Quest University students Oscar Bonilla Jr. and Ammar Kandil were one approval away from climbing the Great Pyramid of Giza.
It started as way to kickstart an idea for their new mobile app but soon grew into an expression of solidarity with a country’s youth-inspired social movements.
Kandil, an Egyptian national currently studying at Quest University, says he and Bonilla wanted to challenge what seemed impossible.
An alumnus of the African Leadership Academy, a boarding school for aspiring interdisciplinary leaders, Kandil recalls a promise he made to the academy that motivated him to attempt to climb the pyramid.
“In the enrollment contract, it states that each student must return to the continent before their 25th birthday to give something back to Africa,” Kandil explains. “So doing something to fulfill this commitment has been in the back of my mind since I graduated.”
While still in his first year at Quest in early 2014, Kandil met Bonilla, who was in third year. The two bonded over a mutual fascination of competition.
Bonilla was particularly intrigued by the Neknomination craze, the act of filming oneself creatively chugging alcohol, nominating friends to follow and posting the video online.
“Even though this was a fairly trivial fad, the ideas of competition and challenge are still there,” explains Bonilla. He even did some personal research on Quest campus by posting videos of himself lip-syncing to popular music and challenging other students to reply. “It definitely took off, people were into it. Everyone enjoys some form of recognition,” says Bonilla.
After experiencing the role of social media in spreading movement culture, the two started to develop a product out of this concept of competition.
“The app, which is still a work in progress, is called OneUp,” says Bonilla. “It allows people to showcase what they are good at or proud of and invite others to do the same.”
Although conceived as a way to harness competitive nature through the process of ‘one-upping’ other users’ videos, the two agree that the app can also be used more traditionally.
“We also see it simply as a forum for sharing activities that provide the user pleasure,” says Bonilla.
In December, the two travelled to Bonilla’s hometown of San Francisco to get some feedback on the preliminary stages of their app. Kandil, who had done a year-long internship with the San Fran-based tech start-up Kullect before attending Quest, used his connections in the city to test their idea.
“We received very positive feedback after meeting with various tech companies,” says Kandil, “so we decided to keep the ball rolling. And what better way to launch OneUp than to do something that would be very hard to one-up: climb the Great Pyramid of Giza.” “We were both on the same page, we both agreed that this was an awesome idea,” says Bonilla.
Kandil travelled to Egypt alone in early January 2015 to start getting the necessary approvals. Meanwhile, in San Francisco, Bonilla was in communication with the camera company GoPro.
After hearing their story, the company sponsored the two by sending them some equipment to film their adventure.
Kandil used this as leverage with the various government officials. “I told them, ‘This is GoPro, they’re going to put our video on their website and it will be great for the country’s tourism,’” which has severely declined in recent years, according to Kandil.
When Bonilla arrived in Egypt for the final pre-climb meetings in mid-January, his presence helped. “Obviously I couldn’t understand anything, but I think me just being there as a part of OneUp gave the project more credibility,” says Bonilla.
After numerous meetings and phone conversations, Kandil managed to convince the General Council of the Ministry of Defence and Egyptian Intelligence to approve and support their plan to climb the Great Pyramid. But when they arrived just steps from the first layer of stones, the chief commander of the Tourism and Antiquities Police in Giza refused to allow them onto the pyramid.
“He wanted explicit permission from the Minister of Antiquities,” says Kandil. So days later, the couple returned to the pyramid with a letter signed by both ministers — of Tourism and Antiquities — confirming their sponsorship of Kandil and Bonilla as a part of the global OneUp campaign.
“This is how I phrased it for the government,” explains Kandil, “or else they would have seen it as just a stunt.”
But the chief commander refused to budge. “He wanted a letter addressed specifically to him,” says Kandil. “Bottom line is that no one wanted to take responsibility. If something were to go wrong, I wouldn’t get the seven years in jail, the guard would. He would get fired from his job.”
Although their goal has not yet been realized, Kandil and Bonilla value their journey. “From a very personal and political standpoint, I’ve always known about the corruption in my country’s government,” says Kandil. “People spend their lives in government offices begging to be able to register for various things, and they still get turned down. So for me to get this close to doing something that’s ultimately a stunt is still something.”“He’s taught me a lot about the Arab Spring movement and the fight going on to raise awareness of state control,” says Bonilla. “I’m honoured to be a part of something that reflects that movement.”
The two plan to return to Egypt in the summer to give it another shot. Until then, Bonilla and Kandil are keeping in touch with Egypt’s officials. “I’m just making sure they don’t forget about us,” says Kandil.
