometimes, I share my stories with my close friends. And they all have encouraged me to share more of my stories. Some would even argue that I have the natural skill of telling a story.
So here I am! I come here to share my knowledge, my insights, and my experiences. I will not only share technical knowledge and lessons learned from reading books and traveling the world. But, I will also share my story and my struggles from quitting smoking, running my first half-marathon and marathon, how I decided to start my triathlete journey, and other personal challenges I went through and survived.
My writing journey is only beginning and I believe it will be very fulfilling. For it’s time for me to learn one more powerful skill; sharing!
