STILL VERY WELL MADE IN NIGERIA - EPISODE 2

hi everybody good morning good morning good afternoon good evening wherever you are in the past of the world it's it's great to be with you again you know it's been six weeks now and we're still getting a real thrill from speaking with incredibly talented gifted hard-working people from different parts of Nigeria who in our opinion typify what being very well made in Nigeria is all about my name is Julia okojax I'm the lead consultant of Julia Jax Consulting and one of the things we do is that we support focused growing businesses build stronger and more visible Brands and we amplify their voices and reach through brand storytelling unplugged that is this program here is one of the ways in which we tell stories about amazing personal and corporate Brands which you may or may not have heard of today in our still very well made in Nigeria series we get to talk with someone who's been doing amazing things with water and Technology among other things so welcome with me I guess for today Hamza yunusa Hamza you're welcome I am going to invite you thank you thank you thank you I I'm inviting you to join on um yeah on Instagram hi Geraldine welcome welcome hi Freddy get me hi Survivor hi sister IQ hi peace welcome Survivor peace thank you for joining thank you oh hi how's that there you are yes I just need to do a quick uh okay okay so guys let me tell you a little bit about Hamza just in case you don't know hi tendai welcome welcome welcome welcome okay Hamza is something else if you a few things but while he's sorting out a few things let me tell you about him he's an innovator and he's also an entrepreneur and he designed and developed a water purification system called filter X360 which is going to tell us about and this system has been piloted at the roaches Foundation college for Africa in owerri IMO States other things have happened since then you know which I believe he's going to tell us about too and in 2018 Hamza won a place at the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology MIT boot camps and has also represented Nigeria the unleash Innovation labs for sdgs now if you haven't followed them hanza I think you should but particularly follow him on medium he's a poet he's a writer he also plays basketball when he has a spare time he said when he has a spare time you know but he he's got some amazing writing that you should follow on medium you know and um I'm gonna ask him some questions from what he wrote there too Hamza is the founder of hydrodynamics limited it's a water tech startup that aims to bring clean water to every Nigerian by deploying Cutting Edge Technologies a poet and a writer of short stories I then say a blogger too maybe maybe he'll tell us Hamza plays basketball during his bedtime and his passion is about technology Enterprise and building strong institutions that is Hamza that is so now we are going to meet The Man Behind all this good stuff so Hamza when a producer research you the one description that kept popping up was innovator invent actually too inventor and innovator specifically mentioned by inventions like the water purification system filter X360 the SmartWater media meter idea wbps 107 and the mobile app for consumers now we're going to dig into this that would be my second question but the first question is people describe you as an in the base of what's how would you describe yourself oh you have to unmute yourself please I have to amuse yourself okay okay can you hear me now you have to mute yourself I have I have oh great thank you okay perfectly all right so uh yeah essentially I would describe myself as an innovator as well because um yes what innovators do is uh they just create uh something out of uh what is already existing I can hear you I can't hear you so however what did you create is usually I think Instagram is giving a little bit of a problem we'll see if you can reconnect on Instagram if not yeah do you want me to to join a game the Instagram you want me to join again Julie are you with me um um no I'd like you to repeat you to repeat what you said please okay I can hear you but there's a time delay so could you repeat what you just said about how would you do okay okay that's fine so like I said um I would describe myself as an innovator I've been called a lot of things there are people who call me engineer people who call me inventor people who call me all sort of names um Juliet seems it seems you bumped off from a stream yard are you with me though okay I'm back okay I think it was my network I I do apologize well soon will soon help us create a better technology I'm sure you know thank you everybody who's joined us on Instagram so answer the question really was um people describe you as an innovator and an inventor how do you describe yourself uh I would go with the word innovative because uh I've been called a lot of things uh some people come engineer some people call me inventor there are people who even call me a hybrid geologist none of which I am but so so I would better describe myself as an innovator because what innovators do essentially is you don't have to be an engineer to be an innovator you don't you don't have to be a scientist to be an innovator you just need to be a person that wants to solve a problem and what innovators do is essentially they look at how things you know are being done in their societies and they just feel okay I see an opportunity here to make change to to make things much more efficient uh to make things uh you know easier to do and so essentially in my own case I just I just experienced a very you know devastating situation where I was in Bombay State and then I saw a boy of about 10 years old drinking water from an aftown alongside Birds castle and other contaminants so so uh that motivated me to start researching water and I felt at that time that I needed to be a part of the solution to the Nigerian Water Crisis so I started researching water and I found out that Nigeria was a really a water-rich country so there was no reason why we should have situations like that and so I felt okay the major issue we're having is a lack of infrastructure and when I did my research for that I found out that that particular place it's called local government in gombe they have a very low water table and even if you drink bottles there it's hard for you to get water so the government builds Earth dams for them massive homes like that and when the rains come it collects water and that's what they use and unfortunately there has not been any effort from that time to maybe purify the water articulate it to each household and all of that so that was how the filter X360 came about I after doing all of my research I decided okay we could design something that could filter water for people on the spot and without the need for electricity or chemicals because essentially electricity is inadequate in Nigeria and chemicals have a long-term Health implication so we just decided to say okay we use membrane filters because 0.01 micrometer core size that has the capacity to remove all bacteria viruses protozoans and even clear turbidity From Any Given sample of fresh water using our filters even the smallest bacteria cannot pass through it simply filters it uses ultrafiltration technology to remove all of these pathogens from some any given example and it purifies water to up to 99.9 uh We've tested in many places here in Abuja we tested it at a lake called jabi Lake and we took the samples to the lab and it showed that the purified water conforms with all who standards we also tested it at a place called ugodiaki community in very close to Benin City and there we also did run our test on a boho in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of water resources and so it was also found that the purified water from a machine conforms to that really true standards in fact we are preparing to do a joint project with the Federal Ministry of water resources to purify water across the north western part of Nigeria and thus and uh within the Western part of the country there okay you know that that was one of the questions I was going to ask you um much later but I might as well ask you now um like uh how would this um how would you be able to scale this up I was looking forward reason my question but let me ask it because I I I thought it up you know how would you be able to scale this up because what you said about them water I think it's it's not just a Nigerian situation it is an African situation to a large extent so how would you be what are your plans to scale it up nationally and sub originally to begin with sorry sorry let me finish I'm sorry in the absence of um or in a situation where we don't have many water pipes yes yes how how would you scale that so yes uh essentially um you see the filter X360 solution is a temporary solution and to be honest I I find it very exciting that uh it's it's uh what you call a stepping stone or launch pad for me in my journey in the water sector because I haven't built the filter X360 and deploying it in a pilot project and seeing the level of impact that it could make I I felt okay for example when we deployed it in at the Rogers Foundation College it was founded to purify 24 000 liters of water in a day and so 24 000 liters of water is according to World Bank standards is enough for a community of less than a thousand people about 906 people in a day so uh although I have done something incredible uh you built a system it's purifying water and people are getting access to water and even the institution itself told us that I'm only it spent about a million to buy a bottle of water for the kids but now that we have that system in the school it will channel that money to buy more books and laboratory equipment and I felt very excited because the school is a school where people that are less privileged study and it is for free students that are offered often kids from Nigeria Nigeria Togo Mali from all all across Africa so I felt really excited and I was really happy that we were able to provide such a solution for an institution like that however something in me was still missing I still was not satisfied my dream was to impact millions of people with water and now get into your question how do you scale this so This the filter X360 solution is a very temporary solution Asian if you really want to solve the water problem in Nigeria we have to focus on the institution that has the infrastructure to cater for millions of people at a time with water and my guess is as good as yours that's the water boards of the water utilities and that was what led to the development of the smart meters because we felt I felt okay the filter X360 could only cater for a small number of people if we really wanted to impact the larger population of Clean Water we would have to focus on the water utilities and so I did my research on the water utilities and I found out that they had a myriad of problems let's do a bit of economics what are utilities have a commodity imagine you have a business that creates a product that people use every minute of every day and yet you are still not a profitable business does that make economic sense it doesn't so water utilities have water they sell water and people use water every minute of every day And yet when I was a kid I used to travel a lot with my dad right so most of the places that I go to I found out that the water boards are the most gloomy looking and the most ill maintained structures that you see in every stage that you can go to so that's terrible and then my research showed that the only reason why water utilities were not profitable was because they were locked up in some some very weird and AK operational procedures and their service delivery processes were not streamlined at all and so we felt okay uh these these were the issues that were eating up there the money guys can you still hear us I don't know if I have Frozen or Hamza is Frozen and then you know or are you with me yes I am I am okay okay oh some water balls have more than five accounts they tell you go to the bank you can pay the money to any of these accounts and there are accounts into which if you pay money that money is lost forever you would never see it again and then again there were about seven different processes that we currently use you know to let the customers know how much water they have consumed uh they will first of all send their stuff out to go and enumerate a certain area that cost money transport costs and then the staff comes back to the office and then they do some sort of evaluation and then they do billing and then they still have to go out to deliver these bills to each household that costs money printing the bills cost money I know one of the states here I'll not mention it very close to Abuja here spend six million naira every month to print bills that's ridiculous so before they generate these funds they're already spending the money in this inefficient operational procedures and then so I felt I and my team got together and say you know this doesn't make sense let's apply some technology here and see how we can help them cut their operational costs so we developed a smart meter which immediately you stole it in a household from your office you can administratively log into our system and see that Julia Jackson's house is consuming 10 liters of water as I right now as we speak and this is how much he paid for it so there is no need for you to send any staff out to go check out the house or to spend money on transportation and all of that and the customer doesn't have to go to the bank or go to a prepaid vendor to buy a prepaid codes because essentially it's one of the reasons why people are not paying for water he says I have to pay for transportation go to a bank tolerate a root teller before she answers me and then at the end of the day I have to take Transportation back home so we said okay develop a mobile application where people can simply purchase water within their mobile phones and even if you travel to China you can use your mobile phone to buy water for your household back home in Nigeria so you make the system make everything very easy and it costs it cuts all of the operational chunk that that they used to have that you know uh you know was eating into their revenues and uh it also called corruption you don't have any fuel stuff going to meet a customer and telling you you're feeling so and so but if you give me a bright I can I can connect your water and our dashboard is very very uh you know clear very simple and accountable all the revenues coming into the water sector is directly reflected on the dashboard as soon as you pay for water it shows on the dashboard so there is no star that will be able to cut corners and start into eat into the revenues of the water sector uh without without being accountable so that's uh the kind of system that we have created and currently we're working on developing we're using artificial intelligence to develop a leakage detection system globally the world uses 39 billion dollars on uh through leakages in pipes uh in the developed World they lose about 20 to 30 percent of all the water that they produce but in Africa especially in Nigeria I'm using Nigeria as a case study most of the states lose 60 to 70 percent of all the water they produce to maintages that's a lot so we felt if we really want everyone to have access to clean water we have to plug the leakages and why do these leakages remain persistent you would have a pipe link Gardens thousands of liters of water being lost to that through that liquid and there is no warning system the water utility has no way of knowing that that leakage is taking place and people don't take responsibility to go and report it instead what they do they they take advantage of the situation yes and they gain access to non-revenue water and the utility is losing Millions so we are developing leakage detection systems using uh yeah machine learning algorithms or what you call artificial intelligence so that system will tell us immediately and the case takes place in the pipe and it's reported directly to our dashboard and all we need to do is to tell the utility that you have a leakage at Social location because the reporting system comes with an IP uh with with a GPS location so we tell them exactly where the vehicle is taking place and within an hour it's been clocked as opposed to having a leakage for weeks or even months losing millions of naira you know with without any knowledge so that is what we are doing and the main reason why we're doing these things is because we want to ensure that water utilities are much more profitable they have the capacity to generate to save 4 billion naira within a space of five months just through the water that they lose that's truly changes alone so imagine what they would get if they Consolidated their revenues you know from people that are that also consuming water if they are able to make more money they have the capacity to maintain aging infrastructure and even expand to underserved areas most of the water infrastructure in Nigeria are over 30 years old some of them was were installed even before I was born so they need to check to be changed I'm getting old already I'm over 30 years old what is the average age that is acceptable for um the infrastructure water infrastructure yes so so it depends it depends some of them some of them you're talking about 15 years some of them last for 10 years some of them 20 so it depends on the on the vendor and the quality of the product that you're buying but essentially you need you need to be very very responsible if you're dealing with infrastructures that provide an essential commodity you understand so infrastructures like water infrastructure need to be given attention and they need to be replaced regularly so that's that that's that's essentially the big picture well guys I don't know if um all of you were here at the beginning but I'm I'm actually Hamza is putting flesh to the bones that we we talked about you know when we introduced him now to a large extent this was actually what he says he was he was inspired to start on this this journey when he saw a little boy drinking water contaminated water water that was also being um used by livestock you know from probably an Earthen a puddle a pool in the ground you know yes so I I know I'm not saying it as eloquently as it is he he said it but that was the essential thing and he started looking at it from what is the solution how can we resolve this and this is where I think the twist is and that's why we look at certain people as being very well made in Nigeria because it's easy to say oh this country is so messed up or we can't do this but then when you come with a solution perspective that is what makes it very well made in Nigeria you know I mean that that is our perspective and that is what we we believe is is important and he looks at himself as an innovator somebody who who actually provides Solutions looks at issues and provides Solutions so perhaps I must have had a technical background to to to choose this way you have a technical background no okay guys hang on just hang on I think it's just um until I started this it's back are you with me now yes yes we're on now okay so um uh essentially my first my first product the filter X360 was just something I I you know was in my head and I felt okay so I did some sketches uh you know according to how I I wanted the system to work and that's what I keep telling people you don't have to be an engineer to create something incredible or you don't have to be a science person to to create some breakthrough in in whatever field you just need you just need to be passionate and you just need to be someone who is willing to solve problems so I did uh design the system myself but I had uh you know Engineers I asked them questions how do these things work and you also need to be able to be willing to learn I had to learn something called hydrodynamics how you where you need to understand how fluids work in different mediums so I had to study that extensively and I had to last with Engineers water engineers and other technical people just so that the product would conform to all the engineering requirements uh you know in development and I wasn't the person that you know sat down brought new together and you know put all the components together yeah so if you have an idea you could go to technical person okay this is what I need you to do this is the part that I need you to bring and put it together I have a friend who developed a ventilator during the Kobe period he had a technical person put together all of the tools that he needed and that technical person didn't even know that it was a ventilator that was being built wow yes after he had done everything he gave him his product and he went away and the next thing the technical person saw this guy on television people were saying he had developed a ventilator and he was the one who made it and he didn't even know what was being made so that is the power of ideas ideas that is the power of ideas and that is the power of passion but uh of course when I uh foreign yes I can okay all right all right so but yes uh as uh things continued I of course uh became a little bit more passionate especially about Hardware engineering so I took a course in in I did a diploma in Hardware engineering and now uh yeah I I have some knowledge about how to put together all of this all of these things in terms of Hardware developing systems and all of them and it was very instrumental European the smart meters along with uh other members of my technical team I want to talk about the the mobile app mobile app to buy water for your household from anywhere in the world tell me what is that dependent on because it seems that um you would not be in charge of every hydrodynamics Hydro yeah hydrodynamics is not in charge of every aspect of the um value chain so how would that work because you and I have seen today the um the power of um Network glitches so how would that affects the mobile app for water which I think is a fantastic idea all right so so first of all the company name is hydronomics hydronomics okay yeah so Hydro mini motor and the magnitude from the world like rightly mentioned Dynamics which stands for Innovation and technology so it's hydronomics yes yes so you don't don't only use uh if you're 18. if you well guys can you hold on let me I was wondering whether I should change the network again foreign I'm honestly not sure okay and this is this is why the question I asked you is is so relevant like if this is the network the infrastructure the backbone we are working with how effective will the mobile app be foreign yes so okay all right I've changed again so I hope this is clear I hope it will hold on for another 20 minutes yeah hopefully it does so so we try to be very inclusive when When developing systems right uh the system caters for both people with uh low end phones and those with smartphones so it's not only those who can download the mobile application on their phone that can use our systems even people with no headphones like the Nokia touch light can also use it using uh short codes just like we do this stuff 556 using uh yeah because if you look come to think of it imagine areas where you don't have a very strong Network where you can browse and all of that and then you have meters there and you need people to choose what are using using their phones so yes you can use short codes to also purchase water for people with low end phones well that's that's um actually very reassuring I think even for people with smartphones um sometimes the smartphones become low end depending on where you are so that lap makes it um very very very useful to all of us so my question and this is um me asking as a Nigerian and also as an African how you've told us about the the scale how you're going to scale to more parts in the East and some parts of the South Southwest is that is it going to be a phase scaling because as you're talking I just speaking now I don't know if there's any one of my guests who has had pipe Bond water from the water I haven't seen pipe bone water since I was uh maybe in my early 20s in Calabar I have not seen by pipe born water from the means everything we have had to get from from providing our own water which may not always be the best option so what what is your plan to roll it out yes pan Nigeria so um here's the thing like you rightly mentioned the system was not working for a very long time and it's something that shouldn't be allowed to continue I mean water is a essential commodity it's something I mean we've we've heard stories of people who lived entire lives without love and they lived and they died they lived you know a very prolonged period of time on the Earth but we've never had any stories of someone who lived without water it's not possible so uh and water is a resource that is depletible it can finish right although Nigeria is a water-rich country if we don't take the measures to manage this resource a day is coming in the very future because it's already been said that the walls of the future are going to be fought over water not oil not gold not Diamond water water is going to become very discouraged so this is one of the reasons why we're doing this if you have systems that allows you to manage water instead of you to leave your pump running the way the way you want losing liters thousands of liters of water at a time why don't you install Smart Meters and this is why we are calling them the government needs to embrace our Technologies so that it will end so that it encourages people to start managing these resource if you know that there is a meter in your house counting every drop of water and mentioned Municipal Water is very cheap one bottled water here costs around 100 to 200 now and some hotels will buy for 500. but one meter of water which is 1 000 liters of water costs just 80 naira here in Abuja 80 naira 1 000 liters of water can fill up five drums so it's actually very is the cheapest source of water you would ever get and yet the most important so it needs to be managed and one of the reasons like I mentioned earlier why we are developing these systems is we want the utilities to have enough money so that they will maintain all pipes and other infrastructure and even expand to areas that even people have not even started developing houses there so that when they come all they need to do is to tap from that line and why because you don't want more and more people building trading more holes Nigeria has 91 billion cubic meters of underground water but we've been having the relation of two levels that's very alarming in Abuja you would have an estate of about 3 200 houses but each house has a borehole that's terrible okay we never really thought about it from that perspective we honestly didn't think about it from that perspective about um well I never heard before that the wars of the future will be fought over water and then that that's um something to think about and yes the way we do waste water in cleaning up and then washing things we we are pretty wasteful so if we pay for water the way we pay for because I mean surprise electricity yes it's dangerous yeah I was just saying that if we pay for water then maybe pay um for electricity I think we will be a lot more cautious you know in the usage I mean don't you think uh yes yes people to give okay yes that's the key that's the point that's the point use it every drop of water is meter you pay for every drop of water that you use it makes you much more responsible for example our mobile application even tells you that c you consume more water during the hours of for example six six to seven so that you know if it is not you doing it maybe it's your kids you pay closer attention to them you understand and then it sends you tips like for example if if you're brushing your teeth clothes don't leave the top one close it and only open when you need water it seems you tips like that uh so so yes it's important water needs to be built the way we do for electricity but of course water needs to be cheaper because you need more peoples to be able to get access to it since it's a very essential community you've we've actually given me a lot of things to think about I mean number one I'm going to change our habits of them letting water just flow anyhow you know it's it's a it's a really bad habit really bad habit and I I think it's because we think okay I generate my water so I can use it but the long-term impact it's something that I never thought about so I probably didn't know about it so thank you for that education and um we have we seem to have um lost you on Instagram so we're asking people to just join us to join us on Facebook if they can we probably drop a link for them to join us on Facebook so we have some some comments we have a comment here from Essen he says oh yes Hamza is right regarding the wars of the future being forced over water I've had that before and now it makes more sense yes it's totally right thank you for that for that comment thank you and I also love the fact that there is going to be the leakage detection that that's that's from what you've said it's like a win-win-win a win for the government a win for the people for us consuming the water and the windfall hydronomics yeah you know it's been all around it's been for for everybody so I mean you know so I want to um once again encourage everybody who's watching to please go get download the app the medium app it's just tell Medium as in medium average yes and follow hamza's writing babe there's a there's a side of him that um it's still serious but you need to you need to see a new season is writing one of the things that I I read I read his articles then one that I read interestingly one of the first one I read was I started with a quotation from uh Edgar Allan Poe whom I had studied in school I'm like I was thinking like oh my goodness this is really dark and then I thought it was a quotation from Edgar Allan Poe and said okay yeah that makes sense now I understand yeah yeah but I want I want to talk about we have like 15 minutes left I want to talk about the um the lessons lessons you learned what's your article about six Lessons Learned From the MIT Innovation entrepreneurship boot camp you know um I won't take them in the sequence you presented them because some uh are really more interesting but I like to take number one the first one you don't need to reach dad or a rich Uncle to attend but you said the boot camp well I'm sure it's to do anything now can you speak to that because many people are waiting for money they're wishing for to have everything themselves but you said that you joined that you went to that boot company that having your own money yeah how did you do it I mean without giving us the specifics what was what was the spirit behind making you um motivating you what was the spirit that motivated you to ensure that you got that sponsorship yeah so so [Music] um the truth is I know a lot of people there are a lot of motivational speeches out there saying um uh you can do these things you can get lucky and stuff like that but the truth is life is hard man life is hard and uh of course sometimes you get there are situations where it's a bit Rosy you're happy it's your birthday you get some money or stuff like that but then there are there is a difficult aspect of life there are situations where you want to do things but you are not able to do them because because probably you don't have the financial capacity probably you don't have the network or probably you don't have the physical strength and you need help so the fundamental thing here is that you need to understand where you need help one of the philosophers that I respect very much said the wisest person on earth is he who knows what he doesn't know so um if you if you know if you identify your weaknesses and you identify where you can you know what you need to do to salvage the situation it makes you an incredible force on Earth so I knew that it was very expensive the boot card cost thousands and thousands of dollars and of course I didn't have the money and so I felt you know but then this is an opportunity this is something I want because I want I was chosen based on very three three or four critical parameters I was chosen based on the development of my filtration system and the impact it had made that's why you don't get to you don't get admission into MIT just like that even if you have the money they don't care you need to someone that is making change in whatever part of the world so I was chosen based on initiative and follow through critical thinking capacity for calculated risk and focus on community that's why I was chosen there were only two of us from Africa I from Nigeria and a lady called tandeka from South Africa Africa only two of us all other people came from the U.S UK and and and the

rest of the world so I felt how is it possible that I would win something a place in in in an incredible gardening like this and I will let money ruin my chances so there's a very rich person that I know so and I don't have access to him but I knew that he's someone that you know supports people so long has we had something to know especially if it's about education and he's well traveled he's very exposed and so I got his number from someone and I sent him a message I told him uh see I've I've worn a place in the best university in the world to study Innovation and Entrepreneurship and I know that you're a great support has done I am sorry sorry for that uh buffer I am willing to to show you what I have done and would you like to sponsor me so he he replied my message after 24 hours saying I'm very happy for you I would like you to meet my daughter show her what you have done if it's something that is relevant uh then I'm happy to do it foreign that was how it happened um foreign ERS let me just put this up there from Ninja says I'm shocked to hear how much we're losing from not measuring our water and how much revenue can be generated yeah as I share your sentiments this means that if States adopt this technology it could be a massive Revenue generator okay I think um uh he's been probably the network has tossed him out you know the network has tossed him out so we'll wait for him to come back in but while we wait for him to come back in the few things I'm just going to share because from what he said I I can um extrapolate that he had this opportunity there's so few people just two people from Whole of Africa chosen you know his background chosen to come in and so he had to get that courage and that's what passion does for you passion just makes you courageous in in different circumstances welcome back thank you I'm so sorry okay so so yes that's how it happened oh no no no it's it's actually not your fault so after presentation she said my friend uh to be honest you are MIT material and you have to go to MRT and that was how it happened and today it's also the end to be honest that was the experience that changed my life at the program we were studying for 20 hours a day doing uh we had two team team celebrations we were doing um everybody get to the CEO in a day you get to develop a product and take you to the market and so many things we met incredible people you know MIT has that capacity to bring the best of people from the world in one place and uh you know it's it's huge it's great motivation and it changed my life it showed me that you can push yourself in every living and never imagine assumed that I'll be grinding for 20 hours a day we left to sleep at 3 AM and we are back in class by 7 am so that was how it works and I've never looked back from then one I mean that's incredible I think what I'd like to say to um entrepreneurs would be entrepreneurs and actually entrepreneurs well there's a not all of us will get the chance to get to MIT but all of us will have a chance all of us are going to have a shot at something and when your passion meets that thing please be courageous enough don't let the lack of immediate funds in your pocket sometimes your your phones are in somebody else's pocket many times your phones are in somebody else's pocketbook you have to know how to tell your story and be compelling and be authentic you know so courage authenticity passion very important the other thing that I I learned from Royal um your article was that um was what you wrote about Alexander the Great having a different perspective you know you said you're speaking to a young lady I think from Greece yeah causeways from Greece yes yes okay you know I just read this article so you wrote it some time ago and um you said you admired Alexander the Great and she gave you a different perspective yes so please tell us about the The Importance of Being able to shift your perspective yeah yeah so so so that that was a defining moment for me also because it was so compelling that I had to put it as a part of that article because so we're having a discussion about you know the world story and history and uh Alexander the Great is one of my Idols you know I respect him I wish I wish to conquer you know relax I don't know if you heard me yeah I did I heard you I heard you are you with me I I can't hear you now I don't know if you can hear me okay can you hear me Julia can you hear me I can hear you now but I didn't hear the other part of what you said well okay because it was a defining moment for you yes it was it was so we're discussing uh you know the world yes I can okay we're discussing uh you know yes I can you can hear me uh guys can you hear please Can someone say if they can hear um okay can you hear me now yes I can hear you okay so um I was I was explaining to her how fascinated I am and impressed I was about uh you know his conquers his his Warrior mentality and and the fact that he he decided not to stop at maybe Greece or Macedonia and he he you know he just kept conquering okay I'm back but I'll just say that this just shows me that Grace is not enough Greece is just not enough you know just being able to come back come back from something it's not enough you know I have like four defense devices around me and it's just this is just not good enough it's really this is not good enough I tell you you know yeah no I I can understand the frustration but you know you just need to to manage the situation like that I know I hate managing things I mean I I really hate my look at the flow that we've had and it's um it's just gone off you know and maybe we're all we're actually out of time so I'd like you to speak about trying out all things in new places because I found that very very very motivational yeah yeah so I haven't read that article in a while so did I give an example yes that you guys had gotten to um yeah I got the Tipping Point all the teams had we had quarreled your storm they had normed there was tension so you got up and recited a poem yeah yeah yeah yeah so so yes um the thing is I was one of the most popular people at the boot camps simply because of that that thing we were at a Tipping Point like you said everyone was frustrated it was the first time teams everyone coming from a different country with a different mindset with different culture and then we're working together everybody every team was fighting each other and so there was an air of tension and the female strong but I felt like there was something that needed to be done to bring everybody back to normal and so I spoke to a Dean who was the founder of the MIT boot camps and I told him I'd like to recite a poem but okay and he was like yeah that's great it's a good idea and and that way I got on stage and that poem I have a video of the poem somewhere it was yeah absolutely I'll look for it so uh it was it was like Magic it brought every okay we are managing the network um okay foreign I'm trying not to get frustrated at the network because there's nothing I can do about it you know at this point yeah but now I have my Thinking Cup on and then hopefully we'll ask you later on I'll look for other people to ask well um unfortunately Hamza has been knocked off again but let me just put stuff um the uh I don't have the link but you can check okay if you check medium just look for medium is an app it will and look for Hamza unusa do we have his um can we have his details of the I think it's really most active on um on Twitter yeah this was active on Twitter can we have his Twitter link please what's up jdc okay okay so we are the last lap it's it's almost over now okay okay so there are certain things I'd just like to summarize that a few things that um you've learned you've shared with us number one is about Courage the courage to go to for what you have you want number two is the power of a great of a bit of an idea the big idea it's really powerful to have a big idea and then to follow through because you said it was not just initiative but initiative and follow through critical thinking very important focus on the community that is really where we're all from communities whether we live in towns or not it's very important you know and that it's important to drill down into whatever you've chosen to um focus on it's very important to drill down and work with people if you don't you don't have to have all the skills you know there's something you had said about um and I'm sorry that we can't get to it but one of the things that you had them that you had mentioned as um what you learned from MIT was successful Enterprises are products of robust and dedicated teams I found that very engaging because a lot of the time I said no we can't do everything by ourselves you know get people in you're more valuable than one teams are more valuable than one man's Grand idea so you have diversity of views you have diversity of skills and that's very important so we need as entrepreneurs to move Beyond them just Sops processes processes and um and the procedures structure very important but can we also be brave enough to bring in people who have skills that we may not know we don't understand you know that may be scary but let's not be too scared to tolerate someone who is beneath you in your team who is smarter than you are you know I really love that question or that comments um I I I my life has been marketing Communications and one of the fathers of marketing Communications David Ogilvy said when you employ employ trumpets are swans trumpeter swans are people who have the ability to be better than you yeah you know yeah and that takes a lot of Courage it takes a lot of Courage yes yes yes yes it does fantastic I'd like to ask you finally what fuels your stubborn hope and oh you've been frozen again oh my goodness okay we've put some hamza's media link up there and yeah https how's that what's first your stubborn hope in Nigeria you said sorry I didn't hear that what was your stubborn hope in Nigeria oh well um it's not really strong uh I think it's what every Nigerian needs to do I believe Nigeria has the capacity to rule the world in the next couple of decades Nigeria has already had that capacity it's established we have the population we have the Manpower we have the drive and uh and so many other things so I have I believe it's I mean I have the opportunity to live you know in many parts of the world if I wanted to I've had an opportunity when I went to China I was employed by by agencies to start over and work for them I didn't I have an opportunity to to get citizenship in the UK but I didn't because I believe that Nigeria has the capacity to be great I'm happy to go to any country for vacation to to visit the historical and nice places and but at the end of the day I knew to come back tonight yeah and be a part of his of his history I need to lead that Legacy that I had done something to make Nigeria a better place so I believe uh Nigeria already has the capacity and everyone who has the eye to look into the future and has and has been blessed with the wisdom already knows that Nigeria is on an awkward trajectory and it's those who decide to sit back right now and create those solutions that will enjoy it that will have the largest share in the future so uh it's just it's all about calculations and it's all about passion it's all about believing in your country it's all about being patriotic you were blessed to be born here what can you do to make this here to make Nigeria better like one of the former presidents of the U.S said it's not what my country can do for me it's what I can do for my country Hamza I'm going to thank you most sincerely um I always call myself a stubborn Optimist and an unrepentant Patriot and that is not based out of um lack of options it's based like you said on the fact that I know that my my being here is not random there is a reason why I'm here you know and especially when you've had the opportunity to go live somewhere else study somewhere else and you still choose to come back and nobody drove you away from those places and you still chose to come back and and do something here you know not to say that people who live are copping out but um to know that you can come back like you said be part of that history create history know that you can live a legacy has done something to make Nigeria a better place for those words of inspiration and for me encouragement because all of us need to be encouraged from time to time you know I'd like to declare Our Guest today Hamza UNICEF very very well made in Nigeria thank you for flying the flag thank you very much yes thank you thank you everyone who joined us thank you for saying through our pauses um well you know how we roll we always come back you know and Hamza we shall be following you thank you very much absolutely thank you very much for having me on your platform I'm very excited to be here and I want to thank you very much for bringing this very inspiring Brands to your show to inspire other people you are the ones actually you are the superheroes because one word contains somebody's life one word can change somebody's life so thank you so much you're doing great and I appreciate I appreciate it thank you so much thank you thank you everyone thank you everybody thank you Hamza I'll be coming back to you you don't know why but I'll be coming back to you because this person and thank you to ninja for connecting Hamza thank you very much yes yes okay she's really nice I I appreciate her she's a great great friend of mine yes and and she's she's she's another stubborn optimist thank you man thank you soon take care thank you bye-bye bye everybody

2022-11-12 19:35

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