How I got here.
I'm Brazilian, with Italian roots, born in Santa Maria, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.
My first real contact with programming came in mid-2007, when I learned to code in Pascal, and later Delphi, during a technical course in computing at UFSM1.
I graduated with a BSc in Electrical Engineering in 2014 and went straight into a Master's, which I finished in 2016, both at UFSM. That's when I had my first real contact with software development, building dashboards and software for smart systems with C# and relational databases. It was also during my Master's that I had my first contact with AI, and machine learning became the subject of my master thesis, back when almost nobody used that term yet.
In 2017 I stepped into teaching in higher education in Brazil, guiding IT and Engineering students through algorithms, object-oriented programming, data structures, databases, and advanced software projects: web, mobile, and beyond.
By 2020 I became Undergraduate Program Coordinator, a role I took on alongside teaching. I led the Systems Analysis and Development graduation program at High Education University, a course I got to rebuild from the ground up to actually match what the IT market needed. The following year, I proudly led the launch of the university's Digital Games graduation program. Game development has always been a personal passion of mine, almost a hobby. In 2022, I coordinated the launch of the Computer Science bachelor's degree as well.
In 2024, my family and I decided it was time to take a bigger step and leave Brazil. I accepted a doctoral researcher position at the University of Oulu, in Finland, where I'll wrap up my PhD in 2028.
Vinicius, September 10, 2026
1UFSM stands for Universidade Federal de Santa Maria, a public university in Brazil.
