Enrico Miglino is a developer, researcher, essayist and technical writer who has worked extensively in many fields of electronics and engineering throughout his career, including artificial vision and image processing, QT and developing the first direct printer driver for Android over USB and Bluetooth. He is also one of the top members of the element14 community, having contributed to a number of our design challenges and product road tests. His novels and E-books have been published in several languages, and can be purchased on Amazon.com.
What’s your earliest memory involving electronics or engineering?
It was a long long time ago! I first became fascinated by computers around the mid-late 1970s, when I was still studying chemistry. At that time in Italy, it was possible to buy a copy of Byte Magazine from some international news stands, although many of the computers that were advertised and reviewed inside - such as the Tandy Radio Shack - were almost impossible to find.
In 1979 I discovered that an Italian importer of micro chip and electronic components, Giuseppe De Mico in Milan, was able to provide me with an AIM65 development system. I spent the summer of '79 studying the datasheets of the mythical Rockwell 6502 and the incredible features of the development board until, between September and October of that year, at last the box was shipped. That definitely changed my life.
What was your first job in the industry?
At the end of 1980, I completed my secondary school course in chemistry; in the meantime, I worked assembling and developing assembler and basic on the mythical AIM65, while my love for technology and computers was growing.
In the early 1980s I took my first job as a "programmer" at a small company. However, at that time IT roles were not as clearly developed as they are today. As a matter of fact, I was responsible for almost everything our customers needed - from procedure development in Basic on the first TI DX10 mainframes to CICS-VMS scheduling, jobs management and scheduling in the first data center in town, serial networking and, some time later, the first Novell networks, TPL development (a proprietary Language developed by TI) and more. That was the era when software was designed using flow charts, and project presentations to the customers were carried out using hand-drawn transparent slides projected on a white wall with an episcope ...
Who is your professional hero or biggest inspiration?
Although my professional career is strongly oriented towards software development and electronic engineering, my education is more oriented towards liberal arts and philosophy. My biggest interest has always been A.I. and the way humans and machines can communicate. In the early 1980s I first became aware of the writings of Marvin Minsky - he was definitely one of my biggest sources of inspiration.
In this context, I also have to mention Diego Marconi, an Italian philosopher I was fortunate enough to know and work with. He was one of the first philosophers in Italy to promote the relationship between philosophers, cognitive scientists and informatics.
What’s the best thing about your job?
The best thing about my job is probably one that many people are scared of: constantly facing new challenges, trying to find optimised solutions and problem solving.
What’s the worst thing?
That can be summarized in very few words: the inevitable passing of time.
What’s the most ridiculous job you’ve ever been asked to do?
One of the first things I had to do at the beginning of my career was to sort about 300 function calls in the right sequence in order to launch a batch job based on their sequence number on 300 punch cards!
Name a book, paper or blog that you think everybody in your field should read.
"La biblioteca de Babel" (the library of Babel), by J. L. Borges
If you could speak to yourself five years ago, what would you tell them?
A quote:
Soon the horse will take us to Durango
Agarrame mi vida
Soon the desert will be gone
Soon you will be dancing the fandango.
(Bob Dylan, Romance in Durango)
Where do you hope to be in five years time?
Near to the conclusion of the most long term project I have in mind... A surprise.
Aside from your own, what projects or innovations in the Engineering space are you most excited about right now?
Definitely robotics and AI technologies
What are the biggest challenges facing your field at the moment?
One of the biggest challenges is my actual most important job, the architecture refactoring of a complex and wide DSP application for the NXP company. The first six months results of this challenge will be presented at the QtCon in Berlin next 2nd September during a talk I am scheduled for.
The other really complex challenge is the PiIoT Element14 challenge implying many different competencies creating an entire IoT innovative approach environment. It will be officially tested and introduced at a Museum in Nijmegen (Netherlands) at the end of August and open to the public during the early days in December.
How can these challenges be tackled?
Challenges, in my opinion, are always a one-way road. After started, the only possible option is completing them. The best approach is always to keep a step-by-step proceeding, being extremely reactive to the unexpected.
How do you like to spend your time outside work?
One of my hobbies during my spare time is playing music with my guitar. This is the only really non-job related activity. But I must admit I am extremely lucky, as I very much enjoy my job, I have not the perception of doing a 'real' job.
What does success mean to you?
Seeing the project I am working on completed, working and on the market.
What advice would you give to an aspiring engineer?
Try. Just try, document and try, experiment and try. And open your mind by studying something else than engineering.
Enrico will be speaking at QTCon at the Berlin Congress Centre in September 2016. You can find booking information for his events here.
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