About me

include <stdio.h>
int main(void){
  printf("Hello, world\n");
  return 0;
}

Let me introduce myself. I am Alessandro Carmelo Chiarelli, aka alexcarchiar. My nickname is just a play on the diminutives of the three names that compose my full name. I also have a Chinese name, which is 瑞利 (ruili, like the scientist Rayleigh). I am a Computer Engineering Bachelor student, currently seeking an internship before the end of my Bachelor and before I start my Master’s Degree (more on that later). I will use this website as both a blog and a portfolio. If you want to know more about me, continue reading.

I am Italian but I am also familiar with both French and Chinese culture – you will soon see why. I was born on the 17th of January 2000 in Palermo, Italy where I lived for most of my childhood and adolescence. The only exception was when I moved to France for a year in 2015-2016 for an exchange with AFS. That event was life changing (yeah duh, you may say, but even though it’s cliché, I think it’s worth to mention). From that moment on, I learned that I wanted to travel as much as I can during my early adult life and that is exactly what I have been doing, even with the whole SARS-COVID-2 pandemic going around in 2020. I moved in 2018 to Turin and in 2019 to Shanghai for my studies, but the pandemic forced me to go back to my parents’ home until the pandemic was over.

Work experience

Right now my work experience is limited, especially when it concerns my field of studies. That is definitely one of my weak points on which I am trying to improve.

Since May 2020 I started working as a Digital Marketer and Developer for BitPolito, a newly-founded students’ team in my university. The main goals of BitPolito are to spread knowledge about Bitcoin and blockchain and develop new technologies.

In September 2018 I worked as a Consultant for JAES Company, Treviso, Italy. I had to organise activities and presentation about dynamics and logic underlying the creation and management of a business YouTube channel, with a focus on showcase of industrial components and educational videos about their operations in English, Italian and French. In the end I produced a few videos and JAES YouTube Channel went from around a hundred subscribers when I arrived to around 50 thousands in May 2020. I must say, though, that after the first job I did at JAES, I did not contribute much to their YouTube success, if not for a few informal calls or meetings from time to time that I take part to since I have a good relationship with said Company.

My mandatory high school internships, going from September 2016 to May 2018 with a few breaks in between, consisted mostly in competitive swimming at regional level and as a tourist guide for “Villa Zito” museum and Palermo’s Club for Unesco

School and University

My family, especially my mother, have always valued education highly and that is why I always did my best to try and succeed academically.

I went to “Liceo Scientifico Cannizzaro” in Palermo (2013-2018) and had my diploma with the highest possible mark (100 cum Laude). The school was a generalistic school – I would study humanities and sciences – but was slightly more focuses on Mathematics and natural sciences.

If you read my introduction you know already that I went to France for a year abroad, specifically 2015-2016. In that year I learned how to speak French and a full range of soft skills that led me to where I am today. I went to “Lycée Claude Gellée” in Épinal and I attended the “Première S”. It is the junior year of French high school and S meant that I would focus on sciences. It is important to note that I lived in a French family in a small village (around 500 inhabitants) which was a shock since my homecity is a small metropolis with around 1 million inhabitants.

When I finished High School, I enrolled in the Computer Engineering (taught in English) BSc at “Politecnico di Torino”, considered an excellence in Europe for engineering and architecture, and I was selected for the “Giovani Talenti” honor’s class (around 200 students). I have a current GPA of around 28/30 so I am pretty satisfied with my studies so far.

In 2019 I dropped out from the honor’s class because I won a scholarship that was available to other 10 students and I moved to Shanghai, China, for my second year. This was supposed to be a full double degree program and I should’ve stayed in Shanghai for 1.5 years, but when the SARS-COVID-2 pandemic broke out, I had to come back to my home university and right now my programme is in a sort of “limbo”.

Awards and Certifications

During my life, I took different courses and challenges and here are the most significant ones:

• “Politong” scholarship for double degree programme in Shanghai, awarded by Politecnico di Torino
• “AFS Intercultura” for a year abroad in France, awarded by Intesa San Paolo
• “Giovani Talenti” honor’s class, awarded by Politecnico di Torino
• Inscription in National excellence bulletin board of the Italian Ministry of Education
• Mensa membership
• English Language: CAE certification (C2 level)
• French Language: DALF C1
• European driving license A1, B

Skills

Spoken Languages

I can speak many different languages, people usually call me a polyglot:

• English (C2)
• French (C1)
• Chinese Mandarin (Basic)
• Italian (Native)
• Sicilian (Native)

Programming languages and technologies

In my life, I have leant the following programming languages and technologies, either at school/university or on my own free time:

• Python
• C
• Bitcoin and Blockchain
• OracleSQL
• Oracle APEX
• HTML, CSS, PHP
• Mathlab
• Assembly MIPS
• Linux/Debian
• Apache
• CMS HUGO and Wordpress

Soft Skills

These are the skills that people that have been around me attribute to me:

• Leadership

• Listening

• Public speaking

• Intercultural communication

• Adaptability

Projects

These are the projects I worked or am currently working on. They vary in both in purpose and fields.

• The website you are currently browsing is one of my project. I bought my Raspberry pi 4 and used it to build my the website you are currently surfing. In reality, my RasPi is just a back since I also have web hosting.
• Investments – I am spending part of my time to study investment techniques, in particular, cryptocurrencies and index funds.
• Travels – I have been travelling fairly often. My biggest travel, the #NestedTrips consisted in 34 days of travelling around South-East Asia while I was living in China. I stopped at day 19 due to the SARS-COVID-2 pandemic. I am looking forward to finish what I started once the situation gets better.
• My YouTube channel isn’t something that I have put much effort into, but I do upload videos from time to time. In my own channel I lack consistency, since I am not interested into making a solo channel my priority. I also worked on JAES Company YouTube channel for a while.

Hobbies

Just like anyone else, I have my fair share of hobbies.

• Programming and Computer Science – what a shocker!
• Music – I used to play the violin and currently I play ukulele or guitar in my spare time.
• Reading. I read a LOT. Both due to my studies and due to me being curious about other fields and wanting to improve myself.
• Statistics – I just love data!
• Driving, especially motorcycles, even though I do not own any vehicles myself.
• Sports: I played many different sports during my life, culminating with competitive Water Polo, swimming and Triathlon during high school. Today, I simply work out at the gym, swim at the beach, and go jogging outside. Sometimes I play sports teams with friends.
• Video editing – I love editing clips and I would love to learn how to create special effects!

Mission

I have a defined set of values that consists, among others, of personal liberty and responsibility. I feel that I have to use my own skills and knowledge for good and for the betterment of society. I enjoy debates that allow me to grow and change my point of view about the issues that we are currently facing. That is one of the reasons why I hope to be able to use computer science to help people’s lives and overcome the obstacles towards an ideal “perfect society”.

Goals

My main goal is to obtain my Bachelor Degree and become a fully fledged engineer. After that, I am going to enroll into a Master’s degree, I am currently deciding between Data Science and Engineering or Cybersecurity. Once I am done with my studies, I would like to find a job that allows me to travel from time to time and to start to settle down. Thanks for reading! If you would like to know me better, just click one of the icons below. Have a nice day!