Madrid, Spain

Hello, I’mDaniel Aguilera

Co-founder at braincap

Daniel Aguilera

About

Daniel is an engineer from Madrid, Spain. He studied electromechanical engineering at ICAI and Michigan. In 2025, he formed part of the UM Solar Car Race Crew, where he built one of the world's fastest solar cars for the World Solar Challenge. He has worked at two start-ups and at BCG, and researched how ECM models scale for lithium-ion batteries at iiT. Now he is founding braincap, where he is building a platform to help humans keep their freedom to ask, doubt, judge, create, and choose with AI.

Daniel is an engineer from Madrid, Spain. He studied at ICAI and Michigan, built one of the world's fastest solar cars, and is now founding braincap: a platform to help humans keep their freedom to ask, doubt, judge, create, and choose with AI.

Experience

  • University of Michigan College of EngineeringUndergraduate Research Intern, Battery Control GroupSep 2024 – Dec 2024
  • ISPEEmerging Leaders Board MemberSep 2023 – Aug 2024
  • EducationUSAMember, Competitive College Club2019 – 2021

Education

  • ICAI, Universidad Pontificia ComillasDouble Master, Electrical Engineering & Artificial IntelligenceSep 2025 – May 2027

Awards

  • 2026

    Nova 111 under 25

    Nova Talent

    View certificate
  • 2025

    Best PR and Media

    Bridgestone World Solar Challenge

    View project
  • 2025

    Winner, 10th Smart Industry Hackathon

    Kearney

    View project
  • 2024

    Best Business Plan

    Formula Student Spain and Formula Student Italy

    View project

Projects

  • braincap

    2026 – Present

    Co-founder

    Braincap is developing a solution for metacognition in the age of AI. We are building a platform that tracks how you actually think with AI, so you take back control and keep the freedom to ask, doubt, judge, create, and choose.

  • AngryRobot

    2026

    HackSpain Hackathon

    At HackSpain, Claudia, Luis, Hugo and I took on HappyRobot's challenge and built AngryRobot: a kill-switch layer for AI agents. Agents now have more capabilities than ever, and with them come unprecedented opportunities and risks — AngryRobot monitors, mitigates and escalates rogue agent behaviour before it is too late.

  • UM Solar Car

    2024 – 2025

    Head of Partnerships, PR & Media, Race Crew Engineer

    At Michigan I joined the 2025 Race Crew as Head of Partnerships, PR & Media. I fundraised a multi-million-dollar budget to build Millennium, signed 50+ corporate partners, and ran race operations and media across the 3,000 km of the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge, where we finished as the top North American team and 7th in the world.

  • ISC Racing Team

    2023 – 2025

    Battery Engineer · Business & Brand

    At ISC I started as a battery engineer and ended up building the 400 V, 7.8 kWh pack that powered the team's fifth and sixth cars, raced across Spain, Germany and Italy. I ran the business plan and the team's partnerships alongside it.

  • Aguiii Rides

    2020 – Present

    Creator

    As the world re-opened after the pandemic, in 2020, we started aguiii_rides with the goal of sharing our good vibes through skate, surf and our adventures with the rest of the world, reaching 1.7M people in our first year.

  • iiT - Instituto de Investigación Tecnológica

    2023 – 2026

    Research Scholar

    At iiT, I spent three years understanding how li-ion ECM models scale across cell, parallel, module and pack level. As part of that investigation I designed and iterated various modular battery test banks, and developed a methodology to carry out GITT at a fraction of commercial cycler costs. I also developed thermal models, and studied thermal runaway under external short-circuit conditions.

© 2026 Daniel Aguilera