Hello! I am Tomas Di Mauro, and today I want to share a bit of my story and motivate more students to take the plunge and create their own projects. I am 19 years old and just graduated a few months ago from Technical Secondary School No. 5 in Mar del Plata, Argentina, and now I am more than 15,000 km from home in Malaysia pushing a project!
The First Challenges and a Change of Direction
My early steps in elementary school were far from ideal; I never managed to find a group of friends. It was a phase marked by loneliness and difficult thoughts, a time when I felt I was good for nothing.
I wanted to be an architect. My entire family took that for granted. That idea grew with me, and I used it as an excuse to change schools. The change at home was difficult, but they accepted it, moving from a private school to a public one, and that change of environment was exactly what I needed. It was a 180° turn; I managed to make a group of friends and became super optimistic.
But when I got to my first year of high school, I realized something very important: I didn't like drawing. At that point, I didn't know where to go.
However, there was one hobby I had since I was 11: computing. I started programming for fun in Lua and C#, creating games and programs for Windows. My classmates saw me as someone with a great facility for it, but I never viewed it as a career or a profession.
The Click: From Hobby to Vocation at Technical School No. 5
Everything changed with an extracurricular robotics course with some friends; I looked forward to that moment all week. When I saw that in my school, Technical Secondary Education School No. 5 (EEST No. 5) in Mar del Plata, they had a specialization in Computing, my friends also thought I should go in that direction. It took convincing my family; there were many therapy sessions and talks, but I finally signed up.
When I entered the class, the teacher, from day one, saw that I knew how to program and introduced me to the world of competitive programming. He told me to research outside of class, a world full of very difficult, endless, and fun problems. This happened when I was 16 years old. After a year of practice, I ranked 5th in the national level in the OIA (Argentinian Informatics Olympiad) Level 2.
At the same time, I began to discover web development and do my first jobs. One of them was a website for my grandfather's workshop, which went from selling zero in a month to receiving dozens of calls and several clients each month. That’s when I realized this could be a profession, and I could dedicate myself to this.
The First Job
During the pandemic, I did odd jobs for months and saved up a little money. I took that and bought web development courses; with what was left over, I upgraded the computer my grandmother had given me several years ago with great effort (it was all the money I had saved up). During the pandemic, I didn't play any games, didn't watch series. I programmed. Just for fun.
In 2022 (at age 16), I started my first job for a small VC (Venture Capital). I remember applying because a friend gave me confidence; internally, I felt completely unprepared. But I took it anyway and landed the job. I learned a lot, and to this day, that team (the founder and a colleague) have remained my mentors forever.
First Hackathons
At 18, I went alone to Buenos Aires for "ETH Argentina 2023," not having met my team beforehand. We created a project to make public tenders transparent, and we won! Then, in November, I went to another event, "Labitconf," with another team and project, and we also won.
My First Impact Projects and International Leaps
In 2024, while still attending EEST No. 5, I immersed myself in a project that deeply marked me. Together with the Faculty of Psychology at UNMDP, I coordinated a team of seven people to redesign "Tranqui," a non-profit application aimed at preventing teenage suicide. It was incredible to see how the app generated a very positive impact: local TV channels, local and national media, and radio stations helped us promote it, and we managed to surpass a thousand downloads. This experience showed me the power of technology to create a real social impact.
At the same time, I continued exploring the world of hackathons. I returned to ETH Argentina and, along with a new team, we won with "ChatterPay," an idea we were passionate about: a wallet to send and receive money to any country in seconds using WhatsApp. The winning streak continued because that same project also led us to win at ETH Uruguay. I felt we were on the right path.
The Leap to Thailand: An Unexpected Adventure (Still in High School)
The next big surprise came when I took ChatterPay to the ICP Chain Fusion Hackathon in Buenos Aires. We won a trip to Thailand to participate in Devcon 7 (2024)! It was my first solo trip to a country with a completely different language, and on top of that, I still hadn't finished high school! The travel dates coincided exactly with my graduation, but it was an opportunity I couldn't pass up.
The challenge was enormous: I had to present ChatterPay to investors and compete in a hackathon with over 3,000 participants (ETH Global Bangkok and ICP Chain Fusion Bangkok). I had always been very bad at public speaking and had never done it on stage, let alone in English, so I prepared intensively for a month and a half.
Arriving in Bangkok was an odyssey. After more than 40 hours of travel, my luggage was lost. On the first day, I caught "bangkok belly" and had to go to the hospital. As if that weren't enough, once at the hackathon, I realized that I didn’t have the correct adapter to connect my computer, and I lost half a day looking for one.
Despite all of this, I managed to present to the investors. In the competition, I participated alone, facing teams of up to five people. I spent about 30 consecutive hours coding fueled by coffee and mate. Although I didn't make it to the finals, I did win a Circle prize, one of the event sponsors. That experience, with all its setbacks, was a crucible that taught me a lot about resilience.
Post-High School: The Bet on ChatterPay and the Trip to Malaysia
After the intensity of Thailand and finishing high school, there was a moment when I thought that ChatterPay wasn’t going to move forward. But then, when I least expected it, I received an email that changed everything: "We were selected for an acceleration program in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, for two months!"
The opportunity was incredible, but it involved difficult decisions. It meant pausing the semester that had just started at UBA, leaving my current jobs, and dedicating myself 100% to ChatterPay in a completely new country. I thought it over, discussed it, and decided to take the plunge.
So, relatively recently, I found myself in Kuala Lumpur. It was a total immersion experience in the project. Just a few days ago, after a lot of work, we finally launched ChatterPay. One of the sweetest moments was creating a virtual wallet for my grandmother for the first time!
Final Words
My message is for other students, especially those from public schools in Argentina: explore your passions, give it a try, take the plunge. The path is not usually linear; there are difficult moments and doubts, but if you find something you truly are passionate about, with curiosity and dedication, you can open incredible doors.
The potential is there; dare to discover it, it all depends on you. Sending you a big hug. Go for it!
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