Let me tell you why.
I was at a "projects day" event at our college. A first-year student was showing someone a game on his laptop — but the character was playing itself. He built an AI that learns the best next move in the game using reinforcement learning. This guy had real talent.
I asked him, "Have you heard of Rally Egypt?" He said, "No"
"Have you thought of starting a startup?" He looked confused. "No, what's that?"
I explained that "A startup is when you take an idea, build something people actually use, and grow it into something massive — like Talabat, Uber, or Facebook".
And here is the interesting part. Within less than 5 minutes, he was throwing out idea after idea — each one better than the last.
This student isn't special. There are hundreds like him at ECU and more in Egypt — talented, but with no idea that startups exist as a path. Or they might know that it exists but don't know how to navigate through it and succeed.
That's why our mission is guiding Egypt's talent to startups.
Why startups instead of normal career paths? Two reasons: it's better for them, and it's better for Egypt.
Sam Altman is brutally honest about startups: "It sucks. One of the most consistent pieces of feedback we get from YC founders is it's harder than they could have ever imagined."
So why do it?
Because the risk isn't what you think it is. If you're good at technology and your startup fails, you'll find a job. The real risk is the opposite — having something you're passionate about and spending years at a safe, unfulfilling job instead. Most people are bad at evaluating risk. They think the safe path is safe. It's not. It's just a slow failure.
And there's something else. Paul Graham puts it this way: a startup compresses your whole working life into a few years. Instead of working at low intensity for forty years, you work as hard as you possibly can for four. In technology, you earn a premium for working fast.
This isn't magic. If you want to make a million dollars, you have to endure a million dollars' worth of pain. But you get to choose: spread it over decades, or compress it and be done.
Here's what most people get wrong about wealth. They think the benefit comes from rich people spending money — hiring waiters, buying cars, "trickle-down economics." That's not it.
Paul Graham makes the real point: "You need rich people in your society not so much because in spending their money they create jobs, but because of what they have to do to get rich. I'm not saying that if you let Henry Ford get rich, he'll hire you as a waiter at his next party. I'm saying that he'll make you a tractor to replace your horse."
The benefit to Egypt isn't that successful founders will spend money here. It's what they have to build to get successful in the first place.
Egyptian founders won't just hire Egyptians. They'll build products that solve Egyptian problems. Talabat didn't just create delivery jobs — it created logistics infrastructure that didn't exist before. Swvl didn't just move people — it proved that Egyptian companies can go global.
And there's the brain drain problem. Talented Egyptians leave because the opportunities are elsewhere. A startup ecosystem gives them a reason to stay. Better yet — it gives them a reason to come back.
We work towards our mission by doing two things: finding talented students and giving them the support they need to succeed.
Right now, the biggest opportunity we can offer is Rally Egypt — if a student gets accepted, they get training, mentorship, access to a community of founders and a chance at 150K EGP in prizes.
But here's what matters more than the prize money: Rally is a forcing function. It gives you a deadline. It makes you take your idea seriously. It puts you in rooms with people who will challenge your thinking and help you. Most students have the potential to create something big. Rally turns those ideas into something real or kills them fast so you can move on to better ones.
Our job is to make sure the best students at ECU don't miss this opportunity.