Human Code – Chapter 15: let’s talk about Ionut Andrei, one of the newcomers to MOLO17. Curious, ironic and creative, Ionut is one of MOLO17’s talented developers.
The origins
I had known MOLO17 for years, before today, thanks to Francesco Furlan, who was already working with the company in his school days.
In fact, after a school career in Italy and Romania, Ionut chose to enrol in the ITST J.F. Kennedy course, where he met and formed a strong bond with Francesco. With the same Francesco and other companions he will develop interesting projects, such as the application for iPapu, and attending the iOSh24 course, which we have already told in Human Code – Chapter 4.
However, Ionut’s passion was born well before high school and almost by accident, through the ‘fault’ of a book.
I was wandering through the shelves of a bookshop when I came across the software programming section. And it was when I found a book on C++ programming that the light came on. I bought it thinking I was going to learn how to make graphical interfaces, only to discover something else in the development field that I was passionate about.
If Ionut likes to read and learn a lot, perhaps it is also thanks to his literature teacher who taught him an important life lesson: “The culture and knowledge you learn and acquire cannot be stolen from you, it is yours alone and it opens your mind. It is your personal baggage that the more you enrich the better.”
This is why Ionut continues to study and delve into the world of development, in addition to his school lessons. He then decided to continue his studies and enrolled at the Milan Polytechnic in Computer Engineering and moved to the Milanese metropolis.
Living in Milan and Pordenone is very different. In Milan, you are free and independent, but you are alone for better or worse.
In February 2020, Ionut takes his last exam of the winter session, just in time to return to his family, before the x date of the lockdown from Covid-19. With the University closing, he decides to look for a job in the meantime.
Ionut Andrei at MOLO17
So in October 2020 he began to take an interest in job offers in the Pordenone area.
There are few companies that value people. This aspect and the use of innovative technologies prompted me to send my CV to MOLO17. In particular, I remember that a friend of mine had shared on social networks a Human Code article by one of my current colleagues, and out of curiosity I went to look for Francesco’s article on the blog. I really enjoyed reading it, getting a first view of the company from an internal perspective and discovering what the hobbies of the people who are part of this team are.
Over MOLO17
And now it’s Ionut’s turn: what does he like to do in his spare time?
His curiosity ranges from software, technology, books, films, TV series, scientific papers and more. Is there anything broken in the house? He will most likely take it apart to see what’s wrong with it.
Is there any app or program coming out with particular functionality? He takes an interest and studies, if possible, the code it was written with.
I am a handyman: when I have a problem, it becomes a challenge for me, and I look for a solution to solve it. There is a world to learn.
One example?
SyncPlay
Among other things, I also watch films and TV series. Back in high school and even later, my friends and I used to watch new episodes synchronously on a call, so that we could comment on the story in real time. In the beginning, in order to synchronise our players (and thus be able to watch the scenes at the same time), we would count down so that we could theoretically start the video together. From this experience we came up with the idea of writing a code that would allow automatic synchronisation of the start of playback (sync + play = SyncPlay).
The first version of SyncPlay was nothing more than a player in the browser that aligned with other participants.
Last year I discovered the open-source project Jellyfin, a programme that manages your media collection such as films, TV series and music. Jellyfin is a ‘competitor’ to Plex and Emby, which in the end are all solutions that want to be a kind of home Netflix.
As Jellyfin is an open project (anyone who wants to contribute can freely add features or simply fix bugs) and with lockdown, I thought it would be nice to allow people to watch their movies or TV series remotely, without having to do the classic countdown (I say classic because I used to do it but, from people’s feedback, others do it too). Then I wrote and added this feature to Jellyfin and users seem to have appreciated it: again, from the various feedbacks I read about people doing watch parties (watching together remotely) every week. In honor of the original version, the feature has the same name: SyncPlay.
Biker
Exploring Milan with Bike Sharing is great! You can go anywhere and it’s very practical. I’ve discovered really unthinkable places. My favorite? The Tesla dealership, which I visited by chance at a free ice cream tasting.
Books
The genres here are also quite varied: novels, detective stories, fantasy. But also books that talk about psychology, that try to explore how we, human beings, function, both individually and when we interact in groups.
Conclusion
Thanks Ionut for sharing your story and for deciding to be part of the crew, a real pleasure to have interviewed you. Now only one mystery remains: who will be the next brave captain to tell his adventure?
Did you miss the last chapters of the column? Read about the other protagonists of MOLO17 here.
