Whether driving down the court as a Pratt Cannoneer or coding through overnight hackathons, Sebastian Roda, BA Critical and Visual Studies ’26, has never shied from competition. While at Pratt, Roda built his own academic playbook, combining his major with his passions for business and technology.
In this Q&A, Roda explains how the grit he developed on the basketball court helped him conquer New York City’s hackathons, launch an AI startup, and land consulting roles with tech giants like Amazon and Meta.
What drew you to build an interdisciplinary education?
I operate around the idea that lots of skills, ideas, and disciplines intersect and support one another. Therefore, it was important to me to make use of my four years at Pratt to become a perpetual learner.
When you started at Pratt, did you have a clear sense of where you were headed, or did your direction take shape as you went?
When I first arrived, I was in a bubble of basketball, as that was my life up until that point. Being prepared, coachable and cooperative, and adaptive are strong skills that basketball undoubtedly taught me.
Through my studies, work as a model, and being in New York City, I ended up finding my passion for tech. I took my competitive nature from basketball and applied it to hackathons around the city. Supplemented with my diverse academic background, this made for a sharp tool kit: I won around $30,000 at hackathons as a solo AI engineer-builder.
Tell me about NOEM, the research project that started at Pratt and became a funded startup. What was the turning point where you realized your academic work could become a company?
NOEM started as a research project to develop a perception layer for AI, creating a wearable device that gives the system “senses” that allow it to understand its environment. Noémie Ducrey, a peer in the startup space working in fundraising and business development, and I partnered with an R&D team from the University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland and got approved for a proof of concept grant. NOEM now acts as a go-to AI development partner for enterprises focusing on sovereign intelligence and cyber security.
How did entrepreneurship electives at Pratt prepare you for the realities of starting a business?
I learned fundamentals of the game of business and the protocols to prepare yourself for success. I treated my classes like a real-world use case and decided to build an app, ARC. Today, ARC has developed into a network protocol that, through blockchain, empowers basketball athletes to turn their identities, digital content, and competitive careers into tradable assets.
What does a typical week look like for you now?
I work with enterprises as the go-to engineer between their technical products and non-technical clients. Currently, I focus on agentic products and join specialized engineering strike teams brought in to solve urgent problems for businesses in finance, legal, sports, art, fashion, and tech. This summer, I also consulted on projects for household names such as Meta and Amazon.
If you could give current Pratt students one piece of advice, what would it be?
Stay curious, optimistic, and persistent.
Learn more about programs at Pratt:
