Rodrigo Piña has travelled the world, now he wants to help young people find the right path in life

At 16, Rodrigo Piña started travelling on his own. Since then he has visited large parts of Europe, but also countries such as Brazil, China, Japan and Turkey. The journeys taught him something that has guided him ever since.

“A language is not only about words. It shows how people think, live and see the world. That is why I have always been curious about other cultures.”

Rodrigo, 20, comes from Ourense in Galicia in north western Spain. His father is a judge and his mother a nurse. From them he took a simple but important principle: listen before you judge, and try to understand other people's situations.

“My parents always let me choose my own path. That trust has shaped who I am today.”

While his brothers chose law and economics, Rodrigo went his own way and started studying software development. He founded his first company at 14 and has since worked with everything from brand building to advanced AI and the development of scalable SaaS platforms.

Today he is one of eight entrepreneurs selected for Talent Venture Labs.

Together with his co-founder he is building UTalento, a platform that helps young people understand which educations, professions and career paths actually suit them before they make a decision that affects many years of their lives. Through personality tests, work simulations and interest analysis, they want to give the next generation a better basis for decisions than they had themselves.

“I do not build technology for its own sake. Code is my tool, but people are always the reason I build.”

It shows in the way he works. Rodrigo describes himself as someone who likes to test ideas quickly, listens to users and is not afraid to start over when reality shows that something can be done better. For him, entrepreneurship is not about being right from the start, but about learning faster than others.

“If someone shows me that I am wrong, I would rather know straight away than too late. That is how good companies are built.”