To put it simply, Fez Zafar is both a jack of all trades, and a man with a lot of phone numbers. A junior at Harvard College who prides himself in his ability to use humor to bring people together on campus, Zafar has spearheaded on-campus initiatives from junior assassins, On Harvard Time, and unique start-ups, leaving a long-lasting impact on Harvard students.
This March, Zafar single-handedly organized an immense game of assassins for the class of 2024—and it is still going strong. He attributes his idea for this well-liked activity back to his freshman year when he joined the South Asian Association. Last year, Zafar was co-social chair of SAA and helped plan out a game of assassins, of which he found himself playing and planning yet again as Dunster set up their own this past February. It was clear to Zafar that the game of assassins brought people together and helped introduce students to one another, something that the junior class needed the most after their first year entirely on Zoom.
“There weren’t many opportunities for our grade to come together in the way that a lot of freshman classes usually do,” Zafar explained. “So because we didn’t have that kind of socialization, we’re in kind of this weird situation. A lot of us know of each other because of GroupMe and Zoom, but we’ve never met [in real life].”
Zafar’s original goal was to get a minimum 150 people in on the game, with 350 as his maximum. But after sending 1200 emails to the junior class, a staggering 632 students ended up joining—from students both in the academic and social class of 2024. To assign everyone their targets, Zafar took it upon himself to individually text every player.
“I don’t have classes on Friday. So it took probably like four hours, but I spread it out over the course of the day,” Zafar said.
Yet Zafar doesn’t attribute the biggest accomplishment of assassins to his large quantifiable reach, but rather the immense community building and new connections between students that it revealed. He noted how foreign exchange students have especially felt more integrated into the community through the game; a lot of them are victorious due to their off-campus (and subsequently better hiding) housing.
“My favorite story is one guy had a girl who was his target. They didn’t know each other. He got her out and within two or three days they went on a date,” Zafar shared.
In addition to Zafar’s success in organizing hundreds of students to “assassinate,” or tap each other with spoons, he’s also brought laughter to the Harvard community through his involvement with On Harvard Time, a comedy video series on YouTube.
On Harvard Time has provided Harvard with satirical news and funny creative sketches. The most popular type of videos created are “the-man-on-the-street,” which involve an individual going around campus interviewing strangers they run into.
“It’s a great time because in the span of three or four hours in an afternoon, you’re really going all over campus talking to all different kinds of people,” Zafar said. When asked what type of new content he’s looking to create, Zafar explained, “This year and next year, we want to make more videos with sports teams. There’s kind of a disconnect between athletes and non-athletes and I think it would be fun to show that perspective in a lighthearted way.”
One of Zafar’s favorite videos that he made was returning to campus after a Covid-induced shortened fall semester, with the entire student body finally back on campus. “We spent two or three days filming and we went everywhere. It was fun to capture the excitement people had for finally being back,” Zafar said.
Zafar’s passion for innovation and bringing people together encouraged his involvement with Zesti beginning in May 2021. This Data-Match inspired start-up allowed groups of students to meet other groups of students looking for either friendship or love. Zafar led the partnerships and marketing of Zesti. The app launched last April and was used throughout the rest of the semester. Zafar put his film-making skills to use and produced fun Instagram videos that featured recognizable students on campus in order to get the word out. While Zafar and his team members agreed to move on from Zesti, Zafar explained, “All that experience was tremendously helpful, we all learned so much.”
Although Zafar isn’t sure of what’s next for him, he knows that he will continue to meet new people and explore his different interests.
“I always enjoy meeting students because a lot of people are building things right here. So it’s always fascinating to hear about their experiences, their insights, and what they think about different industries,” said Zafar.
So, if you’re looking for some advice on entrepreneurship here at Harvard or even just how to run a 600-person game of assassin, Fez Zafar is your guy.
Ilana Feder ’26 (ilanafeder@college.harvard.edu) writes Forum for the Independent.