Story

Why I build

I’ve been the kid at the computer for about as long as I can remember.

Not because I had a plan. I liked that a machine would do whatever you could describe well enough, and I liked the part where you got to invent the description. That’s still most of why I build. It’s the most creative thing I know how to do.

Ahnaf as a young child at a classroom computer — me, already refusing to go outside

Being a student is mostly noticing gaps.

Once you start looking, they’re everywhere. My deadlines lived on three different sites, so I spent more time finding work than doing it. Ontario has roughly one guidance counsellor for every 400 students, so most people choose their future with almost no help. Students answer a text in seconds but open their course portal when they remember to. None of that is anyone’s fault. They’re just gaps nobody has filled yet, and I can’t stop noticing them.

So I try to fill them. The deadline one became MYLD, a Chrome extension now on the Web Store for Laurier students. The texting one is turning into an assistant you can just message. The counsellor one is Ascend, which I’m building with The Graduates Project.

Ahnaf asleep over his tablet in a packed lecture hall — the one gap I haven't fixed yet

The fix isn’t always code.

Sometimes it’s a spreadsheet. At 3Pointers, the most useful thing I did was turn a pile of sales and inventory records into something the owners could act on every week. Sometimes it’s a lot of emails. Ignite Racing needed money to build a car and get to Nationals, so we pitched more than fifty companies until two said yes. Sometimes it’s just asking. Before building anything for Ascend, we put it in front of thirty students and listened to what was actually broken.

Code is my favourite tool, but it’s one of several. The job is the gap, not the tool.

The Ignite Racing team on stage at the STEM Racing Canadian Nationals — fifty-something pitches later

That’s why I’m doing two degrees at once.

Math at Waterloo is how I learn to build things that actually work. Business at Laurier is how I learn whether anyone needs them, and how to get them into people’s hands. A clever fix nobody uses doesn’t fix anything, and I want to be good at both halves.

So that’s the whole reason. I notice something that’s harder than it should be, and I can’t leave it alone. Sometimes I write code, sometimes I write fifty emails. Either way, I’d rather build the fix than complain about the gap.

Ahnaf in a University of Waterloo hoodie outside a glass campus building — two schools, one street