Z Combinator is a student-run builder program at AIS-R. Join a cohort, build a real product over one semester, and demo it to the entire school.
AI is a tool we use, the way a carpenter uses a saw. Members use Claude Code, Codex, and whatever else gets the thing built. But the club is about shipping products, not about the tools. If your idea is a bakery, build the bakery.
Not a slide deck, not a mock-up, not a hypothetical. A live product other people can use by the end of the semester. Software, hardware, a service, a storefront. If it ships, it counts.
Two weeks to lock an idea. The rest of the semester to build it. Every Sunday you say out loud what you made since the last meeting. The deadline is the whole point.
A room of people who are also behind on their thing, also stuck on the same bug, also nervous about Demo Day. Working next to them is most of the value.
Everything on this track runs during two lunch meetings a week.
Lock in what you are building and roughly how far you intend to get. Scope it down until it is possible in a semester, then scope it down again.
Sundays you build in the room together. Thursdays you learn from people who have already done it. Visible progress every single week.
The whole school shows up. Students, teachers, parents. Three minutes to demo the live product, two minutes of questions. No slides about what you would build. Show the thing.
Projects with real traction, meaning actual users, revenue, or clear momentum, can apply for school-backed funding to keep going. Written pitch, itemised budget, case by case.
Everyone opens with a one-minute update: what did you build since the last meeting? Then you build, in the same room, for the rest of lunch.
That one minute is why the week matters. Saying out loud what you made is the fastest accountability there is.
Founders and investors in person, Y Combinator lectures, and hands-on workshops on deploying products, using AI APIs, product design, and finding your first users.
Past and upcoming sessions are announced in the member dashboard.
Paid for personally by the club president for every new member who sticks with the cohort. These are the tools you build with, so the subscription is functional, not a gift card.
Finish with real traction and you can apply for money from the school to grow the project past the semester. Domain and server costs for software, real capital for a physical business.
A school-wide audience of students, teachers and parents watching you demo something you built. The single best line you will have for a college application or a first job.
Speaker sessions with founders and investors from the Riyadh and regional startup ecosystem, starting with a partner at a $50 million venture fund.
On campus, off-site, or run jointly with other Riyadh schools. Short, competitive, and the fastest way to find out what you can build under pressure.
Once a semester the cohort runs a hands-on build workshop for younger AIS-R students. You do not really know a thing until you have taught it to a seventh grader.
None of this is taught as theory. You pick it up because the deadline makes you.
Founder and Managing Partner, Propeller
Propeller is a Jordan-rooted venture capital firm operating across Amman, Riyadh, Boston, and Silicon Valley. It recently launched a $50 million fund focused on AI infrastructure and AI-native software startups.
Founders and operators from the Riyadh startup ecosystem
Additional speakers are being sourced from the local and regional startup ecosystem. Members get the schedule first, in the dashboard.
Founder and President
Grade 11, AIS-R
Ships AI products at early-stage startups. Software and product intern at fschoolai, where he built a course-aware AI video tutor and drove a marketing push past 350,000 views. Built crosscode, an open-source CLI with 1,000+ weekly npm downloads. Runs a sliding-scale tutoring practice that raised 11 students by an average of one IB point.
No. The application does not ask for your GPA or your technical background, and plenty of good projects are not software. If you do want to build software, the club is a fast way to learn, and AI tooling closes a lot of the gap.
The first two weeks of the semester are for exactly that. You arrive with an interest and leave ideation with a scoped project. Apply anyway.
Two lunch meetings a week, plus whatever you put into your project outside of them. The honest answer is that members who only work during meetings do not have much to demo in the final week.
Getting stuck is most of building, and Sunday exists for exactly that. Bring the problem to the room and you will usually leave with a way forward. The cohort works because everyone is stuck on something.
Yes. Teams are allowed and often a good idea. Each person is still accountable for their own weekly update.
Any AIS-R high school student with a school Google account. You sign in with your @aisr.org email, which is also how the club verifies you are a student.
It is earned, not automatic. Growth funding is a school-backed ask for projects that finish the semester with real traction, and every request comes with a written pitch and an itemised budget. Getting there is the goal the whole semester points at.
Student leadership gets identified from Cohort 1 onward, and a Grade 10 co-founder is being recruited this year. The club is meant to outlast its founder.
Use your American International School Riyadh Google account. That sign-in is how the club confirms you are a student, so there is no separate password to make.
Your grade, what you are interested in building, and why you want in. No GPA, no resume, no technical background required.
Applications are open. Rolling review. Cohort 1 caps at 25 builders.