MR

Marwan Refaat

Founder & Investor

San Francisco, California

Education

Work Experience

  • Founder

    2024

  • Co-Pilot

    2023

    Venture Scout

2022 - 2023

  • Co-Founder & CEO (Acqui-hired)

    2022 - 2023

2020 - 2022

  • Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer (Failed)

    2020 - 2022

    Playable bank account designed to promote healthy financial habits. Launched savings product to paying customers. Raised venture capital from: Soma Capital, Socially Financed, Polymath, Harvard MBA Fund, Harvard Undergraduate Capital Partners, Dorm Room Fund, Sequoia Scout Program, among others.

2019 - 2020

  • Managing Partner (Acquired)

    2019 - 2020

    - Lead operations and product delivery; manage a team of 24 consultants and software engineers - Develop integrated technology solutions for venture-backed startups and institutional clients including the University of Southern California, thatDot, WorkOrder, Morgan Stanley, and Microsoft.

2017 - 2019

  • Co-Founder & CEO (IP Acquired)

    2017 - 2019

    VocalEyes is an artificial intelligence company founded at MIT Launch that leverages computer vision to augment the lives of those who are blind or severely visually impaired by offering intuitive software that can identify environments, localize objects and interpret text. Our proprietary algorithms have identified millions of objects for visually impaired people in over 35 different languages.

2016 - 2016

  • Fellow

    2016 - 2016

    • Selected as one of the top 50 collegiate entrepreneurs in the MENA region to attend an entrepreneurship program in TU Berlin El Gouna • Led a team of 12 people to the pitch competition finals. • Tested VocalEyes at two local blind centers • Featured in Startup Scene • Further Developed VocalEyes under the guidance of a mock board

  • Attendee (Full Scholarship)

    2014 - 2014

    Attended one of the most selective and longest continuously running summer programs in the United States. It was founded just after the stock market crash in 1929 by philanthropist George E. Jonas with a mission to "develop in promising young people from diverse backgrounds a lifelong commitment to sensitive and responsible leadership for the betterment of their communities and world." CRS is an international, full-scholarship, leadership summer program for students aged 14–16 by the Louis August Jonas Foundation (LAJF), a non-profit organization. Its seven-week program was operated from a boys' facility in Red Hook, New York, and a separate girls' facility in Clinton, New York. Participants come from all over the world and are chosen by merit. Instead of being asked to pay for tuition, campers are requested to pass along, to someone else, the benefits they gained.

  • Student Council President

    2013 - 2014

    The primary role of the Cairo American College Student Council is to create a liaison between students and administrators. Additionally the Student Council is responsible for raising funds for school-wide activities, including social events, talent shows, community projects, helping people in need and school reform. In the year of 2014, the Student Council reformed the school by augmenting the PA system in order to allow students to broadcast music during morning and afternoon breaks, organized football, basketball and dodgeball tournaments, bought 2 new table-tennis, air hockey and foosball tables, invited 30 studens to a taste-test of over 10 prospective food providers and donated EGP30,000 to the Tawasol School in Egypt. The Tawasol School is a non-profit organisation that provides free education to 160 children in the Istabl Antar, Ezzbet Khairallah and Batn el Baara informal settlements in Cairo. The school provides a high quality, integrated curriculum certified by the Ministry of Education, where students learn a craft in addition to attending regular classes. This helps to ensure that the children remain in school and do not drop out, because it provides them with much-needed additional income to help support their families. Tawasol School also focuses on the development of students' talents through theatre, choir, performance and music classes.