So... You want to know about me?

I am Mateo Gregory, I was born in the city of Cali, Colombia. Since I was a child, I have always been curious about the world of technology, I was practically born next to a computer. With several interactive games, my parents guided me, I learned and became curious not only about the games themselves but also about how these interesting devices worked.

One of the games I remember so fondly was PipoClub, I look at it now and say: It really had nothing special, but I remember it as something incredible, seeing the rockets in space, the planets, the stars, and wondering how it is possible to see this behind a screen.

Other games that marked my childhood were: Need for Speed: Most Wanted, Age of Empires, Warcraft III y Call of Duty. Each one for a different reason, but all contributed to my love for technology and video games.

During this discovery of technology, I also discovered my love for music, unsurprisingly, it was thanks to the soundtracks of video games, in this case, thanks to the radio of Gran Theft Auto: Vice City, where I listened to pieces like I Wanna Rock by Twisted Sister, 2 Minutes to Midnight by Iron Maiden and Peace Sells by Megadeth. Researching a bit more, I discovered what would be my favorite band of that time, Guns N' Roses, along with my favorite song of theirs Welcome to the jungle

So, thanks to my new musical discovery, around the age of 12, I decided that I wanted to learn to play the guitar. With the help of my parents, I bought my first guitar, a Gio Ibanez GRX 40 which I still have to this day and after a few modifications I still love it. Now I have two others that I also adore, one Ibanez RG370 Amhz and a Ibanez GRG 121 DX and last but not least my bass, a Classic Vibe '70s Jazz Bass V by Squier

After going through a somewhat tumultuous high school (Here in Colombia we call it Bachillerato), where apart from feeling like I didn't fit in, that I wasn't part of anything (yes, typical teenage phase), there was violence, discrimination, and many other things that shouldn't happen in a place where you are supposed to feel safe. A friend came into my life, I would like to say that we are still friends, but... let's just say that's life, I suppose. He showed me the world of music from the inside, he showed me that music was not just about listening to it, not even feeling it, it was something more, it was something that could be given, that should be given, that should be lived, Juan David Echeverri, former guitarist of Sin Tabla with his iconic song Sandwiches & Hamburguesas.

I had my moment as a church guitarist, where I learned to play in public, to play with others, to play for others, it was a pleasant experience, there I met el Ducu one of the best guitarists I have known, at the time we were peers, now he is a master and I... well, I am

However, I do not give up, I keep learning, I keep playing, I keep at my own pace, but I have a lot to thank him for. Now he has an incredible band called Paraiso Fractal, which if you haven't listened to, I recommend you do.

So, the time came when I had to choose a career, when I had to decide what I wanted to do with my life and for the rest of my life. First, given my love for video games, I thought the best option was multimedia engineering. I studied for a semester to realize that it was not what I wanted. I wanted something closer to the machine, something closer to understanding how at some point humans managed to turn a bunch of wires and circuits that send and receive electrical signals into something as incredible as a video game.

Something very important in my choice was feeling that whatever I decided, the profession I chose, had to be something that allowed me to help people, something that allowed me to do something for the world, something that made me feel that my existence in this world was not in vain. It could have been many things: medicine, law, psychology, but technology, especially at the time I started (2016), had everything ahead of it. The time would come when everyone would need a systems engineer, and I was not wrong. Although... at that time, I still didn't know how I was going to help them.

That's how I decided to study Systems Engineering at the University of Valle. You might wonder, what happened to the music? Well, the answer is simple, music has always been there, it has always accompanied me, it has always been there for me, and it always will be. But music, at least the way I conceived studying it professionally, was not what I wanted. Besides, to make music, certain resources are necessary, resources that I didn't have at that time. So, I decided that the most viable option was to study something that I liked, that I was passionate about, and that would give me the opportunity to acquire those resources to make music in the future.

So that's what I'm doing, I graduated as a Systems Engineer in 2021 and now I'm building what I always wanted, I'm making digital applications to help people, I'm creating, from scratch, from nothing, which is something I always loved about Systems Engineering, the ability to create with just an idea and a computer. And if we put it in those words, it seems like magic, even, it seems like music.