Paolo Pajanian
Appearances
Global News Podcast
The Happy Pod: The 'terrible' artist in high demand
I stayed in my room and was coding like crazy and that inspired me to seek an education in computer science. Despite my parents' guidance, that was, you're going to become a doctor like most immigrants.
Global News Podcast
The Happy Pod: The 'terrible' artist in high demand
So I'm walking in the center of the city and thinking about like, what do I do with this $500? And then I remembered two of the smartest kids in my high school class were what you would call computer nerds. They were constantly talking to each other about computers. So then I thought, I said, you know what? I'm just going to go buy a computer.
Global News Podcast
The Happy Pod: The 'terrible' artist in high demand
And I saw in the window, there was a computer that was slashed from $999 to $500. So I went in and bought that computer. I brought it home and that changed the trajectory of my life because that summer, I stayed in my room and was coding like crazy.
Global News Podcast
The Happy Pod: The 'terrible' artist in high demand
And that inspired me to seek an education in computer science, despite my parents' guidance that was, you're going to become a doctor like most immigrants do, right?
Global News Podcast
The Happy Pod: The 'terrible' artist in high demand
You did? It was obsessive. It was obsessive. It was almost like an addiction.
Global News Podcast
The Happy Pod: The 'terrible' artist in high demand
Yeah, but it was a bit of a tough time for me. I was, I had fallen behind in my schooling by four years. And then this computer gave me the motivation, inspired me to want to get a degree in computer science. So I went from doing really poorly in like second year of high school to the last year of high school. I was like top of the, not my class, but my entire school.
Global News Podcast
The Happy Pod: The 'terrible' artist in high demand
So I specialize in computer vision and robotics. So the science of physics. processing or analyzing images or videos to understand what's going on in the world to aid a robot to make decisions and perform tasks in the environment.
Global News Podcast
The Happy Pod: The 'terrible' artist in high demand
That was my childhood dream job, actually. So if you go back and look at pictures from when I was like six, seven years old, my theme of my birthday cake was always space.
Global News Podcast
The Happy Pod: The 'terrible' artist in high demand
I would say the added advantage that people with my kind of background bring to the fold is that changing the world takes a lot of courage and a lot of grit. Fortunately or unfortunately, this story has built grit in me, has taught me how to persevere against the odds, has told me to do the thing that looks impossible and has taught me how to navigate on certain waters.
Global News Podcast
The Happy Pod: The 'terrible' artist in high demand
Entrepreneurship, invention or creation of something new that has never been done before is really navigating on certain waters. You don't really know what's going to happen tomorrow.