Internetcable Official

Software engineer Matias Wang Silva has had an interesting journey to working at Raspberry Pi. His story reminds us why supporting the work of the Raspberry Pi Foundation — encouraging young people to learn to code in the hopes of inspiring the next cohort of computing professionals — is so important.

There’s an old adage that the longest way round is the shortest way home. Going from a weekend CoderDojo “Ninja” to a chip designer at Raspberry Pi might sound like the kind of neat origin story that writes itself but, in reality, there were a few twists and turns along the way.


Matias getting hands-on at a Code Club session
Like many of those interested in electronics, I had my humble beginnings with the Atmel Atmega328P on the Arduino Uno — and a few (burnt) LEDs — before graduating to Raspberry Pi as the complexity of my projects evolved. It was around this time that I started attending Lisbon’s CoderDojo (part of the Raspberry Pi Foundation’s global Code Club community), tinkering around with Scratch, general-purpose programming, and some robotics. My background was in electronics, so I kept hardware at the centre of everything I did.

I was eleven years old back in 2012, and at the time it felt like a world of opportunities had just opened up. What made it more special, though, was the continuity. Growing up, I moved countries quite often — once every two to three years — and countries I lived in like Angola and Bangladesh didn’t have these sorts of places. What began as an activity to fill the long summer break at home in Portugal ended up becoming something I came back to every year. 


From coding Ninja to Mentor to Champion
Over time, I progressed from Ninja to Mentor, and finally to Champion, as I took on a more active role in managing the club. I taught Python to younger students, explained electronics basics with a few HATs on Raspberry Pi 3, and led group projects like Astro Pi, where we sent code to run experiments on the International Space Station. I got the chance to work with a great team of university professors and geeky parents and built great things, including many software and hardware teaching projects.


A reassuringly chaotic table at a Code Club, featuring the Astro Pi kits the Raspberry Pi Foundation created with the European Space Agency
Around mid-2020, some people suddenly found themselves with a lot of spare time. It was a chance to learn new things and lean into curiosities that the chaos of everyday life prevents us from nurturing. I took the opportunity to deploy an open source video conferencing platform that I and a few others were building for our university, which allowed us to move teaching online. This kept the CoderDojo in Lisbon running all throughout and beyond the pandemic, amusingly with servers based in Cambridge, UK. It was a resounding success, and I look back on the positive impact we had fondly.
Making it to Pi Towers
Two summer internships and a university degree later, I began working at Raspberry Pi — the very organisation that introduced me to computing — as an engineer in the chip design team. Though spare time is hard to find as an adult, I make it a priority to continue my earlier engineering access work. I now organise university visits with institutions like CentraleSupélec and Cambridge’s Department of Engineering; I also represent Raspberry Pi at engineering outreach events and mentor our yearly interns. It’s important to me to keep existing pathways open for budding engineers and to play an active role in training the next generation.


Matias’ official mugshot for his Raspberry Pi staff ID card Are you interested in joining a Code Club, starting your own, or getting your hands on some resources or training? Join the Raspberry Pi Foundation’s Code Club community.
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Source: https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/journe ... -engineer/