Three Paths: Robert, Ștefan and Andreea

 
Robert is 15 years old, lives and studies in Pechea, a commune in Galați county, and prepares every day for the exams that will allow him to gain admission to the high school he wants, “Costache Negri” National College in Galați, with a specialization in Computer Science. It’s the first step towards his dream of becoming an architect. He has been practicing drawing and Math from an early age, and over time, they have become his passions. In school, he always liked being among the best, competing, and winning awards.

Starting in the 5th grade, Robert joined the Future Acceleration Program, which supports middle school children from underserved communities in reaching their potential in life. It was his teacher who pitched the program to his parents, and Robert started with the summer camp before the 5th grade. The days spent in the annual camp gave him new friends from other communities, mountain hikes, and experiences he never dreamed of – such as creating a digital robot, together with other children in an Artificial Intelligence workshop.

Camps always come with encouragement

A moment in the camp that gave him a new perspective was when one of the volunteers encouraged him to try playing soccer, even though he had never played before. “My group mates always wanted to go play soccer and I would sit on the sidelines. And from him I learned that even if I’m not good at it, I should give it a chance and play. And I found that I was actually good at it, because watching from the bench, I understood how it was played.”

In his last year of middle school, with the National Evaluation exams coming up, Robert built a clear routine: at least two practice tests per week in Math and Romanian, self-assessed using the grading scheme in sight, or sent to his Romanian teacher when he felt he didn’t quite grasp a topic. The Math tutoring sessions, provided by the program, helped him understand more difficult concepts before they were taught in school. He is grateful that this year, in the online Math sessions, he is working on subjects similar to those in the National Evaluation. The simulations he does on his own or with the Math teacher in the Future Acceleration Program show him that he is close to the 9/10 grade he needs to get into the high school in Galați. It’s been a busy year, but he’s trying to manage his time well because he doesn’t want to give up his theater extracurricular, where he rehearses for shows with his classmates, under the guidance of teachers, every few months. He believes that acting helps him gain self-confidence and relax. “To put myself in shape for every situation”, as he himself says.

Digital training for the future

Ștefan is in his final year at the “Gheorghe Ruset-Roznovanu” High School in the town of Roznov (Neamț County). He lives in a nearby commune and commutes to school in the morning, where he studies Social Sciences. He says of himself that he is calm, optimistic and “partially anxiety-free”: “If you are optimistic, it seems to me that it is easier to get back up.”

He likes to play Counter-Strike, and the game also helps him practice his English but especially, he says, his leadership skills when organizing teams of players. In the little free time he has left besides preparing for the Baccalaureate, he is learning to create websites or apps that could help other young people. He works independently on a support platform helping high school students study more effectively for the Baccalaureate geography test, with interactive maps, explanatory sheets and quizzes.

Ștefan entered the Own Your Path program in 2023, shortly after missing out on admission to a high school with a Computer Science profile where he wanted to study. Because he was passionate about computer science, the Own Your Path program gave him the chance to develop his digital skills. “I learned how to make websites, to work in Python, I saw that I could get the hang of it and that I could work easily.” Last fall, one of the Own Your Path coordinators called him to encourage him to apply for the UiPath Security Bootcamp, a one-week intensive program organized by UiPath for high school students, college students and young professionals. He got accepted and, for a few days, learned – in Bucharest – about digital security: what it means and how to achieve it, both for yourself and for the digital products you create. While he was in the bootcamp, he got a surprise: one of the Digital Skills trainers from the Own Your Path program gave him a laptop as a gift, to help him in his new attempts at creating apps and websites. He was especially happy as the person from whom he received the gift seemed just as nervous as him and shared his own professional journey. “He told me that he had also started at the bottom, he came from the Republic of Moldova and it was a little hard for him when he came to study in Bucharest. And he changed about three jobs before becoming a manager at UiPath.”

This is also Ștefan’s dream: to become a manager in an IT company. He hopes to become a student of Economics and Informatics at the Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies next fall. He believes that Artificial Intelligence will change a lot in the job market and wants to be one step ahead in understanding how to use it responsibly. “I know what to ask of it and I know how to sort out what it offers me, in terms of information”, he says of his interactions with LLMs. “I have colleagues who do their homework with AI, but they write exactly what they get and then wonder why they got a lower grade.” Ștefan believes that if he stays attentive to everything that technology will offer in the future, he will find his place in the professional world.

First generation of Future Acceleration Program, now in the alumni community

Andreea is part of the first generation of children that were part of the Future Acceleration Program, which we created in 2019. She is now 20 years old, studying Special Needs Psychopedagogy in Brașov and, since 2025, she has become a part of the FuturePath Community program.

She was in eighth grade when she became a member of Future Acceleration Program, after being recommended by her teacher. She remembers that Math and Romanian tutoring sessions helped her get a good grade in the National Evaluation, which allowed her to enter the “Spiru Haret” National College in Tecuci, the city where she lived. In middle school she had accumulated gaps in Math, but at that point her parents would not have been able to support her to study further before the exam. She also remembers her first camp, where she met children from all over the country and learned how to swim. When she reached high school, she said “yes” to the psychological counseling offered in the program, out of curiosity. “I accepted whatever came my way, I never refused anything”, says Andreea, “I know I had a problem with self-confidence. I felt that maybe in high school I wasn’t doing enough compared to my
colleagues, and by working on it in counseling, I got better.”

Andreea volunteers for a student association, where she organized workshops for the well-being of students. In her internship, she learned to work with children, teenagers and adults with special needs, a job which she says that requires responsibility and ethics. In the first year, before starting the first stage of the internship, her biggest fear was not related to how she would feel working with people with disabilities, but whether her natural empathy would make her project pity instead of compassion. She quickly learned that these are different things: people with disabilities do not need pity, but the presence of those around them, without judgment.

In the alumni community she is a part of, she receives mentorship from volunteers and participates in workshops on financial literacy, project management, and design thinking. Everything she learns helps her in her learning process for college and in organizing activities in the student organisation. “All the information we receive contributes, brick by brick. I integrate it both in college and in the organisation, as well as when I am setting a goal for an exam.”

She now attends the Foundation’s camps as a volunteer. She participated in a session with 12th graders to talk to them about preparing for the Baccalaureate, what it’s like to change the city when you go to college, what the first year of University is like, and what it’s like to be a UiPath Foundation alumna. Despite all the emotions that come with public speaking, she was excited to pass the knowledge on to other generations: “As I kept speaking in meetings and coming up with ideas, it started to be easier to talk to others. I don’t feel so nervous anymore and it’s much better. I want to put everything I learn to good use and help others.”