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About the Creator ​

"I am driven by challenges. Every obstacle is an opportunity to learn and grow."

Thiago Anselmo ​

Founder of Mapex | Creator & Maintainer of MapexOS

Brazilian, 38 years old, with over 22 years of experience in technology — from tube TVs to cloud-native microservices.

The Journey ​

The Beginning (12 years old) ​

My journey started at 12, working in my father's electronics repair shop. I spent my days fixing tube televisions — some still housed in wooden cabinets. It was there I learned my first lesson: understand how things work from the inside out.

Telecommunications Era (16 years old) ​

At 16, I joined a telecommunications company working with ADSL, VHDSL, and digital modems. This was also when I discovered Linux. My first distribution was Slackware — and if you've ever waited 2 hours for a kernel compilation only to get a Kernel Panic because you forgot a module, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

Those were tough times, but they built the foundation of everything I know today.

First Startup: ENSA (19 years old) ​

At 19, I founded my first startup: ENSA. More than a company, it was a life lesson. I learned to overcome:

  • Financial challenges — bootstrapping with limited resources
  • Management challenges — building and leading teams
  • Technical & market challenges — adapting to constant change

With a degree in Computer Networks, I was (and still am) a Unix-like enthusiast. At ENSA, I built countless Linux servers:

  • Proxy servers with Squid3
  • DHCP and DNS servers
  • Firewalls with iptables and PFSense (FreeBSD)
  • Backup routines in shell scripts using tape drives
  • File sharing servers (Samba/NFS)
  • Virtualization with KVM
  • And much more...

Hardware + Software ​

Everything changed when my brother graduated in engineering. We started manufacturing hardware, but when the budget for software development ran out mid-project, I faced a choice: stop or continue?

I chose to learn.

I bought books — lots of them (there was no ChatGPT or Claude back then) — and taught myself the LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP). But our application needed raw sockets, and PHP's while-loop approach consumed too much CPU and memory.

That's when I discovered Node.js v4. The reduction in resource consumption was exactly what we needed — we couldn't afford expensive hosting.

Embedded Systems ​

At ENSA, I also had the opportunity to build embedded Linux systems:

  • Cryptography systems for Raspberry Pi
  • Quality assurance systems for device certifications
  • Complete firmware rewrites for our devices

I read everything I could. Those were difficult times, but they were worth it. They left a mark — and the mark I carry to this day is: overcome challenges.

HR Tech & ACTUM ​

After selling my share of ENSA to my brother, I worked at an HR tech company in Brazil. Before AI was mainstream, we built a system to match CVs with job candidates using Elasticsearch and microservices in Node.js.

During the same period, I founded ACTUM — another hardware and software venture, always with the help of my brother Janio Anselmo, who holds a PhD in Biomedical Engineering. It was a closed platform where I certified only my own devices.

Overc & The Birth of MapexOS ​

Years later, I joined Overc, a company recognized for helping organizations manage operational risk with clarity and precision—widely regarded as a reference in its segment.

But the real turning point wasn’t a new discovery. I already had a platform from ACTUM—built, proven, and running. What changed was my decision to revisit it with a higher bar.

I went back to my legacy system, redesigned the architecture, removed what didn’t scale, and rebuilt it from scratch in Go—this time with a clear goal: an open, protocol-agnostic, enterprise-grade platform capable of scaling end-to-end and solving a real, recurring pain across companies.

Why MapexOS? ​

Today, everyone talks about AI and “access to data”—but most organizations still don’t have the foundation: a platform that can ingest, normalize, route, govern, and organize events from multiple protocols and sources in a consistent way.

MapexOS was created to fill that gap.

What motivated me was seeing that many developers lack deep knowledge about protocols. This makes it difficult to truly understand integrations and build sustainable systems.

Coming from a Computer Networks background, protocols are my world.

MapexOS was born to help companies ingest data from different sources and protocols using the same pipeline — without worrying about scalability or complex integrations.

But MapexOS won't stop at data ingestion. The vision is a complete platform for:

  • Data ingestion
  • Processing
  • Search
  • AI integration

Philosophy ​

"Along the way, I hope to keep learning more and more every day. As I said, I am driven by challenges."

Connect ​

This is a summary of my story in a few lines.

Thank you for reading my story!

— Thiago Anselmo

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