A Brief History of Myself by PM in SET Learner Gabriel Waiandt

A Surprising Journey from Rio to Rotterdam

Rotterdam, The Netherlands — 21st of September, 2022

It must have started somewhere — and in my case, it all began in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Whenever I start telling this story, people are often excited, either because they’ve visited Brazil or simply because they’ve heard so much about it. But they’re always surprised by two things: first, that I moved from such a vibrant and sunny place to a cold and rainy country, and second — well, I’ll explain.

Before I go into the details, let me share a story I told during an “icebreaker” speech at a local Toastmasters club in Rotterdam. It happened at a local pub where a friend of mine, Marcelo Godoy, was playing live Brazilian music. The place was full of Brazilians, including a guy I hadn’t met before. We started chatting in English, and pretty quickly we realized we both spoke Portuguese.

He was also from Brazil and his first reaction was, “But you don’t look Brazilian!” I took a moment to process that and simply replied, “Well, we’re a huge and diverse country.” This kind of assumption is quite common, but Brazil is a melting pot of cultures and ethnicities. It has a complex history, but also a beautiful one. If you’re interested in the bigger picture of global development, I’d recommend reading Factfulness by Hans Rosling, a book I recently picked up.

Early Curiosity and the Spirit of Entrepreneurship

Since I was a teenager in the suburbs of Rio (Bangu, to be specific), I’ve always been curious, especially about technology and people. Maybe I can call it entrepreneurship: back then, I was one of the first in my neighborhood with a CD burner. With internet access and peer-to-peer file sharing, I started creating personalized music albums for my mom’s friends offering them their favorite songs in a single CD while they waited at the hairdresser.

Sure, they could have just bought official albums but most wouldn’t. Spotify didn’t exist yet, and this was a way to make people happy and earn a bit of money as a nerdy teenager.

Then came building custom PCs. I’d buy parts, install the software, and assemble everything. It was all thanks to one of my first formal IT courses, just after high school. That same curiosity led me to start studying Telecommunications Engineering but I found it too theoretical and later switched to Information Systems, which combined IT and business.

Combining Work and Study

Another reason I changed courses was flexibility. Traditional programs in Brazil like Engineering or Law usually require full-time study with schedules scattered throughout the day making it nearly impossible to work or intern. Evening study made more sense for me.

I did some fun internships, including one with Uniteve a local TV broadcaster where I was the IT guy and also helped stream live events like university ceremonies and cultural shows. Everything was done using open-source tools. Later, I joined a Swedish company called Smart Trust (later acquired by Giesecke+Devrient), where I started improving my English and met friends I still have today.

Moving Abroad: The Start of a New Chapter

In 2014, I received a scholarship to study abroad. Although I was a big fan of UK music (The Libertines, Arctic Monkeys), books (Sherlock Holmes, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy), and movies (007), the UK was too expensive. I wasn’t quite ready for the cold Nordic winters either. That’s when I found this small, interesting country in between, the Netherlands. I admired its development, cycling culture, and good universities. That did the job.

Once I arrived, the program became more serious. I stayed longer and completed a graduation project, earning a Software Engineering diploma with a minor in ERP and Business Intelligence. That was my first milestone. Soon after, I got a job in a Dutch company that years later would become Visa. The very first company that I worked for that I am pretty sure everyone knows. At least my parents do know!

Life in the Netherlands: Growth and Curiosity

By 2016, I had moved to Rotterdam and continued working in the sales and commercialization department as a pre-sales engineer. I helped clients design more secure, digital payment experiences.

To many people, I had it all; creative work, travel, exciting projects. But I still had this internal question: What’s next? That curiosity never left. I considered an MBA, but most programs looked similar or were too expensive. That’s when I discovered Tomorrow University’s Professional Master’s in Sustainability, Entrepreneurship, and Technology, a program that finally sparked my interest

Learning by Doing: The ToU Experience

Meeting one of the founders, Thomas Funke, really made a difference. He’s what Factfulness calls a “possibilist” — someone who sees opportunity even in complexity. I applied, joined, and started enjoying the multidisciplinary challenges Tomorrow University offers.

We worked on learning how to learn, planning under change, crafting a personal mission statement, and even creating our own personal user manual. These experiences were deeply reflective.

Here’s my mission statement:

Through state-of-the-art technology and by mastering communication skills, I would like to connect with people and think together about new ideas that will help as many people as possible to grow in a safer and more sustainable environment.

A Journey That Keeps Evolving

This is just the beginning. Like writing this blog, sometimes the hardest part is starting. But I’ve learned that the journey matters more than the destination. Just like my mission statement, I expect it to evolve. And that’s the beauty of being part of a learning journey, one that never really ends. This is not only my opinion, but I am pretty sure I read it during our lessons, and it is probably a famous quote but I will ignore it for now and let you think with me and enjoy, hopefully like I do, being part of a learning journey, being whatever it is for you.