Latvia is a small country, which perhaps makes every achievement by fellow Latvians feel even more special. Society is used to cheering for hockey or basketball, for example, but we are also strong in many other industries. This is proven by 16-year-old Henrijs Dandzbergs, who has achieved remarkable success in engineering, writes LA.LV.
LA.LV journalist Sanija Bērziņa spoke with Henry a few days after his victory in a competition focused on developing new hardware and software innovations.
Henry explains that there are currently no platforms in the world where engineers can fully create and test designs for their electronic circuits. These circuits are everywhere around us — in our phones, computers, light bulbs, refrigerators, microwave ovens and countless other devices. “Without electronic circuits, we simply could not live,” Henry says.
The major problem in this industry is that engineers cannot properly test their designs using artificial intelligence. According to industry statistics, it typically takes three attempts before a final product is successfully developed. Globally, each redesign iteration costs an average of 44,000 dollars.
“The platform we created allows engineers to test their designs with artificial intelligence
before they even order the circuit physically. This means we can save engineers about 66% of their time. In addition, we not only help companies save money and huge amounts of time, but we also allow engineers to work less by testing products before they physically reach their hands,” Henry explains.
Their platform, called dotHardware (.hw), is currently in a demo stage, and the team is actively working toward launching it on the market.
Although similar platforms already exist, they do not offer full AI integration. Henry explains that current platforms may test a product but cannot identify when an essential component is entirely missing. For example, when building a microphone, an existing testing platform might determine whether components are connected correctly, but it would not recognize that the microphone element itself is missing.
“Our revolutionary advantage is that on our platform you can test, design and improve the product,”
Henry says.
The opportunities in this industry are enormous. According to Henry, the global market is worth up to 85 billion euros.
Henry and his two teammates created the platform during a 24-hour Hackathon competition organized by Unicorn Mafia in London, where 120 of Europe’s best coders participated. Henry was the youngest participant in the competition.
The winners earned an opportunity to travel and work in Silicon Valley in the United States to build their company further.
The young entrepreneur works together with Chih Yang and Aleksandrs Tihenko, and the trio will travel to the United States together next month.
Henry says he is extremely grateful and excited about the opportunity to go to Silicon Valley
— the birthplace of companies such as Apple, Microsoft, SpaceX, Google and PayPal.
“You usually only get to Silicon Valley later in life, when you already have a very large company. I’m truly grateful that the Unicorn Mafia organization gave us this opportunity,” Henry says.
When they travel to the US, they will receive O-1 visas — visas granted to individuals with extraordinary abilities or achievements in science, arts, education, business or sports.
Alongside entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley, where Henry and his team are heading for an indefinite period, he will also continue studying in high school.
“I strongly believe in the philosophy that school is important. School is not just an option — sometimes it is also a privilege. I will 100% finish school and will most likely continue studying at university as well,” the young innovator says.
“Without each other, we would never have been able to win.
Aleksandrs and Chih are incredible teammates, and our team dynamic is simply unbelievable. Aleksandrs’ programming skills and Chih’s hardware expertise perfectly complement our ideas and make us a strong and united team,” Henry emphasizes.
Henry’s interest in engineering began several years ago. He explains that in 2020 Elon Musk created the school Ad Astra (now called Astra Nova).
Admission to the school involved an international competition, and Henry was among approximately 100 students who successfully passed the selection process and gained the opportunity to study at Musk’s school between the ages of 10 and 14.
Notably,
he was the only Latvian student and one of only a few Europeans at the school.
Alongside his studies in Latvia, he studied there for four years.
During his second year, Henry enrolled in an Introduction to Engineering class taught by one of NASA’s lead engineers. According to him, his studies at Ad Astra became the key reason why he became passionate about engineering.
Meanwhile, teammate Chih Yang already had extensive experience and impressive achievements in the field. Chih is a six-time hackathon winner in both software and hardware competitions, with victories at Unicorn Mafia, The Residency, ARM, Sony, GDSC and Notion Hacks hackathons.
He earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical and electronic engineering from the University of Manchester and is preparing to begin a master’s degree in mechanical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley.
Chih has completed two internships in electronics engineering and is expected to take on a Product Owner role at Revolut. He also leads AccelerateME, Manchester’s largest startup accelerator, which has supported companies that collectively raised 68 million pounds.
Co-founder Aleksandrs Tihenko began programming at the age of 12
and joined his first startup at 15. At 17, he co-founded his first startup, later leading engineering at a blockchain trading terminal and designing fintech system architectures processing between 30–45 million dollars per month.
Aleksandrs has won several national olympiads in mathematics, computer science, physics and chemistry, and is also a three-time hackathon winner.
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