Safa Karagoz, 20
Safa Karagoz: The Entrepreneurial Builder, Making Himself a Target for Luck
Safa Karagoz does not back down from a challenge - he faces them head on and paves his own path. His earliest coding experiments started in high school when he decided to build a complex video game platform. “I had no idea what I was doing. I taught myself Solidity off YouTube tutorials, hacked together something that barely worked, and sent it to my friends thinking it was the coolest thing ever made. It wasn't.” The setback only fueled his perseverance. Rather than putting away his tools, Safa doubled down - eventually engineering a custom inventory management system for a local AV company. The system quickly scaled and changed his trajectory forever. “That was the first time something I made actually changed how people worked. 50+ staff used it daily, and the company saved thousands a year. That's when it stopped being a hobby.”
When he arrived at Rutgers University to pursue a computer science degree with a mathematics minor, Safa naturally sought out high-energy environments where he could keep building. His introduction to the hacker ecosystem came during his freshman year at HackRU Fall 2024. Attending alongside his friend Yusuf, the pair pulled an all-nighter, powered through the delirious late-night coding window, and threw together a last-minute pitch for their project Reminisce - a personalized AI companion designed to help dementia patients maintain cognitive connections. Built with Next.js, Three.js, MongoDB, Cloudflare AI, Tailwind CSS, and ElevenLabs voice cloning to emulate loved ones' voices in real time, securing 2nd place in the NeuroTech Track. “That night showed us two things: how much we could build in a ridiculously short window, and that we could actually win,” Safa recalls. “So we kept going.”
That early victory sparked a relentless momentum. Safa transformed into a competitive force across the east coast circuit, amassing further victories at HackNYU 2025 and HackRU Spring 2025, alongside top finishes in pitch competitions like ScarletPitch 2025 (1st Place) and UPitchNJ 2025 (3rd Place).
Weekend hackathons served as rapid incubators for Safa's larger entrepreneurial pursuits. Outside of competition, he and his co-founder engineered and launched What's the Word, a dedicated social event platform that quickly expanded to 1,500+ active users and secured official partnerships with 80% of Georgetown University’s student organizations.
Safa credits his rapid trajectory to a core belief in personal agency within the tech ecosystem. “I have a strong belief that luck isn't random, rather you can make yourself a target for it,” Safa explains. “Hackathons have been how I do that.” That mindset paid off directly at DandyHacks ‘24, where winning Best Use of AI earned his team a 30-minute consultation with venture capital firm Reach Capital. That initial introduction unlocked an ML engineering role at Teachshare - a Reach Capital portfolio company - which subsequently opened doors to his internship at Doorman, another startup in their portfolio, and plugged him into high-level investor networks. “None of that was a master plan. It was just showing up and letting one thing lead to the next. Almost every major opportunity I've had in college traces back to a hackathon.”
Safa continues to stay grounded through snowboarding, soccer, and supporting the next wave of builders. Whether hyping up high school teams at HackNYU or launching consumer software, he remains defined by his open approach to community growth. Safa demonstrates that when technical grit meets an active community, luck becomes something you build for yourself.
Quick Facts
Safa Karagoz, 20
Safa Karagoz: The Entrepreneurial Builder, Making Himself a Target for Luck
Safa Karagoz does not back down from a challenge - he faces them head on and paves his own path. His earliest coding experiments started in high school when he decided to build a complex video game platform. “I had no idea what I was doing. I taught myself Solidity off YouTube tutorials, hacked together something that barely worked, and sent it to my friends thinking it was the coolest thing ever made. It wasn't.” The setback only fueled his perseverance. Rather than putting away his tools, Safa doubled down - eventually engineering a custom inventory management system for a local AV company. The system quickly scaled and changed his trajectory forever. “That was the first time something I made actually changed how people worked. 50+ staff used it daily, and the company saved thousands a year. That's when it stopped being a hobby.”
When he arrived at Rutgers University to pursue a computer science degree with a mathematics minor, Safa naturally sought out high-energy environments where he could keep building. His introduction to the hacker ecosystem came during his freshman year at HackRU Fall 2024. Attending alongside his friend Yusuf, the pair pulled an all-nighter, powered through the delirious late-night coding window, and threw together a last-minute pitch for their project Reminisce - a personalized AI companion designed to help dementia patients maintain cognitive connections. Built with Next.js, Three.js, MongoDB, Cloudflare AI, Tailwind CSS, and ElevenLabs voice cloning to emulate loved ones' voices in real time, securing 2nd place in the NeuroTech Track. “That night showed us two things: how much we could build in a ridiculously short window, and that we could actually win,” Safa recalls. “So we kept going.”
That early victory sparked a relentless momentum. Safa transformed into a competitive force across the east coast circuit, amassing further victories at HackNYU 2025 and HackRU Spring 2025, alongside top finishes in pitch competitions like ScarletPitch 2025 (1st Place) and UPitchNJ 2025 (3rd Place).
Weekend hackathons served as rapid incubators for Safa's larger entrepreneurial pursuits. Outside of competition, he and his co-founder engineered and launched What's the Word, a dedicated social event platform that quickly expanded to 1,500+ active users and secured official partnerships with 80% of Georgetown University’s student organizations.
Safa credits his rapid trajectory to a core belief in personal agency within the tech ecosystem. “I have a strong belief that luck isn't random, rather you can make yourself a target for it,” Safa explains. “Hackathons have been how I do that.” That mindset paid off directly at DandyHacks ‘24, where winning Best Use of AI earned his team a 30-minute consultation with venture capital firm Reach Capital. That initial introduction unlocked an ML engineering role at Teachshare - a Reach Capital portfolio company - which subsequently opened doors to his internship at Doorman, another startup in their portfolio, and plugged him into high-level investor networks. “None of that was a master plan. It was just showing up and letting one thing lead to the next. Almost every major opportunity I've had in college traces back to a hackathon.”
Safa continues to stay grounded through snowboarding, soccer, and supporting the next wave of builders. Whether hyping up high school teams at HackNYU or launching consumer software, he remains defined by his open approach to community growth. Safa demonstrates that when technical grit meets an active community, luck becomes something you build for yourself.
