Nour’s 2024 Wrapped

Nour’s 2024 Wrapped

👤Introduction

💡
Welcome to my headquarters. I’m from Tunis, Tunisia. If you know Tataouin from Star Wars, it is a real place in my country where the film was shot. I studied Data Science at the University of Rochester. Previously, I built products at Rockefeller, Amalthea FS, and Mos. Perpetually, I'm fascinated by the possibilities of technology for good, bad, and trivial. I am currently a fifth entrepreneurial year scholar at UR.

🗓️Recap: 2024

January: Received $120,000 from Arbitrum Foundation to accelerate their university relations program. Here is a recap.
May: Organized 0xCastle, a cryptography research retreat in a historical castle in Germany sponsored by the Ethereum Foundation.
End of May: Organized the Blockchain University Summit in partnership with CoinDesk. Facilitated 150+ housing scholarships and 20 travel scholarships to students from Latin America sponsored by Hedera, Arbitrum, Starknet, ZKSync, and Avalanche.
June - August: Interned at Rockefeller Capital Management where I built ML solutions for fraud detection
Mid-August: Spent two weeks in Colombia to visit Barranquilla, Santa Marta, Cali, and the Coffee region. Had a blast at Petronio Alvarez Music Festival.
Visited my friend Owen in Baranquilla
Spent time in Santa Marta and did day trips to nearby parks and villages. Minca and Tayrona National Park were incredible, each offering its unique charm. Minca, a tiny village nestled in the hills above Santa Marta, felt like a hidden sanctuary. Exploring waterfalls, feasting on bandeja paisa, and enjoying the peaceful calm added layers to the charm. Tayrona National Park, on the other hand, was an adventure of its own. Hiking through rugged trails and boulder paths to reach the beaches was challenging but rewarding, but the best part was the horse rides. The walks, though muddy and tough at times, were genuinely beautiful. While Santa Marta itself didn’t leave much of an impression, the surrounding areas were a reminder of Colombia’s natural beauty and cultural richness.
Salento, nestled in Colombia's lush coffee region, was like stepping into a postcard. This charming little town became one of my favorite spots in the country, not just for its vibrant streets and welcoming locals but for the incredible natural wonders nearby. The highlight of my stay was visiting the Cocora Valley, home to the world’s tallest palm trees and the only palm tree forest in a mountain setting.
Hiking through the valley felt almost surreal—the wax palms, towering up to 200 feet, seemed to pierce the clouds. The scenery was unlike anything I’d ever seen, with misty mountain peaks and rolling green hills creating a dreamy backdrop. The hike itself was a mix of awe and challenge, with muddy paths, hanging bridges, and winding trails leading us deeper into this magical forest. Every turn brought a new perspective of these towering giants, and I couldn’t help but feel humbled by the sheer scale of it all.
After a long day of hiking, returning to Salento felt like coming home. The colorful colonial houses, lively square, and endless cups of rich local coffee made every evening special. I even got to visit a coffee farm to learn about the process from bean to cup—an experience that made every sip afterward even more meaningful. Salento was more than just a stop on my journey; it was a place that brought me closer to nature, culture, and a sense of calm I didn’t know I needed.
Palm trees are standing tall their whole life. They only fall when they die. And they fall all at ounce.
End of August: Joined the Jutsu founding team where I did AI consulting for small & medium size business owners in New York.
Early September: Auditioned and got accepted into Mafrisah, the African dance club at my school. Practiced 6 hours per week and learned traditional and modern dance forms from western and southern Africa. Volunteered and performed at events to promote African dance and culture on campus. Fell in love with Amapiano.
Mid-September: Started my data science capstone, ML predictions to optimize the arrival time of Rochester Firefighters
October: Produced music for the first time using Oberheim, Minimoog, PPG wave. DJed for the first time at Queer Ball in Rochester for $600 per hour.
November: Attended Devcon in Thailand as an Ethereum Fellow where I demoed our Jutsu MVP. Participated in my first hackathon with my friend Eman at ETH Bangkok.
December: Presented my data science capstone project with the Rochester Fire Department and got featured in the engineering journal of my school for analyzing millions of data points to determine where to best place fire stations, fire trucks, and other resources.
Mid-December - Jan: Graduated college and as a self-reward, I toured Tunisia with my dad. Visited Tunis, Kasserine, Kairawen, Nabeul, Tozeur, Djerba, Tataouine, and Kebili. Celebrated New Years with my grandmother. Spent a month in my homeland - the longest period in my 4 years of college.
Throughout the year, I learned Tennis.

🪅 Learnings: 2024

 
  • Pessimists sound smart. Osptimists make money. You can't be a builder and a pessimist. Creating is an active process of communicating ideas and obsessions that propel us forward.
  • You can change your past by choosing your future. Everything is an interpretation. If you hit a wrong note, it is the next note you play that determines if it is good or bad.
  • The biggest job of an early-stage startup is to live the next day. Startups are not killed by competition, they are only killed by founders.
  • It is easier to do a hard thing that really matters than to do an easy thing that doesn’t really matter
  • Privacy is a rich safe forest that allows mobilization and movement. Censorship is a barren lethal desert
  • The confidence that overrides insecurity comes from experience. There is no other way.
  • Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.
  • The unexamined life is not worth living. The unlived life is not worth examining
  • Our twenties are the defining decade of adulthood.
  • How you do anything is how you do everything.
  • Be where your feet are.
  • Do it anyway.
 

📚 Fav Books: 2024

  • Un Captif Amoureux - Jean Genet
  • Radical Markets - Eric A Posner
  • The Cold Start Problem - Andrew Chen
  • The Defining Decade - Meg Jay
  • Atomic Habits - James Clear
  • Lettre d’une Inconnue - Stefan Zweig
  • Le Gai Savoir - Nietzsche
  • Poetry, Language, Thought - Heidegger
  • Man’s Search for Meaning - Victor E Frankl
  • What I talk about when I talk about running - Murakami
  • Le Portrait de Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde
notion image
 

🎧 Fav Music: 2024

🎥 Fav Movies: 2024

  • Society of the snow
  • Oppenheimer
  • Monster
  • Blackberry
  • La Haine
  • Samba
  • High & Low
  • Phase V by my good friend José Pereia
  • A moment of Silence
  • All about my mother
  • Y tu mama tambien
  • The color of pomegranates
  • Sans Soleil
 
 

If you made it this far, thank you! I can't help but reflect on all the special experiences that shaped me in the past year. As the sun had set on my year of adventures, I carried the lessons I learned into my senior year at the University of Rochester. I am ready to embrace the seasons that lie ahead (even the snow) with a heart full of gratitude and ready for whatever comes next.