Amin Shaykho | |
|---|---|
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| Born | January 20, 1998 Seattle Washington |
| Education | Bellevue College, University of Washington |
| Occupation(s) | Businessman, speaker, social media influencer |
Amin Shaykho (born January 20, 1998) is a Syrian-American businessman, speaker and social media influencer. He is the founder and CEO of Kadama, which develops an app connecting students to tutors. [1] [2] [3] [4]
Shaykho has been on the Forbes 30 Under 30 List and also served as a speaker at TEDx events. [5] [6]
Shaykho was born and raised in Seattle, Washington to Syrian parents. [6] He is a first-generation Syrian-American. [6] [7] [8] He attended Lake Washington High School, graduating in 2016. [4] [9]
Shaykho also received an associate degree from Bellevue College in the same year. [10] While studying at Bellevue College, Shaykho founded the student club Code for Care, where students built mobile applications for local nonprofit organizations. [10]
Shaykho graduated from the University of Washington with a Bachelor of Science degree in computer science in 2018. [3] [11] [12] [13]
Prior to founding Kadama, Shaykho worked as a project lead software engineer at Apple. [2] [11] [13] [14] He also did work for Boeing. [10]
Shaykho co-developed the app Kadama with Marwan El-Rukby and his brother Dani Shaykho. [10] [15] [16] The app was named after the Arabic word for “service.” [17] It was designed as a multi-services app that connects users with service providers. [13] They launched the app publicly in 2018. [10] It initially focused on housework, then changed focus to tutoring in 2019. [15]
In 2019, Shaykho and his team at Kadama participated in the University of Washington’s Dempsey Startup Competition. [13] They also participated in the Foster School of Business Buerk Center for Entrepreneurship’s Jones + Foster Accelerator the following year. [13]
That year, they also won an award for the best student-led startup from the Northwest Entrepreneur Competition for their work on Kadama. [13] [18]
Shaykho received a Seattle Inno Under 25 Award in 2021. [19]
In 2022, Shaykho and his Kadama co-founders were named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 List. [12] [20] Shaykho was also featured on the cover of the July/August 2022 issue of the magazine 425 Business. [21] [22]
Shaykho was named to the Business Journal 40 Under 40 Honoree in 2023. [2]
Shaykho is also a social media influencer with 2.7 million followers (as of November 2024). [23] Shaykho is known for his viral TikTok videos that feature shopping and finance tips, which he uses to promote Kadama. [18] [22] [24] [25] Shaykho often goes viral for his videos featuring extra-large food. One of his most popular videos garnered 12 million views after he took an oversized popcorn bucket to the theater and had it filled for just $5. [26]