“Fly to your dreams”, from pilot to entrepreneur

20/05/2016

Jordi Llonch is one of the speakers who will participate in this semester’s UAB Talks, which will take place on 26 May. This year he won the award for the Best App of the World in the Mobile World Congress with Sharing Academy, a peer-to-peer tutoring platform for university students. We had the chance to speak with him about his professional experience.

What importance do you think speaking in public has in every-day life and in university?

It is key to personal development, and especially to professional development. When you need to find a new job and integrate yourself in the labour market, companies need you trust you and see that you feel comfortable speaking with people. Many companies ask you to do presentations, so you need to know how to speak in public. I was the shyest person in my class, and now I can speak in front of 100 or 200 persons. It is true that I still feel nervous, but I can speak confidently without feeling afraid.

In the conference, what will you speak about? Do you have any project?

My project is called Sharing Academy.  We put in touch upper courses students with lower couses students so they can give peer-to-peer tutoring in exchange for a fee. When students have exams or important papers, they can find the ideal person to help them, and they don’t need to go to an academy or pay for a professional tutor. It’s some kind of “collective intelligence”. My conference will focus on the path you must follow to reach your destination. Before I was a pilot, and I had an assured future and a good salary. I’ll explain how I went from being a pilot to being Sharing Academy’s founding director.

How can your experience help UAB students?

I want students to realize their worth, because we don’t tell ourselves how good we are often enough. We always think that someone will do it better than us. In university we can learn many things, but knowledge is also in libraries and Wikipedia. Universities should teach values and also how to have trust in yourself… I’ve been in university twice and I’ve always thought that universities should recognize students’ value. Repeating what is written on a book should not be so important.