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What really got him hooked with technology was realizing that these were made by people. “Someone sat down and created these programs, built these applications from scratch. That blew my mind. Here I was, just a kid who liked poking around with technology, and there were people out there who actually knew how to build it,” Nikos added, sharing that his curiosity inspired him to pursue a career in software engineering.
But there are times when life throws challenges that make it difficult to move forward. For Nikos, his father—who was a farmer—had to step away from the fields he loved when a heart condition made it impossible for him to continue. His mother then suddenly became the family's sole breadwinner. Nikos felt the weight of uncertainty settle over their home.
“The question that kept me awake at night wasn't just whether I could pursue higher education, it was whether doing so would place an unbearable burden on my mother's shoulders. Yet despite these worries, or perhaps because of them, my passion for learning only grew stronger,” Nikos said. “I've always been someone driven by many interests, but the fear of leaving dreams unfulfilled because of circumstances beyond our control was something I couldn't accept.”
Through the Gokongwei Brothers Foundation’s Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (GBF STEM) College Scholarship—which supports outstanding college students pursuing GBF priority STEM courses—Nikos earned his Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science with a specialization in Software Engineering, graduating at the top of his class as a summa cum laude.
“It physically moved me to where I was supposed to be,” Nikos said, sharing how the GBF STEM College Scholarship catapulted him from gazing at the distant mountains of Tarlac and dreaming of meeting technology builders, to actually climbing those mountains. “It gave me geography. And geography changes everything.”
Now, as an AI engineer at GoTyme, Nikos is living his childhood dream of creating technology that truly matters. “Knowing that what I build actually helps people, and that it's out there being used, that's the part that makes it all worth it,” he concluded.
