On Time

Time. Our most important resource.

The best thing that has happened for me this year is to realize the value of my time and therefore how to apportion it better. I've scaled back dramatically on social gatherings preferring one on one time with those that I care about. I don't carry work home and if I do, I only attend to it when everyone else is asleep. When I get into the house, I put my phone away. I have conversations with my people and I read to my child.  

I respect the time of others. I show up to meetings on time. I look at my phone less in presence of others. I want my time spent with them to be fully engaging and meaningful. I don't watch TV. I only watch the series that I follow and movies that I think will be exceptionally good. 

No idle chats. I hate these the most. A cousin is mad at me cause I straight up asked him what he wants when he hit me up on whats app. Either I'm genuinely concerned or delivering a message, otherwise we shall not speak. I answer my phone less. I read a lot. Way more. 

I spend time alone. I spend time with God. I have experienced an amazing amount of peace since I took the decision to deliberately watch my time.

Someone told me early this year, "Let people waste your money but never ever let them waste your time. Cause it's the one thing you can never get back."

How are you spending your time?

One Year of Miss Boss

So I made 1 year of official hustling 5 days ago. I thought I'd have some profound message to share, a long ass blog post regaling you with tales of this incredible year but no, nothing. Just a simple sentence, say yes to yourself. And this beautiful quote from one of my favorite movies;

On Entrepreneurship being Oversold in Africa

Ory Okolloh is raising dust, kicking ass and taking no prisoners with her. Firstly, on twitter and more recently at the Quartz Africa Innovators Summit. Essentially, she's saying that Africa cannot entrepreneur itself out of its basic problems. There has been an uproar in some circles because she's throwing cold water onto the fire that has been set ablaze all over the continent.

Ory should be one to speak. She's but one of Africa's foremost entrepreneurs. The platform she founded (Ushahidi) has been deployed up to 90,0000 times in over 159 countries. Her company makes over $750k in consulting fees! But I think Ory is right albeit speaking harshly. It is time someone said it and there's no one better placed than her.

This entrepreneurship song is largely being pushed by many African governments because they want to shelve the responsibility of developing their economies back to their citizens. Yes, I agree that the Rockefellers , Fords and ilk largely drove the economy of America but this was in an environment fostered by good governance.  Our governments don't want to be held accountable. Simple. For example, many countries in Africa grapple with a problem of counterfeit drugs and there's plenty of apps coming up to deal with this. This is not an "innovation" you would find in the developed world because their drug authorities work and work well. Something as delicate as the integrity of health care should lie with a public office not an ingenious 20 year old. This is equivalent to your parent failing to pay your school fees and telling you to go find a way to get your tuition. It's the parent's responsibility to have their children educated.

Uganda was recently lauded to be the most entrepreneurial country. This statistic did not bring me much joy. We are entrepreneurs not by choice, with an unemployment rate of up to almost 80%, there is simply nothing else to do. We are not enterprising. We are surviving! This is why none of these endeavors last longer than a year, because they are born out of desperation.

Another thing that this entrepreneurial song and dance forgets is that not all of us are built to be entrepreneurs, Just like any other profession, it is not for everybody. So what will the ones who cannot be entrepreneurs do. We have to make demands of our leadership. We cannot continue to bury our heads in the sand. We pay taxes. We vote. We are owed. There's a proverb in my language that states that a child who fails causes the mother to be shamed. Our enterprises are not doing as well as they should and this is because our governments are failing us. We must shame them. We cannot let them abscond from their duty. For these entrepreneurial activities to make any sort of sense, we need infrastructural support, security, stable economies and favorable policies. For entrepreneurship to prosper, it needs good governance.

"A good system shortens the road to the goal."- Orison Marden

On Airports and Expansion Projects

During the briefing we got before we left for the Mandela Washington fellowship, we were told we would return and get horribly frustrated with “how things work in our home countries”. I thought they were bluffing. I’d traveled before, I was yet to meet something that would push me over the edge. Well, since I’ve been back, I’m not only frustrated. I’m getting angry. I’m becoming an angry young Ugandan woman. There is nothing like the realization that you’ve been fed bullshit for so long that you had even stopped recognizing it as bullshit. You had started to happily eat, not minding the smell or taste.

 A few evenings back, I watched a news bulletin with increasing alarm as the president launched the expansion project for the Entebbe International Airport. This is an event that should be filling me with joy but alas it did not. Firstly, said project is going to be handled by a Chinese firm called China Communications Construction Company Ltd. A simple Google search led me to find that said firm has been blacklisted by the world bank  and is ineligible to engage in any road and bridge projects financed by the World Bank Group until January 12, 2017 because of corruption. (Read more here) I have no qualms with the great people of China but have we not learnt enough already. What is wrong with us? China and Uganda signed a concessional loan agreement of 200 million dollars to fund this particular expansion project. *weeps*

What was most mind boggling though was the President’s speech. He asked the Chinese to use materials and labour from here? Huh! I had to rewatch that bit online. Ask for who, do you not run the country?! Isn’t this something he should have demanded be added to the terms of the contracts he signed before he signed. Shouldn’t this ask have been an addendum of sorts to the contract. Legal people help me out here.  Then he went on to say how he was happy that we would now have a world standard airport to enjoy. What! Airport to enjoy. You mean to tell me you are spending $200m that my grandchildren will suffer to pay back on God who knows terms just so they can enjoy an airport. No sir, no more. I want figures. I don’t want half assed speeches anymore, I want to know how much that airport earns now and how much more it will earn once said upgrade is done. I want to know how this airport intends to pay back that loan.What is the strategy for this airport? Who is leading it?

More internet research led me to this ;http://www.caa.co.ug/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=103&Itemid=78. I need someone to make sense of this to my economially lay brain. Why is there profit yet more than half of the revenue looks like it comes from the government? Also, where are the figures for 2013, 2014 and the years before 2011? Was the authority not in operation then?

Just as all these painful thoughts were busy ravaging my mind. I remembered that I spent a day at what is considered the world busiest airport recently, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. 

Impressive, no?!  Image from internationalairportsguide.com

Not travelling as you might think but for an experiential learning session. Coincidentally, this airport just had an upgrade as well. The addition of an international terminal.This upgrade has raised the profile of the city of Atlanta which is just 11 minutes away from the airport to an international destination for business and tourism.  Something the city’s mayor, Kasim Reed is very proud of and made mention of  often when he met the YALI fellows hosted in Atlanta. Oh and he did mention a concession he insisted on having; that 20% of the work goes to minority owned businesses i.e black/women owned businesses. Dear Mr. President, hint hint.

The Hartsfield-Jackson Airport staff take their business very VERY seriously and this was expressed through the way the sessions were conducted and the people that they had speak to us. Please note that we had the profiles (what they do and their professional backgrounds) of each person speaking to us beforehand. This was professionalism on another level.  We were welcomed by the director of international business and then sessions from; the Aviation Senior Deputy General Manager, the Chairman,Fulton County Board of Commissioners, Dean of the Georgia Consular Corps, the Director of Financial Planning and Analysis, the Art Program Managers (Yes, the airport has an art program, currently focusing of African Art), the Director of Strategic Planning and the General Manager.

Three sessions stood out for me, firstly the art program session. The art program’s unique offering is help humanize the airport’s vast scale by providing travelers with museum quality artifacts to engage them between flights and to enliven the airport’s public spaces with permanent art. The current art installation features works of contemporary stone sculpture from Zimbabwe. Walking through the hallway with this gigantic sculpture was truly a beautiful experience. Here was Africa, being celebrated in a big way, a million miles away. The expressions on the faces of the Zimbabwean fellows were a sight to behold as they saw names of artist that are revered back home. We were told that the artists were paid between $20,000 and $50,000 for each piece. A pittance for a professional sculptor in the west but a win for these artists. We were proud but tremendously sad that this was not an airport back home in Africa doing this.

Such beauty. Heh!

Second prominent session was the Director of Strategic Planning. Hearing the ambitious , far sighted plans he has for the airport was nothing short of amazing. He is leading a master planning process that will set the stage for future projects by identifying areas for improvement and growth and determining how best to adapt existing facilities or plan new ones to meet the demands of travelers and to provide them with cutting-edge, top-notch customer service. This master plan is meant to plot the airport’s course for the next 20 years.

The last and best session for me was from Miguel Southwell, the general manager of the airport. This man is truly passionate about his job and wants to leave behind a legacy of excellence. He managed the expansion of the airport and is now charting the course of the development of the airport for the next 20 years. His priorities include enhancing the guest experience at Hartsfield-Jackson, expanding air cargo capacity, building a robust, job-creating international air service development program and several other initiatives- all aimed at strengthening the airport’s impact on the economy and making it an even larger force in the global aviation market. This man means business. 

This airport serves 260,000 people daily on average, employs 58,000 and generates up to $33.6 billion. And yet that is still not enough. The airport runs an incentive program to further stimulate international air cargo and passenger growth. Landing fees are waived for one year for airlines starting new international routes not already served from Atlanta, promotional costs (capped at $25,000) are matched for new passenger services and aircraft parking fees are waived at the airport’s cargo areas for qualified carriers. That is not all. I could go on about the cargo facilities, the perishables complex and the foreign trade zone but I’m sure you get the picture. The airport is not just infrastructure to be used. It is a revenue generating beast.

So I have questions. Serious questions. I have been to 10 international airports so far in my brief stay on this planet and I have been dismally depressed by the experience at only one; Entebbe. Power blackouts have occurred twice whilst I was there. Imagine my confidence getting on a plane thereafter. All I was thinking was; what if in the middle of takeoff, electricity goes off and the captain can’t see the runway. (THE HORROR!). What is the purpose of this airport as per the Civil Aviation Authority? What is their strategy? What is the airport's turnover?  Who has these numbers? Where does this money go? We are a tourist destination but little of that can be gleaned from the airport? (Putting up pictures of gorillas can only do so much). This upgrade: What’s the agenda? What are the long term plans and how do they fit in with those of the economy? And finally, how do they intend to pay back that $200m using the airport itself cause I’ll be damned if that bit is not part of the plan?

Entebbe evidently has  a long long way to get to Hartfield-Jackson and I don’t purport to have any answers to how this can be done but I am livid at what looks like the haphazard planning for this upgrade and the evident aiming for mediocrity. As people these days like to say, we will never have nice things if this continues. Ever.

On Culture; How It Is Really The Only Way That Africa Has A Shot At Saving Itself

Screen shot of what google images thinks is African Culture. Sigh. 

On my hunt for a holistic definition of the word culture, I found this from the University of Texas;

• Culture refers to the cumulative deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion, notions of time, roles, spatial relations, concepts of the universe, and material objects and possessions acquired by a group of people in the course of generations through individual and group striving.
• Culture is the systems of knowledge shared by a relatively large group of people.
• Culture is communication, communication is culture.
• Culture in its broadest sense is cultivated behavior; that is the totality of a person's learned, accumulated experience which is socially transmitted, or more briefly, behavior through social learning.
• A culture is a way of life of a group of people--the behaviors, beliefs, values, and symbols that they accept, generally without thinking about them, and that are passed along by communication and imitation from one generation to the next.
• Culture consists of patterns, explicit and implicit, of and for behavior acquired and transmitted by symbols, constituting the distinctive achievement of human groups, including their embodiments in artifacts; the essential core of culture consists of traditional ideas and especially their attached values; culture systems may, on the one hand, be considered as products of action, on the other hand, as conditioning influences upon further action.
• Culture is the sum of total of the learned behavior of a group of people that are generally considered to be the tradition of that people and are transmitted from generation to generation.
• Culture is a collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from another.

And then there was this gem;

THEORY OF CULTURAL DETERMINISM

• The position that the ideas, meanings, beliefs and values people learn as members of society determines human nature. People are what they learn.

Over the course of the 6- weeks of the Mandela Washington Fellowship, we were made to experience "American" culture. Their politics, their family life, their economy, volunteering and so on. Then, we were made to experience the corporate culture of several organizations. In my University's case; IBM, Coca Cola and UPS. From all of this, we learnt one thing; the success of a company, family, nation at large depends solely on it's culture. Solely. The only thing that ensures that an ideal survives from one generation to the next is culture. By the end of the 6 weeks of experiential learning, the class had an ongoing discussion that got quite heated at times about culture and leadership. Who creates culture? Who ensures that it stands the test of time? The people? The Leaders?

How does this relate to Africa? Well, every time there's talk of why we are not progressing as we should, we hide behind the excuse of we were colonized and ravaged. Our nations pillaged of resources; human and natural. Yes, we were. But so were the Asians. Look at Japan, the only country to suffer a nuclear attack, 70 years later and their GDP stands at $38,633. And this story of resuscitation and growth of an economy is increasingly similar across what is now known as the Asian giants; India, China et al. And the commonality among them all; a strong adherence to their culture whatever culture that may be. 

This recent article in the Nation from Bitange Ndemo states that;

"In Japanese culture for example, the country comes first. People will die for their country without question. Friendship comes second, and people will be willing to die for the sake of their friends. The individual comes last.
Some of the theories that arise from Japan rarely focus on an individual. For example, “Kaizen,” a management theory which refers to activities that continually improve all functions, involves all employees from the Managing Director to the assembly line workers.
They trust that their country will always take care of them and a friend will always be a friend, and such assurances mitigate against wanton greed. In most cases, whenever there is such greed, it often appears misplaced.Africans were more honest when family support systems were intact. However, modernity has destroyed those systems."

We, as Africans have lost our way. We do not know who we are anymore. We do not know what we stand for and thus what unifies us. Unification can only come from; a common language (which we do not have), a common belief system/religion (Ha!) and culture. We, ourselves are rapidly erasing what is left of the last. The sharing economy began in Africa. This is why innovations like mobile money thrive. We have slowly over time unlearnt how to share. This is why looting of public coffers is rampant. For God and myself we selfishly state. A child was raised by a village we used to say. And now we look on as millions starve. Before western aid organizations come rid us of hunger, we ideally should have homegrown efforts already underway. Cleanliness is next to Godliness and yet we litter our streets happily. Women were respected, revered even.

Thankfully, there are steps being taken to avert this. The African Union has developed a Charter For African Cultural Renaissance. They recognize that despite cultural domination which during the slave trade and the colonial era led to the depersonalization of part of the African peoples, falsified their history, systematically disparaged and combated African values, and tried to replace progressively and officially, their languages by that of the colonize, the African peoples were able to find in African culture, the necessary strength for resistance and the liberation of the Continent. That the affirmation of cultural identity denotes a concern common to all peoples of Africa; That African cultural diversity and unity are a factor of equilibrium, strength in African economic development, conflict resolution and reducing inequality and injustice to promote national integration.

Thankfully, our leaders are not alone in this fight. I met a lovely professor who is curating and putting together an African calendar. Yes, that's right. Just like the Japanese, we have a calendar. All that talk of market days that your grandmother has been having. Well, every grandmother on the continent is saying the same thing. Prior to the Gregorian calendar, we had one of our own. This and many more efforts to get more African content online, to tell our stories before they are blown away by the wind will get us there. Culture constitutes for our peoples the surest means to chart Africa’s own course towards technological development, and is the most efficient response to the challenges of globalization. 

I am hopeful for Africa.

MWF Chronicles...The End and The Begininning

How does one summarize the past few weeks. It's been a whirlwind of activity. From meeting Grammy winning artists to shaking hands with the President of the most powerful nation on Earth. For me, this experience felt like Cinderella at the ball and right now it's past midnight. I'm back in my work clothes and the fancy dress has disappeared. The magic's gone. I'm left holding a glass slipper though which are the memories and lessons that I will carry with me for the rest of my life. This was meant to be an academicesque article with things I have learnt (which is what the masses want and need to read) but I thought I'd first have a feels article. Process the swarm of thoughts in my head and gain clarity that writing oh so beautifully provides.

It's taken me a week to finally write this conclusion. When I was told that this fellowship changes you, I didn't believe it. I was very skeptical. What can happen in 6 weeks that can dramatically alter one's personality, their life path?! Nothing, I thought. Alas, I have changed and dramatically so. I wonder though if it is the change that had been anticipated by the initiators of this fellowship. I travelled thousands of miles to be shown and learn about the great America, which I have but the important learning for me has been about Africa. I travelled all this way to learn that my home, my motherland is truly home. We have a proverb in my language that says that a child who has not travelled praises his mother as the best cook. I have travelled and I still maintain that my mother is the best cook. Being lumped with fellows from 17 other sub-Saharan countries has done more for me than any class, television station (I hate you international media for misinforming me so tragically my entire life) newspaper article could ever do for me.

Living with people who are deeply in love with the continent and doing amazing things to revive it has been ridiculously amazing. Stacey who's radically changing the status quo of  education in South Africa, Funmi and Sindi who want every single African child to fall in love in with reading and are doing everything in their power to get material, African centric material to these children. Dami, who was my roommate(fine babe, sha) and Tino changing the graphic landscape on the continent. Pixar and Co better watch out for these two. Tania,Thabo and Nina disrupting finance and investment. Munya,using tech to make sure there's more African content online, showcasing the intense creativity of Africans. Selly, ridiculously awesome fashion designer. Tsonam and Fanana, running Tech companies that will be the forerunners of the African tech industry. The media guys and girl; Abdallah, Napoleon and Lepang striving to make sure that African voices and stories are heard, loudly, clearly but most importantly authentically in media. I was challenged. I was and still am in awe. I was inspired. By their passion for their work and their deep deep love for the continent.

I find it funny that I went to America to become more African. I now see my continent as the West sees it, a land of opportunity. It saddens me that we it's citizens do not. It broke my heart to read of the thousands dying at sea trying to cross into Europe yet Asians are flocking to Africa like moths to light.

The best thing that this fellowship has done for me is to inspire love and passion for my work. Whatever work it may be. And that all labor has dignity. Where do I go from here?! To work, to hustle, to grind. It's like someone has poured gasoline on the fire that I already had for my startups. I am anxious to get back and get moving. So much to do, so little time. And as for the newly massively re-ignited pan-Africanism, I believe that Africa is not poor but it is poorly run. And that has to change, somehow. Africa is not just rising now. It's always been rising. It's the cradle of man-kind. We had organized kingdoms, trade systems long before the explorers/ missionaries interrupted our rise. I read recently from someone on twitter that they wished Africa had a strong immigration policy before we let Europeans land on our shores hundreds of years ago. Instead, we pitied, welcomed and fed. And then we were ravaged. We are still recovering from that and we will recover. We will rise. Let this quote from Martin Luther move you like it did me.

"In your life's blueprint should be a deep belief in your own dignity, your own worth, and your own somebodiness. Don't allow anybody to make you feel that you are nobody...However young you are, you have a responsibility to seek to make your nation a better nation in which to live. You have a responsibility to seek to make life better for everybody. And so you must be involved in the struggle for freedom and justice."

On Startups; From Ideation To Exit...MWF Chronicles V

This week we had what I will term as the most thought provoking session for me. KP Reddy, and amazing serial entrepreneur was invited by Duncan, one of the faculty to give a presentation on startups. He started his first business at age 19 and by 27 he had grown his startup to a publicly listed company. At this point, he handed over the reigns and took off 3 years. In this time, he was growing his own food and doing yoga everyday (Yes, seriously) 

Currently, the techie turned investor and speaker is highly sought after due to his candid counsel to both startups and Fortune 1000 companies alike, he has been requested by organizations such as IBM, Coca-Cola, UPS, Cox Communications and Autodesk. K.P. has spoken at universities all over the U.S. including: Harvard, Georgia Institute of Technology, Vanderbilt, Stanford, Emory, San Jose State, University of South Carolina, and Cleveland State.

Innovative and witty, K.P. speaks to leaders with intriguing topics such as: Your Culture Sucks Because You Suck, Why Big Companies Can’t Innovate, Disruption Is Not A Marketing Campaign, Why You’re Not a CEO, Yet… and Why Every Recent Grad Should Work at a Startup.

In 2012, K.P. published BIM for Building Owners and Developers, a book on the adoption of advanced technology in the infrastructure space employed by leading companies and universities.

K.P. is also startup Catalyst, helping organizations accelerate through coaching and programs such as: Startup Weekend, Customer Discovery Classes, Accelerators and Hackathons. These can range from one day to six week cohorts, depending on your needs and timeline.

From this session, I was able to see clearly what I’m doing right but most importantly , what I’m doing wrong and how I can start to correct it. I wished that my co-founders and all the startup founders from my eco-system were there. There were so many take-aways and here’s a few of the gold nuggets that K.P shared ;

1.Be an expert in a field of study. Find something that you are really good at and become king at it. Whether it is a particular form of technology, marketing or finance subject. For example, you should be able to say something like, “I’m among the top 5 experts in cryptocurrency transfer services among the unbanked in sub-Saharan Africa.” For you to achieve this, it means you have to dedicate an insane amount of time to reading and research. You should achieve top of mind status for your field.

2.Don’t rush and quit the day job; Learn new skills first to de-risk yourself. Secondly, learn about the market you want to enter to de-risk the business. You have to be realistic based on the experience you have, because this is what drives results. DO NOT QUIT UNTIL YOU HAVE A PLAN.

3.Build your equity; Ideas are a dime a dozen, they do not matter. You cannot base your equity on an idea. What matters is deliverables. What have you done with your idea? Have you documented your work? Before you go out hunting for investors, have you done your own due diligence? If any mistakes are to be made, make these on your own dime. Realize that some ‘founder’ have unfair advantage, be it a degree (and hence connections) from Stanford or celebrity status. Find a unique way to compete.

4.Capital; Capital is not to be used for founder salaries or exploration of business models. Capital is essentially meant to be used to build production platforms and to scale sales teams that a utilizing a proven methodology. Do not raise capital to a “dead end.” You must always know how much total capital is needed to execute on your plan. Your gross margin must be able to support your cost of capital. For early stage investment, you need to have revenue to validate the customer need. Think of capital as a highly structured supply chain.

5.Start with the exit in mind. This was my biggest takeaway. I am essentially building a business to handover to my children and all this talk of exits that is trending has had me worried for a while. I do not want to sweat blood and tears all for some guy in a suit to come and slap a value to my work and walk away with it.I expressed this to Reddy and he allayed my fears. An exit doesn’t always mean selling your company off to some huge corporate investor. An exit strategy can be handing over to the next generation. Do not build a company around yourself. It should be able to exist successfully in your absence. This for me was key because most successful businesses in Uganda collapse soon after the death of the founder. And it is because of this very reason, not having the end in mind so there is no business continuity plan set up. I am glad that he emphasized that we should always be cognizant of this fact.

I got such deep insight for my startup and I can’t wait to get back home and start implementing what I learnt.