School Events & Memories
The events are what make school actually worth showing up for. Not the classes, not the exams -- the moments when the normal structure breaks down and something communal takes its place.
French Week (ISGI)
French Week was a cultural event at ISGI that brought the entire school together around French language and culture. On paper, it was educational. In practice, it was an excuse to not be in regular lessons, to work with friends on something creative, and to get way more into a school event than anyone expected.
The French theme was beside the point. What mattered was the communal energy -- decorating a venue together at 7am, rehearsing performances that might be terrible but would definitely be funny, eating food that someone's parent made. Like every school event, it spawned a dedicated group chat that was 20% planning and 80% memes.
TOMM Decoration (JAS)
TOMM decoration was a December 2023 event at Jebel Ali School where I was on the decoration team. Sounds simple -- put decorations up. In practice, it became an entire production. The group chat was pure Hindi banter. "Bhai ye kaun karega" and "tu kar na" on repeat. Hinglish at its peak.
The decorations probably looked mid, but the bonding was elite. There is something special about working together on something that does not matter in the grand scheme of things but feels like the most important thing ever in the moment.
Adrasteia (JAS)
Adrasteia was a student-led programme at Jebel Ali School that I headed. At 15. Getting students involved, building a following, driving registrations -- I treated it like a product launch instead of a school programme. Same marketing thinking I use for my apps: create urgency, show social proof, get the early adopters on board.
The India vs Pakistan group chat connected to Adrasteia brought out the competitive energy -- cricket, debates, national pride banter. It gave the programme a built-in engagement engine I did not even have to manufacture.
F1 in Schools (JAS)
F1 in Schools was a global STEM competition where our team designed, built, and raced miniature Formula 1 cars. This was serious. Everything was tracked -- CSV data files, car designs, performance metrics, iterative testing. The engineering lifecycle: aerodynamic design, manufacturing, testing, branding, presentation.
The skills mapped directly to the real world. Project management. Data analysis. Presenting under pressure. The same cycle of build-measure-learn that drives my ventures. The crossover with co/Build was unexpected -- Armaan Khan was selling F1 diecast cars at co/Build events. The school STEM world and the startup community overlap more than you would think.
The Common Thread
Every school event, whether at ISGI in Oman or JAS in Dubai, follows the same pattern: a group chat gets created, chaos ensues, people show up, memories get made, and the group chat outlives the event by weeks.
The ISGI events carry a specific nostalgia -- slower, simpler, and richer because they were the first. The JAS events have different energy -- bigger, louder, more diverse. But the core experience is the same: teenagers turning any excuse into a social event, and the planning being half the fun.
These events are important not because of their educational content but because they capture the communal energy that makes school life actually memorable. When I look back at school years from now, I will not remember the lessons. I will remember the events.