For most people in Qatar, air conditioning is simply part of everyday life. It runs quietly in the background, keeping homes, offices, and shops comfortable through months of intense heat. For Anas, however, that familiar hum represents something much bigger: hidden waste.
“Vora isn’t really about the solution,” says Anas Rustom, co-founder and CEO of Vora. “It’s really about the problem that we’re solving.”
That problem first caught his attention while he and his co-founder, Mazen Assayed, co-founder and CMO, were university students looking for something meaningful to build. As they researched challenges around them, one statistic stood out. Anas says air conditioning can account for around 70% of a building’s electricity demand in Qatar, yet significant energy can be lost through inefficient cooling, overcooling, and cooling empty spaces.
The issue felt unexpectedly personal. Growing up, Anas remembers his mother reminding him not to waste water, even correcting something as simple as opening a faucet more than necessary. The lesson stayed with him: never consume more than you need. Years later, when he began researching energy use in cooling, that childhood lesson connected with a much larger challenge.
I grew up hating waste.
“When I found the problem with air conditioners, it kind of clicked in my head,” he recalls.
Making Existing ACs Smarter
That idea eventually became Vora, a QSTP incubated hardware and software startup developing an AI-powered device designed to optimize existing air conditioners rather than replace them. In Anas’s simplest explanation, Vora is “a small device that optimizes your air conditioner.”
Behind that simplicity are two AI systems. The first continuously evaluates factors such as indoor temperature, humidity, outdoor weather conditions, and user preferences to identify more energy-efficient cooling settings without sacrificing comfort. The second focuses on predictive maintenance, identifying signs of potential AC faults before they develop into more serious problems.
The technology also learns how individual users prefer their environment. “Some people feel comfortable at 18 degrees, some people feel too cold,” Anas explains. Rather than applying one setting to everyone, Vora adapts to each user’s habits and comfort levels.
Importantly, the device works with air conditioners people already own. During setup, it learns the infrared signals from an existing AC remote, allowing it to communicate with the unit without requiring users to replace their system. For Anas, making energy efficiency accessible is central to the idea.
When Hardware Fights Back
Turning that idea into a functioning product has brought its share of challenges. Unlike software, hardware cannot always be fixed with an immediate update. Components need to be ordered, shipped, tested, and sometimes redesigned entirely.
One recent challenge involved Vora’s casing. After designing and 3D-printing an enclosure, the team discovered that it was trapping heat around the processor and interfering with sensor readings. Solving the problem meant redesigning the casing to improve ventilation and airflow while better isolating the sensor.
“There are a lot of bottlenecks and constraints,” Anas says. “That’s why hardware startups are a bit harder to progress with.”
Developing the AI brings a different challenge. Its performance improves as Vora gathers more real-world data, meaning each deployment gives the team another opportunity to improve its energy-saving and predictive-maintenance capabilities. Yet despite the technical hurdles, Anas says he has never seriously questioned whether the idea could work.
“I will make it happen,” he says. “Whether it’s working or not, I will make it happen.”
Built in Qatar, for the Gulf
Founded around a year and a half ago, Vora has grown into a lean five-person team led by Anas and Mazen, both from technical backgrounds. Building the company in Qatar was never incidental.
“Qatar is basically my home,” says Anas, who grew up in the country. “I want to give back to Qatar.”
The region also presents exactly the challenge Vora was designed to address. Cooling is essential across the GCC, making energy efficiency particularly important.
Earlier this year, Vora joined the QSTP Incubation Program after Anas had spent months trying to become part of the ecosystem. Since then, he says QSTP has supported the startup through workspace, interns, exposure, and opportunities to pitch Vora to investors and other influential audiences.
“I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t have scaled this fast without the support of QSTP,” he says. For a founder who considers pitching one of his greatest strengths, those opportunities have been particularly valuable.
Looking Beyond Qatar
Vora has now completed its first minimum viable product (MVP) and is moving through beta testing. The team’s next goal is to enter the market, continue improving the technology, expand the range of devices it can support, and eventually scale across the GCC and beyond.
For Anas, the ambition extends beyond building a successful company. He sees the potential for Vora’s technology to reduce unnecessary electricity consumption in other parts of the world, including regions where energy can be far less accessible and affordable.
I want us to go out into the world and proudly say that we originated from Qatar.
Build in Public
For Anas, one of entrepreneurship’s biggest lessons has had little to do with engineering. Coming from a technical background, he once believed that building a great product would be enough. Entrepreneurship taught him that how a founder explains, presents, and shares an idea can matter just as much as the technology itself.
That realization shapes the advice he gives other first-time founders: put yourself out there, talk about what you are building, and do not let the fear of someone copying your idea keep you invisible.
His version is even simpler: “Build in public.”
For a startup born from noticing what others had learned to overlook, it feels like a fitting philosophy. Vora began by making hidden energy waste visible. Now, its founders are determined to make the solution visible too.
Building a technology startup tackling a real-world challenge? Explore the QSTP Incubation Program and join a growing ecosystem supporting startups as they develop, test, and scale solutions from Qatar to the world.
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