The Global Financial Crisis of 2007 sent shockwaves around the world that are still having severe economic effects on many differing regions. One of the most severely affected Western economies has been that of Greece; in 2009 the country plummeted into a debt crisis as a result of their economy’s structural issues and debt levels. The resulting effects have been catastrophic for the Greek workforce – at times, unemployment has been above 27% of the nation’s working population. This resulted in a mass exodus of young and driven individuals determined to not be confined by an economy that was unable to support growth. Amongst the chaos, young computer programmer Mikael Marczak decided to relocate to the world’s tech capital: Silicon Valley.
Years later, Marczak is near to completing the development of his first major consumer based application. The name of the project has not been released yet but the software will be based around notifying families when and what to feed their pets and children. It will combine desktop software with a functional application and is expected to be on the market via Github by late 2017. Marczak is an expert in the programming language Python but also has extensive knowledge in Linux, Apache, Microsoft, and PHP.
Marczak was set on ensuring that his dream of becoming a tech entrepreneur came true, “I knew I had the work ethic to be extremely successful, but the economy in Greece meant there was no economic activity or investment. Even if you were able to get a good job you were unlikely to be able to get valuable experience or exposure in your roll. Once I started thinking about heading to Silicon Valley, I knew there was no going back, I was going to do everything in my power to get there,” Marczak said.
The story epitomizes the American dream. Marczak left everything in his home country behind to come and fulfill his dream of opening his own software firm. “I really can’t thank my friends here enough: they’ve allowed me such a seamless transition into the American technology market. The amount of investment and knowledge available in the United States has allowed me to escape the economic woes back home and make my dreams come true,” Marczak exclaimed.