About

Medicine taught me to take a history before writing a prescription.

I’m Mahmoud Attia, a final-year medical student at Suez University, drawn to psychiatry, and the founder of nqrah. I build software the way I was taught to treat people: understand the person first, then build.

Portrait of Mahmoud Attia

01 Curiosity

Taking things apart

I’ve been taking technology apart for as long as I can remember. Long before AI, I was setting up networks and servers and building WordPress sites just to see how they worked. Nobody asked me to. I wanted to know what happens between the click and the page.

02 Learning

A curriculum of my own

When AI arrived, I was among its earliest users, and it became one of my best teachers, of code and of English. Around it I built my own curriculum: Harvard’s CS50, Osama Elzero’s courses, Ibrahim Adel’s Python, and training from AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud and AMD. Since 2022 I’ve shipped full-stack products and bilingual websites for companies in Egypt and the UAE.

03 The market

Meeting the customer at the door

With a family member, I co-ran an e-commerce business. I handled media buying and most of the operations, and in a short time we passed EGP 500K in sales with strong margins. I met the Egyptian market up close: shipping companies, delivery agents, customers who order and then refuse. Some fixes were operational: a small automation that messaged customers at every step of their shipment took our delivery rate to 97%. Others were psychological: how a store speaks, confirms and follows up decides whether a customer trusts it enough to pay at the door, and whether they order again.

04 The product

nqrah

nqrah turns those lessons into a product: an Arabic-first platform for opening and running an online store in Egypt and the Middle East, built around cash on delivery, with AI that designs the store and writes the product pages. I’ve been building it for more than a year. The public beta opened on 10 October 2026, nqrah was accepted into startup programmes from AWS, Microsoft and Google Cloud, and full launch is planned for early 2027.

05 Next

Where the mind, health and technology meet

Psychology taught me that every behaviour has a reason. After graduation I plan to specialise in psychiatry and study business administration, to keep working where the mind, health and technology meet.

Portrait of Mahmoud Attia by a window

Timeline

  1. Early yearsNetworks, servers and WordPress sites, built to see how they work.
  2. 2022Full-stack web development, and the first bilingual sites for clients.
  3. E-commerceCo-ran an online business: EGP 500K+ in sales and a 97% delivery rate.
  4. 2025Started building nqrah.
  5. 9 June 2026Co-presented the FOMSU energy-drinks study at Suez University’s 4th Student Research Symposium, after designing its presentation, poster and website.
  6. 10 Oct 2026nqrah public beta, free for merchants.
  7. Early 2027Full launch of nqrah in Egypt, then Saudi Arabia and the Gulf.

What I believe

  • 01

    History before prescription

    Listen before proposing. The brief is a symptom, not a diagnosis.

  • 02

    Trust is a product feature

    Clear prices, honest messages, data people own. Trust is designed, not claimed.

  • 03

    Small doses, measured

    Ship the smallest change that works, measure it, then do the next one.

dev@nqrah.com

↑↓ navigate↵ openesc close
mahmoud@attia: ~