Gandal Foglia

HEC Lausanne — 2026

Gandal
Foglia.

Management student at HEC Lausanne, previously CS at EPFL. I've shipped products, run events with 300+ attendees across editions, and automated processes that saved clients real money. I look for roles where technical judgment and business thinking are both useful.

Finishing 3rd year at HEC. Looking for internship opportunities in 2026–27.

LinkedIn ↗ Email →

§ 01

Working

Two environments. One showed me what research rigor looks like. The other showed me what shipping feels like.

001

C2F2 Sàrl

Jul – Sep 2025

Completed

What it is

Designed and shipped an n8n + Python + LLM automation system for a client, eliminating ~120 hours/year of manual data processing — CHF 6,000 annual saving, verified in the contract. The project ran July to September 2025. I continue to advise on an informal basis on process discovery, AI implementation opportunities, and digital transformation for SMEs.

What I learned

Most SMEs are sitting on enormous manual work they've normalized. Once you look, the wins are obvious — so now I always start with a process audit before proposing anything.

Digitization before automation. You can't automate a paper process. I now scope the foundation first and treat automation as the second step, not the pitch.

LLMs in production are unpredictable. 97% stable still beats a human. I build with fallbacks and ship — perfect is the enemy of deployed.

002

Idiap Research Institute

5 summers

Completed

What it was

Five consecutive summer internships at one of Europe's leading research institutes in AI and ML. Data annotation and collection across face recognition, vein biometrics, presentation attack detection, and audio analysis. First internship started at 15.

What I learned

ML is mostly data and statistics. The glamour is downstream. I now treat data quality as the first constraint in any technical project.

Working alongside top researchers showed me what rigor looks like from the inside. Patience, precision, high standards. That carried into everything after.

§ 02

Leading

Organized two TEDx events. Started at 16. Learned that leading without authority is a real skill.

001

TEDxYouth@Martigny

2019 · 2021

Completed

What it was

Co-founded and organized two TEDxYouth events in Martigny — 300+ attendees, 10 speakers, team of 4 volunteers. I was 16 during the first edition. Served as Master of Ceremonies in 2019; led stage direction and full program curation in 2021. The 2020 edition was cancelled by COVID.

Speaker selection, coaching, day-of logistics, marketing, licensing with TEDxMartigny/Neurhone, school partnerships.

What I learned

Incomplete information + an unmovable deadline. You learn to structure what you know and map what you don't. I now do this explicitly — a known-unknowns list before any project kickoff.

Different work styles need explicit roles. I now define scope and ownership at the start of any team project — ambiguity is a cost, not a feature.

Going on stage doesn't get easier — but you stop fighting the adrenaline.

§ 03

Projects

Three things I built from scratch. None succeeded commercially. All taught me something I use daily.

001

[Redacted] ✱

Aug 2024 – Apr 2025

Archived

What it was

Digital loyalty app for small businesses — replacing paper punch cards for local cafés and restaurants. Built and shipped to App Store and Google Play independently.

✱ Name redacted due to a trademark claim filed after release.

What I learned

Digitization doesn't solve fundamental problems. Loyalty has to exist first. I now validate the underlying behavior before designing any solution around it.

Validate before building. A few coffee chats with potential customers would have revealed the real issue before any building began. I now do customer discovery before writing a line of code.

Register your trademark immediately. Someone filed after seeing the app. Never again.

002

Elfgorithm

Oct 2024 – Jan 2025

Archived

What it was

Multilingual Secret Santa web app — wishlists, budgets, automatic matching, email notifications. Built to solve the annual coordination problem and to learn new tech.

What I learned

Tech isn't always the solution. Some coordination problems are social, not logistical. I now ask whether the problem actually needs software before building anything.

Friction kills adoption. Requiring accounts for group actions was a fatal flaw. I design account-free flows first by default.

003

mmori

Dec 2024 – Jan 2025

Archived

What it was

Minimalist iOS memory journal. 3-second videos or dual-camera photos — no feed, no followers. Offline-first with iCloud sync.

What I learned

Native performance matters. iOS frameworks gave real advantages for camera + video. I now choose the right tool for the constraint, not the familiar one.

Technical debt compounds fast. Unaddressed optimization problems snowballed. I now address performance issues at first encounter, not later.

Scope should match resources. Video processing needed more than I had. I now size projects to what I can actually finish.

§ 04

About

I'm studying management at HEC Lausanne — third year, focused on digital business. Before that I spent a year studying computer science at EPFL.

I'm curious about what happens at the intersection of business strategy, design, and technology — not in a broad abstract way, but concretely: why do some products work and others don't, what makes people actually use something, what breaks when you try to scale it.

This site is a record — what I built, what I learned, what I'd do differently.

Currently

B.Sc. Management, HEC Lausanne

Previously

B.Sc. Computer Science (year 1), EPFL

Languages

French (native) · English (C2) · Italian (conversational) · German (basics)

Technical

Python, Java, SQL, n8n, Git, Microsoft Office, SAP ByDesign, Odoo, Dataiku, Tableau

Interests

Entrepreneurship, Technology, Artificial intelligence, Investing, Cinematography

Also

Directed short films · worked at regional television

Status

Seeking internship 2026–27

§ 05

Contact

I'm finishing my degree in July 2026 and actively looking for internship or gap-year opportunities — in Switzerland or internationally. If something clicked on this page, I'd like to hear from you.

LinkedIn ↗ Email →

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