Meet the Team: Dr. Marco Gutiérrez
Meet the Team is a series of light-hearted interviews to shine the spotlight on the people working in UpCode Academy.
Who are you and what’s your role at UpCode Academy?
My full name is Marco Antonio Gutiérrez Giraldo (I know, it’s a long name, but Spanish names always have two last names) and I am the Head of Artificial Intelligence and Chief Data Scientist at UpCode Academy.
Tell us more about your career and experience!
When I was five years old, I started tinkering with computers because I wanted to learn how they worked. As I grew up, my interest for computers grew into a full passion in Computer Science so I pursued that as my major at the University of Extremadura in Spain and finished my last year at the University of New Mexico in the US.
After my graduation, I started working at Electronic Arts which gave me the opportunity and time to experiment with the code of several cool video games. While it was fun at the beginning, I knew I wanted to pursue further education so I went back to Spain to attend the Complutense University of Madrid.
While I was taking my Master’s degree in Computer Science, I was working as a Systems Administrator for the college’s Architecture and Automation department. Soon after, I received an offer from the Robotics department at my alma mater. Knowing that they work on cool and incredibly challenging projects, I decided to join and started working on my PhD in cognitive vision planning for robotics systems.
Halfway into my PhD, I moved to Germany for an internship in the research department of KUKA, a German robotics company that develops the robotics manufacturing lines for German automobile brands. After my internship, I managed to secure a scholarship that brought me to the Natural Language Processing department at the Institute of Infocomm Research, A*STAR in Singapore to finish the last two years of my PhD.
When I was in A*STAR, which is situated right next to the one-north startup hub, I heard about UpCode Academy, so once I completed my PhD, I applied for the role that I am currently holding. Even though it is still an early-stage startup, it is great to see how UpCode Academy has grown so much in such a short time. I’m very excited to see what is to come!
What would you say is your greatest achievement in life?
Managing to make a living from my passion is my greatest achievement in life. When I was a kid, I would spend all my time breaking machines apart and messing around with computers. I am lucky that what gets me excited can actually help me put food on the table. I feel like my best achievement is to be able to answer the question: “If you were rich and you could anything, what would you do?” with the response: “the same as I do now”.
How would you describe your typical day at UpCode Academy?
Currently, the Data Science track is the busiest at UpCode Academy so as the Chief Data Scientist, I typically spend a good part of my day working on improving the quality of existing instructors while I hire and on-board new ones. I also spend a large portion of my time creating materials for new courses. I enjoy what I do: making a direct contribution to the students’ learning experience, helping them build relevant skills, and mentoring them as they work on interesting projects.
What do you love to do when you aren’t working on UpCode Academy
When I first arrived in Singapore, I started dragon boat racing as a way to move my lazy ass and socialise at the same time. Nowadays, I spend most of my free time enjoying outrigger canoeing, which is a Polynesian rowing sport. I canoe even when I am travelling around South-east Asia. These sports have given me the opportunity to meet interesting people, and I have had some amazing experiences — I was selected to participate as part of the Spanish national team for the 13th World Dragon Boat Racing Championships in Kunming, China!
Favourite apps / tools / games?
Almost any free software is a good fit for me. As a tech professional, I enjoy tinkering with the code. I hack into almost every single gadget that I have got my hands on.
RoboComp has a special place in my heart, as it is the robotics framework that I have developed at university back in Spain and something I contributed extensively as I was working on my thesis.
My daily power tool is a rxvt-unicode bash terminal emulator running on an Arch GNU/Linux machine with the Awesome Window Manager.
As for games, I used to play Magic The Gathering. My physical cards are back in Spain, so I have not had the chance to play for a while. I did try the online version, but the lack of a Windows machine and free time limits me from playing as much as I would like to.
Dr. Marco Gutiérrez is currently leading the Data Science track at UpCode Academy. Join us at UpCode Academy and learn data science from industry experts like Dr. Marco. You can find more information here.
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