A calendar filled with conferences, calls and lab visits might sound like a typical workday for a lot of — however for Luca Lofranco, whose biggest want was to expertise what it’s prefer to work at NVIDIA, it was a dream come true.
Eighteen-year-old Lofranco lately traveled from his hometown close to Toronto, Canada, to spend the day at our Santa Clara campus, supported by Make-A-Want, a nonprofit that grants life-changing needs for kids with vital diseases. The want from Lofranco, who has Hodgkin’s lymphoma, was the fifth NVIDIA has been part of within the final decade.
The NVIDIA crew saved the day’s agenda a secret — shocking Lofranco with excursions of the demo room and robotics lab, a chat with the College Recruiting crew, a journey in a self-driving automotive and a video name with NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang. An aspiring pc science main, Lofranco was stoked for all of it as a result of, as his mother Cassandra shared, “NVIDIA is his Disneyland.”
A Lengthy-Time NVIDIA Fan
After attending his first pc science summer season camp when he was eight, Lofranco discovered 3D modeling in Autodesk Maya, programming in Python, in addition to 3D printing. His budding curiosity in tech grew and, quickly sufficient, he was constructing his personal gaming rigs.
NVIDIA shortly turned Lofranco’s favourite tech firm, he stated, a lot in order that he carved the corporate emblem out of a bit of wooden utilizing a pc numerical management machine.
For gaming, he enjoys utilizing NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 and GeForce GTX 1080 Ti GPUs. However Lofranco’s final draw to NVIDIA wasn’t its merchandise however its tradition.
“Everyone seems to be pushed to see the identical consequence and comes collectively to make it occur,” he stated. “All the things is designed for collaboration.”
A VIP Expertise
Forward of Lofranco’s go to, the NVIDIA crew despatched him a field of swag — together with a hoodie, a hat and a customized NVIDIA badge.
As soon as he arrived on campus, NVIDIA volunteers welcomed and whisked Lofranco off on a campus tour, adopted by a gathering with the options architect crew, which incorporates NVIDIANs centered on healthcare, auto, AI, cloud service suppliers and huge language fashions.
Subsequent, a go to to the robotics lab helped fulfill Lofranco’s “maker” curiosity. He noticed an NVIDIA DGX Station in addition to take a look at robots for growing the NVIDIA Jetson edge AI platform, and was quickly directing a robotic arm to stack coloured blocks.
After studying that Lofranco’s favourite meals embrace lobster, tiramisu and Package Kat sweet bars, the café crew ready a particular menu for him and all staff within the workplace that day. Everybody loved a lobster roll pop-up station within the campus park and tiramisu-flavored ice cream with assorted toppings, together with Package Kat items.
Innovators
On a go to to the demo room at NVIDIA’s Santa Clara web site, Lofranco and his father revealed that they tinker with improvements themselves. They programmed their water heater within the household sizzling tub to take care of a snug temperature and reduce the time wanted to heat it — all due to Python code and Raspberry Pi experimentation.
With a lot to soak in, Lofranco described his want day at NVIDIA as “unfathomable” — and that was earlier than his video name with Huang, which stretched from a deliberate quarter hour to 45 minutes.
After a dialog that spanned NVIDIA’s origins, many close to failures and innovation, Huang gifted Lofranco a GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Version GPU and shared some sound recommendation: “Hold enjoying video video games — however be sure that to prioritize your homework.”
Capping a packed day of fun-filled assist from practically 50 NVIDIANs was a go to to the auto lab and a spin in one in every of NVIDIA’s self-driving take a look at automobiles.
How was all of it? “Breathtaking,” stated Lofranco, who discovered firsthand from Huang that whereas NVIDIA has developed from being the underdog to a number one tech firm, it nonetheless feels “like a household.”
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