Rami's Universe

Neo Scholar application

8 min read

Anything else we should know about you

I finish my courses W25 but graduate S26. In other words I just need one more semester.

Describe your priorities for a startup role. (200 characters)

Currently in the talks with a lot of startups. Most notably boardy.ai. As I told them, I would love to work with you as long as we are all in the same page on our purpose and vision for the product

Tell us your computer science origin story. (600 characters)

  • when I got my first laptop in the summer of 11th grade,
  • I wanted to explore its capabilities and how to make the best out of it
  • so I enrolled into a Java course which opened my eyes on what is possible to create with programming
  • I found so much joy being able to create an impact and build something useful all from typing out words into a screen
  • from there, I focused on finding problems in my own life that technology can solve
  • first one being a website that helps people journal by speaking with yourself like audiopen.ai. That was my first Hackathon
  • then, during my first year of university, I’ve discovered a very big pain point that psychology students go through which a scraper that can login to their accounts would help solve https://github.com/psycho-baller/open-seat-notifier
  • I built it over the course of one month, then shared it with my class and got 100+ sign ups
  • that was my first experience with building a full-stack applicatio

Nothing crazy. When I got my first laptop in 11th grade, I enrolled in a Java course just to explore the capabilities of my laptop. Programming felt magical. I felt so much joy and meaning from building useful tools just by typing

In first year, I started solving problems around me: a site that helps you journal like audiopen.ai for my first hackathon, then a scraper for psych students to track seat openings in my first year of university. I built it in a month, shared it with my class, and got 100+ signups. That was my first taste of full-stack development, and creating real impact with code

Describe a technical project that pushed you beyond your comfort zone. What did it reveal about your strengths and weaknesses?

  • Orbit
  • building-focused
  • community and feedback first, then execution
  • “building something no one cares about”
  • In other words, we should test out the idea and validate it and continue doing that until we reach a point where we’re confident enough that there’s a good chance that our community of supporters and target audience would care about it and continue using/paying for it once it’s out. Sometimes I find myself falling into that trap because I just love building things. Over time, I got better at it though
  • As I continued building it, I noticed that I was building it
  • These open-source apps and the community around them represent everything I stand for: using technology to reduce the barrier to human connection

Over this past year, I have spent over 800 hours working on 2 mobile apps: Exo and Orbit, and 400+ hours creating 25+ videos (while being a ft student & intern) https://youtu.be/QI8HgFye-m0 Four months in, we pivoted after hitting major flaws, costing us hundreds of hours in refactoring. That experience, plus books like That Will Never Work taught me a big lesson: Don’t build things no one asked for Now I focus on validating ideas early and often. I still love building, but now I build with direction and with a focus on growing a community of people who deeply care about what I’m building

Tell us about a time you created something. Where did you have to get creative with limited resources?

No funding, no university support (at that point) and a product that needs users and a community to actually work.

So I became a walking billboard around campus. I wore a giant QR code linking to our Discord server across campus every day for weeks: https://photos.app.goo.gl/V2BrX1nzapNhVq7RA . It led to spontaneous conversations, rapid user growth, and even a local news feature: https://rami-maalouf.tech/livewire

FYI the university eventually noticed what I’m doing and asked to interview me:

What problem in the world keeps you up at night that you believe technology could help solve?

Loneliness (ik it’s ironic but hear me out), sense of belonging, and finding the perfect person or group to surround yourself with. I spill my heart out in this video where I share “The Orbit Manifesto”: https://youtu.be/vaBTLpGfVQE

boardy.ai , series.so and several other startups are already making a great impact with the powers of GenAI and AI Agents. It’s unlocking a whole new dimension of consumer social that is growing and changing by the day and I have wild ideas that I’d like to validate and potentially bring to life with the help of your mentorship and the Orbit community

Describe your participation in a group or organization that means a lot to you.

I believe that university is such a valuable time of our lives because so many opportunities open up for you if you learn to seize them. In some way, this ability to seize these opportunities is something that can be gradually improved like a muscle. I want to help people in my university to strengthen that muscle. By me striving to reach my fullest potential, I inspire to bring out the best in the people around me. Which in turn will attract the right people in my life (mentors, partners, or friends) Just this past semester:

  • Gave students dares that put them into uncomfortable situations and for every dare people do, I donate to charity
  • Interviewing strangers all around campus and giving them a platform to share their thoughts and advice for all other students now and in the future

I believe uni is a uniquely valuable time because so many opportunities open up if you learn to seize them, which is a skill and a muscle you can strengthen. I want to help people at my university build that muscle. By striving to unlock my full potential, I aim to inspire those around me which, in turn, attracts the right people (mentors, friends). Just this past semester:

  • Dared students into uncomfortable challenges. Each completed dare = donation to charity youtu.be/Yv-JSa8N_qU
  • Interviewed students to share thoughts and advice with current and future students youtu.be/b2o1ycm6WYQ

What part of your identity or interests would surprise people who only know you professionally? Why is it important to you?

  • I don’t usually speak a lot unless it’s needed or provides value. (an introvert trait)
  • So when they see that I have a YouTube channel they get surprised
  • FYI I’m a self-made ambivert

The biggest challenge I have faced in life was overcoming porn addiction while also feeling lonely. So of course, I am now on a mission to help others break free from anything that controls them. The risk I took was sharing everything that I learned from that experience despite people advising me not to: https://youtu.be/bMrvcLhHpaQ , https://youtu.be/VCPFdTO7S6A I can’t stay quiet about something that is aligned with my purpose of helping people reach their full potential This is something I don’t really openly talk about with people in-person unless they reach out to me to talk.

Opt-out of first-round technical screen (optional)  

  1. I’ve worked for 20 months at IBM on maintaining huge codebases written in Ruby On Rails powering cognitiveclass.ai. I worked with another intern in refactoring an entire codebase from flask to react and nestJS. I was the mail contributor and maintainer to 3 GenAI-powered products. You can learn more through my resume https://rami-maalouf.tech/resume
  2. A few Hackathon wins like CalHacks 2024 & LAHacks. You can find all of them in my Devpost: https://devpost.com/ramim66809
  3. Spending 800+ hours programming 2 mobile apps just this past year while being a full-time student as previously mentioned
  4. I did the take-home project for codegen.sh on livestream: https://youtube.com/live/HPbsZf7cPfg
  5. Boardy founders absolutely loved my take home submission (can’t share that)

Link any past projects we should evaluate (optional)  

Do you consider yourself underrepresented in tech? (leave blank if not)

I’m underrepresented in the sense that I’ve been working very hard, more than 99% of software engineers in North America yet I didn’t get any awards, support, or opportunities that match the effort that I’ve put into the things I’m building. And now I’m noticing the reasons for that: I didn’t put my ideas out there and share what I’m doing with other people. I kept it all to myself for the longest time. This is why I’m applying to this. To get my voice heard & to be able to find the support to help me continue to work on the things that mean a lot to me

Additional ways we should evaluate your technical abilities (optional)

I write code almost everyday and I love teaching it (my first job). I strive to keep everything I build open-source. I’d like to also believe that I’m a great leader (Nathaniel can vouch for me)

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