hi, i’m hamza.

i’m just a guy that loves creating things and this is my digital footprint.

as far as i can think i love computers and the internet. started with pentium 4 and then core 2 duo (it was a huge jump ngl). started playing gta vice city multiplayer (vcmp), because that was the only graphic game my computer could run. there was this server in vcmp called ‘LGS | Low Gravity Showdown’ run by an admin named ‘Thompson’ (his real name was hamza too lol). the idea of that server was that players have low gravity so they can jump higher and stay in air for longer. i used to only play that server because it was different than the rest. i was so amazed by something so different that i started creating my own servers and it took me a few good weeks to figure out porting and hosting. didn’t know programming back then so i used to open script files in notepad and make changes according to what i understand. and somehow by trial and error i got the server up and running. it wasn’t perfect like that ‘LGS | Low Gravity Showdown’ server because in my server cars had zero gravity too, but it was something and it was beautiful. i was so proud of myself.

after that i learned html/css from codecademy. a big shoutout to codecademy for making learning so easy that even a kid like me could do it.

after that i had this craze for making websites. i found out about domains and blogspot. fun thing about blogspot was that it was free. all the cracked software and games were on blogspot. i built so many .blogspot.com sites as i can. i bought my first domain hjtechworld.com from godaddy and linked it to one of my blogs. used to write blogs, host games and softwares. i fell in love with domains since then. those who know me knows how much i am still into domains. it was era of blogspot and like all eras it ended, but i learned a lot about website designs and domains from it.

and what comes after you have a domain and a site? seo, because we want to rank our site now to get approved on google adsense and start making some money right? i learned that too. it wasn’t much but it did make a difference in visitors and from that i got my google adsense account approved. made $0.18 which i never withdrawed but it was done and with that the curiosity ended so i moved on.

to become rich came after that and binary trading was in trend so as usual lost money on ‘IQ Options’ (it was a popular platform for binary trading). anyhow learned my lesson to stay away from it but the becoming rich part stays.

then the rise of clash of clans happened and as a kid hungry to become rich i sold coc accounts. there were facebook groups just for that. flipped accounts and made profit even. just after that got to know about bitcoin. what’s more interesting to me than a digital currency was that the creator of bitcoin ‘Satoshi Nakamoto’ is nowhere to be found. the guy literally built something so cool and vanished. as a kid who wanted to be rich bought bitcoin from the money i saved from selling COC accounts. sold them after holding few months and made profit on them. enough to buy myself a decent 750ti graphics card. finally the kid who could only play GTA VCMP can now play some decent graphic games. it was a win.

i started my bachelors in computer science and i thought back then that i would be superior in coding than others which i was for a few weeks, but then the dust settled and i was average. assignments deadline took over my curiosity to learn. ‘jack of all trades, master of none’ was what i heard in the back of my mind. and it kept going like that till the end. i wasn’t bad at coding or learning, it was just that. my expectations were different. but on the bright side i learned programming and problem solving the proper way, that i always wanted ever since i got to know about computers and internet. made really interesting projects and kept the freelancing side alive too.

after university i worked in a startup called ‘Royaldatum’ where we built ai applications. it ran for a few months before shutting down over funding and clients. learned working in a team there. after that started freelancing full time. somewhere deep down the curiosity to build something existed and this time it wasn’t a project, a site, or an app. it was to build a business out of this freelancing gig. i was glad because i thought my ability to craft, to create, to build was long gone. but it was right there under the dust and not only limited to building a business but for all the epic apps, sites, softwares too. i was happier than ever.

then i applied for masters in artificial intelligence in england and got accepted, so i stopped freelancing for it. wrote my dissertation on language models operating inside real-time, multi-modal robot interaction and worked with amazing professors. during the whole degree i was looking for gaps in the market to create something and just after finishing my degree i found it.

and thats what i am building right now. Petarca. ‘arca’ is latin for box, hence petarca. monthly subscription boxes for pets with food and all the essentials in them, so pet owners don’t have to keep thinking about it every month.

did a bunch of stuff in between.
some of it worked.
most of it didn’t.
but, i learned a lot.

p.s. if you want to talk, email me at ehamzajamil@gmail.com. i answer most short emails with a clear ask.