Angel Mancera

Throughout his whole life he has been exposed to engineering because his father is a mechanical engineer and his great grandfather is a civil engineer. From his earliest memories, he recalls those moments when he was in the “factory” playing with cars and helping in all sorts of tasks. As he grew up, he had his mind set on working for NASA, developing cars or constructing buildings and structures. He had a lot of interest regarding all engineering fields. But, as he started participating in Summer Camps in various universities, he realized that his interest mostly lies on Computer Science because it encompasses how humans, by developing new technologies, can evolve each of the fields we had been working on before and facilitate life.

In High School, Angel participated in several extracurricular activities related to the STEM fields, debate, entrepreneurship, and politics. He participated in a Civil Engineering Summer Course at Stanford University, where he won the “Rising Star” award. He also formed part of a research group at the University of New Mexico (UNM), while taking classes at the university, where he contributed to a master student’s thesis about applying Computer Science for Civil Engineering projects, using virtual reality. With this experience he had the opportunity of exploring how Computer Science is a field that “intersects” with other fields. He has been deeply devoted to the Model of United Nations in Caracas and abroad, as he has participated in over a dozen of MUNs representing his school; his greatest accomplishment in this activity was winning the award of excellence in NHSMUN, and thus, he gave a speech at the United Nations’ Headquarters. Furthermore, he was the Club President for Colegio Integral El Avila’s LaunchX; where he was able to inspire creativity and transmit knowledge to help establish companies which are set to improve Venezuela’s environment. Apart from this, Angel also participated in Venezuelan politics by working in the Juvenile Department of “Primero Justicia”. Hence, he contributed to organizing (and leading) protests against Maduro’s dictatorial regime and he also participated in talks about the Venezuelan situation and the next steps that we would take towards creating a new Venezuela.

Whenever he is not at school or studying, he enjoys: reading literature, practicing sports and working. He has played soccer since he was 6 years old and participated in several tournaments against other schools in Caracas. Also, he has played golf and tennis since he was about the same age and he has won multiple awards in both sports as he participated in sport camps during his childhood and later years. Also, he has done three internships so far. One at ZOOM courier service, another one at the SMILE research lab at UNM, and finally, one at Grupo San Francisco, a consulting firm in Caracas, Venezuela.