So you want to know more

Ayoub
Ouaantar

Technical consultant & endurance athlete

Ayoub training for triathlon
Erkner - Germany, 2024
Finish line
M
HALF-IRONMAN
FINISHER

My Story

Here's how I got here — the short version.

Growing up

I was born and raised in Casablanca. Life was simple, but far from easy. No luxury, no hobbies—just school, work, and a constant drive to figure things out. That's how it was. That's how I grew up.

2017-2019

By my second year of university, I was already working. I got the chance to join Vendo.ma, one of Morocco's earliest funded startups—featured in Forbes, led by some of the brightest people in the local tech scene. I learned fast. Coding just made sense to me: you build something, it works or it doesn't. I liked that clarity.

2019

In 2019, my brother asked for help with his logistics company. E-commerce was booming in Morocco, but the delivery experience was still rough. We used the Uber driver model—no fancy PDA devices, just basic smartphones. So we built around what drivers already had: camera scanning, a clean UI, and a system that just worked. Nothing fancy—just useful. It scaled. It made a difference.

August 2020

In August 2020, at the height of COVID, I moved to Munich. New language, new culture, new systems. It felt like a different world—and I had to adapt fast. I did.

2022

Then in 2022, everything paused. A normal Tuesday football game with colleagues turned into surgery. One bad tackle, one snap—I broke my elbow. Four screws. I couldn't lift a coffee cup. I couldn't type properly. I definitely couldn't swim.

2023

By 2023, the pain was still there. But I was done making excuses. So I set a ridiculous goal: swim 1500 meters by December. With metal in my arm. With limited mobility. With zero swimming experience. Just because I was tired of waiting for things to be perfect.

It was brutal. Every stroke was awkward. Progress was slow. But I kept going—and in December, I did it. It wasn't fast or pretty, but it was done.

2024 - Present

In 2024, I completed my first Half-Ironman. Now I'm training for the Marathon des Sables in 2025—250km across the Sahara Desert. I'm still consulting on tech. I still have screws in my arm.

I'm not trying to be a story. There are thousands of African kids who've done more with even less—who chased their dreams without a smooth childhood or any guarantees. I'm just someone who doesn't like being told something's not possible. Whether it's building delivery systems with basic phones or swimming with broken bones—you figure it out, or you don't.