ABOUT
My passion lies in the intersection of art and technology
Hi! I’m Slsabil Hassan but most people call me Zazo. I’m a sophomore at Washington and Lee University studying Computer Science & Data Science. Originally from Alexandria, Egypt, not from the pyramids side, but the sea side, where the Mediterranean breeze meets a love for logic, learning, and a bit of chaos.
My journey into tech started over eight years ago through robotics & competitive programming, and I quickly fell in love with solving hard challenges.
Since then, I've gone from being one of Egypt’s top programmers to launching my own startup, writing children’s books about coding, researching online scheduling algorithms and building full-stack apps that solve real-world problems.
Childhood & Early Curiosity, if you’re curious 😉
I grew up as the kind of kid who was always drawn to computers and any tech-related things. I didn’t know what programming was, and I didn’t have big words for it yet. I was just curious. Screens felt like puzzles & buttons felt like possibilities.
I was a quiet kid, but my brain was loud.
I remember sitting in front of my bulky computers or the mini laptop, clicking randomly, breaking stuff, fixing it by accident. I didn’t think this meant anything. I didn’t think this was a path. It was just curiosity.
Then in grade 6, I saw a poster on a school wall.
RoboCup Junior.
Robots. A competition. Teams. Something real. I'm in.
I signed up immediately. No hesitation. I was obsessed. I trained like it mattered, like this was serious, like I belonged there even before I knew if I did. I was confident in a very childish way, the kind where you believe effort guarantees success.
I traveled to another city for the first time without my family. And, the day before finals, my body collapsed.
A severe nosebleed. Blood that wouldn’t stop. Panic. Hospital lights. Doctors talking loudly. I remember not being able to breathe properly. I remember fainting. I remember lying there thinking, this cannot be happening now.
I couldn’t compete.
When they finally discharged me from the hospital, I went to the hotel, slept a few hours, and then I got up and went to the competition anyway. To cheer. To stand there weak and dizzy and pretend it didn’t hurt.
We lost.
And that loss stayed with me longer than any medal ever did.
Because I was used to winning. And suddenly, I wasn’t even allowed to try. I felt like I failed my team. Like my body betrayed something my mind was ready for. Like effort wasn’t enough, and no one prepares you for that lesson at 12.
I didn’t quit.
Two years later, after participating in RoboCup twice, my coach nominated me for an IQ test called Beaver. I took it because she asked me to. I didn’t prepare. I didn’t care that much. I honestly forgot about it.
Months later, I was told I had been awarded a 45-hour C++ scholarship for competitive programming.
I had no idea what competitive programming was.
I had never written code before.
And C++ as a first language? That’s not mercy.
But I said yes. A challenge? Yes, I'm in.
And that decision split my life into a before and after.
First Contest
September 2019 was my first competitive programming contest.
I tried for 5 hrs. I really did. When I left the contest room and saw my ranking, I was sure I had failed. I cried. I fully accepted that this was proof I didn’t belong.
Then the closing ceremony started.
“And a silver medal goes to the one who cried after the contest… Slsabil Fahmy.”
I froze.
I remember thinking they made a mistake. I remember my heart racing. I remember standing there shocked, embarrassed, proud, confused, all at once.
That moment didn’t make me confident.
It made me hungry.
Because suddenly, the impossible felt negotiable. Like, I think I can do it?
I was one of the youngest. One of very few girls. And still, I was there.
After that, things didn’t magically become easy. We trained harder. Camps. International coaches. More pressure. I qualified to represent Egypt in the Arab Future Programming Contest in Jordan.
And then COVID happened.
Of course it did. No Jordan.
From 2020 to 2021, it was just me and the grind. No medals. No travel. Just hours, mistakes, retries, and the quiet decision to keep going.
And then 2021 happened. 2021 was different.
2021 .. Everything Aligned
There was a team competition to qualify again for Jordan. We competed. We qualified. We travel. It's scary when everything goes smooth.
Contest day.
The contest was almost over. Our ranking was bad. We were losing. There was one long problem we had ignored because it looked boring and hard and probably out of reach.
Last few minutes. Nothing to lose.
I read it.
And I remember yelling, loud, almost angry:
“It’s just Dijkstra”
No time to think. One teammate typed like his life depended on it. One watched for mistakes. No debugging. No test cases. We submitted seconds before the end.
No verdict. "Wait for the closing ceremony," they said.
Closing ceremony. Scoreboard displayed. The solution was Accepted. Just like that.
Our team — Za Jilaty Masasa — jumped to rank 2 in the entire Arab world. Silver medal. For Egypt.
That moment felt unreal. Like the universe blinked and we slipped through.
ECPC & The Blind Hour
Then came the Egyptian Collegiate Programming Championship – Teen Division.
This contest had a blind hour. No one could see what you solved during the last hour. Only you and your teammate knew.
We solved 2 problems during it. We told no one. We wanted to surprise our coaches.
During the closing ceremony, they revealed solutions one by one. Each accepted problem pushed us higher. People started clapping. Then shouting. Then screaming.
“Bronze medal.”
That sound still echoes in my head.
We qualified to the first teen edition of the Arab Collegiate Programming Championship to again compete against all students from different Arab countries.
Doubt
For years, I believed success was a straight line upward. It isn’t.
After 2021, my graph went up and down. Small wins. Big losses. Big wins. Small losses. Life.
No medals for a while. But something else grew.
I started building communities. I brought competitive programming into school. I introduced the Beaver IQ Challenge to my boarding school. I mentored kids who reminded me of myself. They were curious, insecure, stubborn.
I watched the number of girls grow. Slowly at first. Then more. Girls told me I inspired them. That scared me more than any contest. Because inspiration means responsibility, but it gave me a tank of motivation.
In early 2021, I qualified to represent Egypt in the European Girls' Olympiad in Informatics in Sweden for the first time ever. Covid. We couldn't travel but we still competed virtually. Didn't get a medal. Still, represented my country and made more girls eager for the same opportunity.
2023 arrived.
I was chosen as Deputy Leader of the girls’ team representing Egypt in Sweden. I had been competing since 2019. I had watched girls come and go. I was one of the first few. I had stayed.
And then we were told: no funding and you can't travel.
Because trusting girls is “risky.” Because belief costs money. Because stereotypes are cheaper.
I hated that.
I had flashbacks to everything:
the hospital bed at 12.
the trips canceled by forces I couldn’t control.
the medals I lost.
the medals I won.
the girls who would quit if this didn’t happen because simply they would lose interest.
This time, We had control.
We refused to accept that.
Fundraising campaigns. Twitter threads sharing our story. Cold emails to national and international companies that went unanswered for weeks.
Sleepless nights refreshing inboxes. Months of pushing against silence, rejection, and maybe later.
All for one thing: the chance to stand where we believed we belonged.
And then, we made it.
We secured the funds.
I cried reading the messages. From people who once coached me when I was just a kid learning how to think in code.
From volunteers who remembered me from my very first robotics competition.
From companies that finally chose to believe, not just in us, but in what we represented.
Belief turned into plane tickets. Plane tickets turned into Sweden.
We didn’t go quietly. We didn’t go just to participate.
We came back with four medals.
But more than that, we came back with proof:
that persistence can be louder than silence, that girls from places no one expects can still show up and win,
and that sometimes the hardest competition isn’t on the scoreboard, it’s everything you have to survive just to get there.
After That
Graduating high school didn’t end anything.
We built an alumni network. We volunteered at the Olympiads we once competed in as kids. We made sure the ladder didn’t disappear behind us.
And now I’m here, studying in my dream country.
Not because I was unstoppable.
But because I was supported.
Because people lifted me at my lowest,
and life taught me that giving up was never the answer.
My rule is simple: give back.
Because someone once stayed up late answering my questions.
Because someone once believed in a girl bleeding in a hospital bed.
Because I know what it feels like to almost disappear.
And as long as I breathe, I will make sure no one else has to.
A New Start
I used to have a wall.
It was covered in certificates, medals, printed proof that I had been there, that I had done things that mattered. Silver. Bronze. Titles. Dates. Competitions. A timeline of who I used to be.
And then I decided to leave.
I took everything off the wall. One by one.
I didn’t throw them away. I couldn’t.
I placed them carefully into a memory box.
Instead of rebuilding the wall, I did something different.
I drew it.
Little doodles. Tiny symbols. Rough sketches of moments only I would recognize. Not trophies, but memories.
Because I wasn’t leaving my past behind. I was carrying it differently.
I packed my luggage. I packed my memories. And I left space.
Space for new wins.
New failures.
New people.
New versions of myself.
I didn’t come here to relive who I was.
I came here to create who I’ll become.
And this time, I’m not building a wall.
I’m building a life.
I’m deeply grateful to everyone who played a small or big role in my early journey.
I’m thankful to my family for giving me infinite chances to try new things.
To Mindz, where my curiosity grew bigger and bigger.
To Dr. Eslam Wageed, who always treated me not just as a mentee, but like a daughter.
To Eng. Zahraa, for believing—unconditionally—that I could reach the sky.
To Lamees, my non-biological sister and twin, my anchor. The one who cried when I lost and cried when I won.
To my coaches Joe and Shalaby, for believing in me, teaching me everything they could, pushing me through my lowest.
To coaches Magdy, Yousry, and Gold, for always cheering us on, even when we weren’t your mentees.
To my friends, too many to count, but especially Blobo2, Saeed, Nour, Peter and Yamen. I was lucky to grow up surrounded by u.
To Mariam Abu Zeid, for being the best women supporter I have ever met in my life. A queen.
To the EGOI team, for being a very special part of my story. We've been through a lot together.
To Za Nakebo Pie, for always ranking 5th and missing the medal by one place. It was always fun around you.
To Menna, Roukaya & Sarah for being my childhood inspiration.
Looking to start a project or you need to chat? Feel free to contact me.