Tools Built by One, Designed for All

My name is Shakil Ahmad. I was born in Bangladesh, in a part of the world where exams could decide your entire future — but where access to preparation was a luxury few could afford.

I grew up in places most maps don't highlight. In tight homes. Under leaky roofs. With dreams that were bigger than the infrastructure around them. And yet, I kept dreaming.

I begged for prep materials. I asked for old books. I photocopied pages I couldn't buy. I studied under mosquito nets, on broken chairs, in borrowed time.

I wasn't proud of how I survived. But I survived. And I passed every test they put in front of me. Not because I was smarter — but because I was stubborn. And because I believed, deep down, that education was the only way out.

That belief carried me through a Fulbright Scholarship, a graduate degree in California, a CFA charter, a professional career in finance, data, and strategy, and a permanent home in Southern California, thousands of miles from where I started.

But even now — as I work as a Senior Financial Analyst at DreamHost, as I raise my child in safety, as I live in comfort — I haven't forgotten what it felt like to not know how to begin.

That's why I built Stars & Rights. Not because it's trendy. Not because it's profitable. But because if I had something like this growing up, everything would have been different.

So now I build what I once needed — and I build it for people who don't have to beg, or borrow, or hide their hunger to learn. Because if I can be the star that helps even one person fly, then the journey was worth it.