My name is Nick Rutigliano and I am a 4th year computer science student at the University of British Columbia. I’m born and raised here in Vancouver, BC but I do not plan on always staying here. I’ve been interested in computers and technology as long as I can remember and when I was introduced to coding in first year I was hooked on this idea of a language within our own to make machines do our bidding. At first I was largely focused on the visceral aspect of what I could make code do via applications and design but as time has gone by and I’ve furthered my studies I’ve been drawn to the distributed, networking aspect of the field. The internet that allows me to share this information itself is vastly distributed and decentralized itself so who wouldn’t find it fascinating!

Another area I’m becoming increasing interested in is cyber security and cryptocurrency. In our increasing digital times our information and data has never been more at risk and our online footprint is only getting bigger year over year. On the other hand cryptocurrencies fascinates me for similar reasons to distributed systems and networking did. A currency that is has no single point of failure, immune to counterfeits, and open to everyone will really be interesting to watch in our global economy moving forward.

One of the things that I hope to enjoy with my career path is the mobility it will give me. While I’m still  young and free of responsibilities I hope to use my skills and knowledge to work in different places both to increase the number and the quality of opportunities available to me. Many people in my field will largely look at Silicon Valley in California as a starting point but I’m also interested in potentially New York City, London, and Seattle. At some point in time I think I will return to Vancouver but that is not in my immediate plans as the tech industry here is still young and burgeoning.