UAE: Meet teen AI prodigy, pilot-in-training who speaks 8 languages, wants to 'help everyone'

At an age when many teenagers are just beginning to find their footing, Fjord Enzo Bertrand-Helmgens is already carving out a future at the cutting edge of artificial intelligence, aviation, and arts from his home in Abu Dhabi.

The 15-year-old French-German prodigy is the founder of Fjord AI Group International, a soon-to-be-launched enterprise that will house comprehensive AI models he has been developing since the age of eight. Built to offer wide-ranging services beyond existing models, Fjord's creation is the culmination of years of independent study, invention, and imagination.

But for Fjord, the goal is not just technological sophistication — it is purpose. “I want to help everyone,” he says simply, echoing the philosophy that has guided his projects from the start.

From early sparks to bold ideas, Fjord’s fascination with how things work began almost before he could speak. At just 10 months old, he had linked every cable from the TV system to Blu-Ray devices, decoders and laptops, not by accident, but by deliberate, curious design. By the age of one, he had taken apart, and carefully reassembled his mother’s coffee machine, a laptop and a tablet, using only a screwdriver and instinct.

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His mother, Marina Bertrand-Helmgens, an Education Advisor, Language and Linguistics Expert and Anthropologist, recalls, “At seven months, he was already opening and closing drawers, carefully analysing how they moved. By two, he was building circuits. At three, he was coding with Scratch, not as a game, but to invent.”

One early project involved wiring a closet light to turn on when the door opened, a self-made sensor system designed when he was still a toddler. The inquisitive boy grew into a teen with vision. At age eight, he started studying toward his first Aviation and Aeronautics degree, which he earned, at 12, age when he also began formal training for his Private Pilot Licence (PPL), which he expects to obtain, the day of his 17th birthday. 

Solving real-world problems

Fjord’s drive to create has always been rooted in empathy. During a period of regional conflict that saw the arrival of new students, at his then Abu Dhabi IB school, who struggled with English, Fjord developed a language-switching translation app—coded in a matter of minutes during his school break—to help bridge the communication gap between classmates. The app, which used voice input and a simple shake function to translate between selected languages, allowed students to talk across language barriers.

“It just came to him,” said his mother. “He used his recess time and returned with an ad-hoc functional prototype, they started using.” This drive to solve, and to create not for recognition, but for need, has underpinned many of his projects, including assistive robotics like a stair-climbing chair. His inventions, he says, “at the heart of everything, resides meaning.”

An AI company built on passion, Fjord’s first company, The Robotics Geniuses, was set up to create a level-free learning space for children and teens, based on ability, not age. Now, his second and further-evolving venture, Fjord AI Group International, will house seven confidential AI projects, all built with ethical and conscious design principles. He is currently in discussions with investors, with everything ready to launch once funding is secured. “He’s been building the architecture of his models, since he was eight,” says his mother. “It started as a vision to condense and intelligently organise the type of information I used to carry around in 1,500 books.”

To support his academic pursuits, Fjord is simultaneously enrolled in school and online university programmes, where he is studying AI engineering. He has previously completed university coursework in entrepreneurship and hopes his qualifications will help ground his inventions in formal recognition, though it’s clear he’s always been ahead of the curriculum.

Art, flight, music, and life

Despite his intensity, Fjord is not a recluse in a lab coat. He is an accomplished painter, composer, and opera lover, singing Mozart, Bizet, Bach, Fauré and Verdi, with the natural ease that comes from being a seasoned vocalist.

As a SACEM-registered composer, with original music that blends cultural depth and elegance, Fjord’s compositions have already garnered over 100,000 streams on Anghami, drawing listeners into soundscapes as intricate as his inventions, with exclusive new pieces on the way, and collaborations with international artists.

Fjord’s home is filled with canvases, flowers he sings to daily, and electronic equipment strategically placed between computers, telescopes, robotics kits, and aviation models. He plays guitar, sings, cooks before exams to relax, and eats no meat — a choice he made at age two, out of respect for animal life. His athletic life is no less impressive: Fjord is a licensed sailor, holds a 10-metre powerboat licence, and has practised yoga, golf, skating, skiing, swimming and horse riding, since early childhood. He has travelled to dozens of countries and picks up new languages almost by osmosis from Finnish to Arabic, Spanish, Albanian, Norwegian, Tagalog and Hindi.

Future already unfolding

Whether co-mentoring young entrepreneurs under a UAE-based initiative, tutoring peers in tech, or building new digital tools, Fjord remains grounded. “He has always played with children and adolescents, with the same heart as he holds deep talks with professors and doctors,” says his mother. “He is humble, kind, and never gives up.”

Asked what lies ahead, Fjord keeps it simple. “I am profoundly focused on nurturing my passions, building both my company and my charitable endeavours”, he says “Making time to maintain meaningful connections with both cherished childhood and freshly treasured friends is, also, very important to me.” His journey is just beginning. But for those who know Fjord, he is already changing the World - one code, one invention, and one kind act at a time.

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