Western Symbolics is a pretty personal project, reflecting the intersection of my diverse interests, life experiences, and the meaningful relationships I’ve developed over my life so far. It functions as both a platform and vehicle, aiming to weave together the various aspects of my life while fostering the creative and professional growth of my broader community. As I open the doors of this project to others, I thought I’d share my journey to give context about how WS got started.

Let’s rewind to the early 2000s—my childhood years in Tampa. I was raised in a picturesque suburb, with loving parents, a stable home, and a consistent education at a private school from kindergarten through high school. I’ve had a privileged life, though I didn’t fully recognize it during those formative years.

Attention has always been a struggle for me, but I was never the disruptive type. I often found myself lost in thought, and always struggled to distinguish someone’s words from background noise. This challenge intensified with age, especially in the competitive atmosphere of high school, where I began to falter under increasing academic pressures, which took a toll on my self-esteem.

And the struggle wasn’t just academic. Socially, I found group interactions overwhelming, struggling to keep pace with conversations and feeling disconnected even among friends. This led to a deep sense of loneliness and frequent panic attacks, fueled by a pervasive anxiety that I was always missing something crucial.

Amid these challenges, I discovered an environment where I thrived: technology. At 13, I earned $500 for fixing a family friend’s WordPress site. This experience kickstarted a series of software development projects, where I found validation and success, often building prototypes for startups that didn’t have the funds to hire someone full-time. I tried to find ways to bridge the tech startup ecosystem and my school life: I even ventured into teaching entrepreneurship, first as a 10-part video course which I later taught to at-risk middle schoolers, and I developed three apps for friends while in high school.

Despite these achievements and graduating with honors, I felt inadequate compared to peers heading to Ivy League schools. I still did well in school by most standards—but the effort felt so all-encompassing. I graduated cum laude with a 3.9 unweighted GPA, having taken nine AP classes plus honors seminars in engineering design and quantum mechanics. And I got into Colgate, which at the time had a 22.6% acceptance rate, that has since dropped to 12% for the class of 2027.

Post-graduation, I was drained and sought a fresh start in San Francisco, diving deeper into my passions and exploring new interests the summer before starting college.

I started college in the fall of 2019 at Colgate and it began with familiar insecurities, but the environment allowed me to build confidence and friendships. However, the onset of COVID-19 and subsequent shift to remote learning led me to seek out a unique semester road-tripping across the U.S., still earning the Dean’s Award for Academic Excellence while also hiring four people to work on UI/UX projects.

I spent the spring semester back on campus, but I felt like I was missing out on the college experience I wanted, and after a lot of consideration through another summer in SF and three first weeks of junior year, I decided to take a hiatus from school and transfer somewhere more urban, out West, and hopefully over the next year I’d figure out more about what I actually want to study.

I started my gap year(s) with a couple months in Portugal, immersing myself in a different culture before returning to the United States for the holiday season. I relocated then to Berkeley, California, to fulfill prerequisite courses with the aim of transferring to Cal to study environmental design. The initial months in Berkeley presented a unique set of challenges and opportunities. I lived in a co-living house that, despite its lack of upkeep and diverse occupants, became the backdrop to forming unexpected friendships with individuals a decade and more my senior—a dynamic that, at 21, felt as unconventional as it was enriching. And it was, as a couple of those people I met there contribute to WS now.

That whole chapter was a reality check. I’d gone from a cushy life in Florida and a cushy spot at a fancy college to bailing on the formal education path and shacking up in a spot that, frankly, was a bit of a dive, all while hitting the books at a community college.

A serendipitous reconnection with a childhood friend attending UC Berkeley led to a living arrangement with her then-boyfriend and eight other guys in a house on Dwight Street in Berkeley, marking the beginning of an incredible year. Post-completion of my prerequisites, my focus shifted back to software projects, plus a venture into the coffee business, and various initiatives at Dabble Lab.

The Dwight house vibe was something special—it felt like we’d all been tight for ages. Two of those housemates, Carlos and Jacob, have since collaborated on projects for WS.

This period also facilitated a crucial personal discovery: a diagnosis of inattentive type ADHD, suggested by Shane, another housemate. Despite ADHD’s rising profile and the controversies surrounding adult diagnoses, getting that diagnosis was like getting a map to navigate stuff I’d been tripping over since I was a kid.

Though initially waitlisted and ultimately denied admission to UC Berkeley, my academic journey took a promising turn with an acceptance to CU Boulder. Motivated and ready to resume my studies, I moved to Boulder in the fall, stoked to get back into the classroom and see what was next.

Landing in Boulder, I threw myself into the Greek life scene, a move that brought its own set of lessons, especially being a pledge at 22. But the real kicker was getting involved with the Transformations Community. This global network, boasting over 5,000 sustainability practitioners and researchers, caught my vibe after I took a class with the group’s founder, Bruce Goldstein. He caught wind of my tech background and boom—I was leading the charge on their AI project concept: a generative AI chat app aimed at diving deep into sustainable development literature. I cranked out the first version during the winter break, and come January, I was the AI Lead for the TC Artificial Intelligence Project.

And that catches you up to today. Over the last decade, I’ve worked with some pretty incredible people, but until now, I haven’t really tried to highlight any of these experiences. As I’m writing this, our team is getting ready to submit a proposal for an NSF grant and I’ve needed to get a CV and portfolio together to prove I’m not just a random undergrad trying to lead this project.

As I was going back and curating a portfolio of my past work, I got to thinking about something my dad has always told me: his “secret” to building his companies. It’s a simple idea: people are looking for their place, and if you can help them find it, not only will you be better off, but chances are the world will be too—assuming their good people. (he gives credit for this idea to his friend Marty, who wrote a book on it and calls this approach “management nirvana”).

Western Symbolics is my attempt at solving a few things. I envision it as an on-going side-project that I’ll use as a platform to connect great people; something that sparks collaborations and allows me to engage with my other curious people, without getting too many plates in the air. And for others, I hope it can provide the community-backing necessary to encourage you to take calculated risks, follow your heart, and deviate from the default path.

At the heart of it, I envision Western Symbolics as a hub for a community brimming with innovative thinkers, all rallied around the mission of facing today’s pressing issues head-on. We aim to weave a fabric of agile collaboration and shared beliefs, pushing boundaries through projects that may vary in legal and financial commitments, but always strive to ignite pioneering partnerships. These endeavors are rooted in our conviction that technology and design hold the keys to unlocking a realm of untapped potential—a realm where the thrill of adventure, the harmony with nature, and the depth of human connections aren’t mere aspirations, but the very essence of our existence. My ambition is we can steer this ship in a manner that not only confronts the gloomy skepticism that marks our era but also celebrates the full spectrum of human experience. Acknowledging the severity of today’s challenges, I believe that collective effort, underpinned by visionary leadership, represents our most promising path forward. It’s about tackling these complex issues together, while never losing sight of the importance of savoring the journey.

If you’ve gotten to this point—wow, thanks for reading. I wrote this as much for my own clarity as for anyone who might be pondering a collab or just intrigued by WS. Consider this my narrative resume. So, if any of this hits home or sparks curiosity, don’t be a stranger. Reach out and let’s chat.