Discover the catalysts of technological growth and innovation in Africa with Kissi, a trailblazer who's steering multiple tech ventures and a non-profit aimed at reshaping the continent's economic narrative. This episode promises to unveil the intricacies of integrating local talent and knowledge into business strategies that thrive amidst Africa's unique market dynamics. Kissi's journey from problem-solving engineer to an influential thought leader unfolds, revealing his methods for enhancing local business efficiencies and his relentless pursuit of accessible data for budding entrepreneurs.
As we recount the wisdom shared at Peduasa Lodge, we grasp the profound significance of involving the African diaspora in fueling the continent's prosperity. The dialogue shifts to the financial sphere, dissecting the trials faced by local banking institutions and my own evolution in conducting business within Africa. Understanding the importance of building influence rather than imposing change, we dissect strategies for leveraging the wealth of African talent and adapting to the economic landscape to cultivate lasting success.
Closing the conversation, we celebrate the transformative power of learning and problem-solving, as shared through my academic pursuits from engineering to software development. Kevin, a former Principal Engineer Manager at Microsoft, joins us to underscore the impact of unwavering determination and continuous learning on career progression. This episode is more than a discussion—it's a testament to the enduring influence of education and strategic thinking on personal growth and professional excellence within the tech industry.
Watch the video episode of this on YouTube - https://linktr.ee/konnectedminds
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Talent is the biggest asset for anyone coming
together to operate a business.
It seems like we have enoughcapital in Africa to actually
finance.
Of course, of course, but Ithink the delta here is the gap
in knowledge.
Data in Africa is extremelyexpensive and it shuts out
people out of the economy ofbusiness.
(00:20):
So if you need to access dataabout starting a business and
resources on how to start abusiness, I mean each time
you're online looking for thoseresources, it's costing you.
Affordability of data is very,very important to the growth of
an economy In Ghana.
If you have certainefficiencies that I've seen here
(00:40):
right, if you have log filesand you're doing manual tasks
inside your company, how are yougoing to compete with the
Google and the Microsoft of theworld?
You?
Just can't.
I'm African, not because I livein Africa.
I'm African because African wasborn in me.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Hey, you're welcome once again to Connective Minds
podcast, and it's me again,derek.
Today, I'm in a conversationwith Kisi, who owns Kisi Co
technology and consulting group.
Now, this company is based inSan Francisco and in Accra.
He's also a leader in his fieldand he runs another company
called Zoey AI and engineeringAfrica.
(01:23):
Now, that's what ConnectiveMinds is about.
We're here to haveconversations that empower you
wherever you are.
Stay connected and be with us.
You're welcome.
How are you doing, man?
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Wonderful.
It's a pleasure to be here andshare my insights and experience
with the audience.
Yeah amazing.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
You do a lot of speaking.
So when I went onto your site,I saw quite a few events that
you've spoken at Bintu Tanzane,a lot of events in Ghana, some
in the US.
So, wow, that's fantastic.
That's fantastic.
You said you want to fostertech innovation, advance
(02:11):
impactful initiatives andcontribute to the ever-evolving
business landscape.
How do you hope to do that?
Speaker 1 (02:22):
First of all, let me address I don't actually speak a
lot.
It's just more recently that Irealized that, in order to have
the impact that I desire to have, influence has to be part of
that.
Before, I just wanted to focuson just the projects that are
impactful, but in order to beable to get the opportunity to
(02:45):
carry out those projects, youneed to engage people who can
actually add value to theprojects.
In order to be able to engagethose individuals, you need to
have some degree of influencefor them to see that you're
worth the while or whatever.
So I started coming out of theshell and going out there.
(03:10):
I got so many speaking,engagement requests and whatnot
when I was at Microsoft.
I was an engineer manager thereat the time and I rejected all
of them because I didn't feellike it's really worth my time.
I wanted to focus on actuallyengineering and actually solving
problems.
So I'm a very traditionalengineer.
(03:31):
I just want to go hidesomewhere, get all the work done
and just do an announcement bigsplash disappear.
Come back, do an announcementbig splash disappear.
But I think it's way more thanthat.
If you want to have actualsustainable impact, you need to
(03:51):
be strategic a whole lot morestrategic than I thought I
needed to be and, like I said,like you were asking, the way I
want to do that is think aboutthe whole bottom line things
that can actually move everybodyforward when it comes to the
(04:16):
business landscape.
Here there is a whole lot ofefficiency that people operate
in and they're used to it, and Ithink that's the way things
should be, or things are, andthey can't get any better.
I want to expose them to thewall of enterprise software and
how it enables businesses tofunction more efficiently and
(04:40):
quite fast.
You can't be a global companyin Ghana if you have certain
efficiencies that I've seen here.
If you have log files andyou're doing manual tasks inside
your company, how are you goingto compete with the Google and
Microsoft of the world?
You just can't.
They are highly optimized toget as much work done.
(05:03):
It's all about production,getting more and more and more
stuff out there and refining thestrategy and getting things
done better.
So Kisienko's fundamentalmission and motive is to
actually engage local businessesand engage local governments to
(05:26):
actually adapt differenttechnologies and different
processes that can actually makethem much more efficient and
actually execute much morefaster and be a lot more
strategic through technology tosome degree, and so aligning
(05:46):
myself to that and my businessis to that is the direction I'm
going in.
The nonprofit side, with theengineer Africa, is more
targeted towards things thatbusinesses don't necessarily
want to engage in.
So I mean businesses can engagein like upskilling the
(06:09):
population, but I thinknonprofit has a more unique
approach to do that for thebenefit of society and not just
for the benefit of the bottomline.
Right, because if you'reinfluenced by the bottom line,
you could probably just try tojust ingest students into
(06:32):
whatever operation you have and,you know, be more superficial
in the things that can attractthem, whereas with a nonprofit
approach you want to actuallyengage them and actually teach
them core skills that canactually pretty much help them
be good contributing citizens inthe engineering area.
(06:55):
So part of our aim is capacitydevelopment, that's the
workshops and training and stuff, and then the other aspect is
projects that we think canactually enable people.
So I spoke to you earlier aboutthe public wifi.
Right, data in Africa isextremely expensive.
(07:16):
Right, and it shuts out peopleout of the economy of business.
Right, if you want to start abusiness and you don't have, if
you're not connected or yourconnectivity is extremely
expensive.
You don't have enough access todata in the world, within the
web, right?
So if you need to access dataabout starting a business and
(07:40):
resources on how to start abusiness, I mean each time
you're online looking for thoseresources, it's costing you yeah
, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,yeah, yeah yeah, Aluminum and
the lake.
Exactly right.
So, by design, you are farbehind than someone who's
operating in the US, who's alsostarting a similar business as
you.
Are right, you have this uniqueidea of solving a global issue.
(08:00):
If someone else is in the USstarting that same issue,
starting a business to solvethat same problem, you are at a
disadvantage.
Right, you are a hugedisadvantage.
This individual can just go toany local coffee shop and have
access to data for free.
Right, they can go.
There are so many differentplaces they can go for free and
(08:21):
access data for free.
You don't have that option herein Ghana right and even if you
do.
it's very limited Very verylimited, it's very, very limited
, very limited, and eventuallythey'll tell you to leave if
you're not buying any of theservices A cup of coffee.
Yeah, you know, if you're not soand you also like certain
things that you wanna do, likeif you're in technology and
(08:42):
you're building, like you know,something like a game or
whatever, right, you need tohave an online game or whatever.
You need to have enoughconnectivity to the inner world
to actually test the game thatyou're developing.
And if your connectivity isquite limited, I mean, you don't
stand a chance compared tosomeone else outside.
(09:03):
Right, absolutely so the keything here is those students.
They don't have enough money tobuy data all the time.
Right, if they're just in acrowd, they can just have access
to data.
All they have to do is justwatch some ad for some time and
then, boom, they are connected.
Right, I've had experienceswhere people will tell me oh,
(09:25):
I'm out of data.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
They have to keep buying data all the time,
whereas data outside isn't acontinuum.
You're constantly connectedright, and that's the way it
should be, and I wanted to getto the point where it's
normalized for people to beconstantly connected.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
Be connected.
Right.
Have you had the situationwhere you were back in the US
and you're trying to contactsomeone in Ghana and you can't
reach them?
And then they contacted you,like my data had been switched
off.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Yeah, yeah, because they're trying to conserve data.
Because of how expensive it ishow expensive it is right, and
so these are challenges that weneed to solve in collaboration
with the local government andlocal municipalities here, and
local telecoms that are here,because affordability of data is
(10:21):
very, very important to thegrowth of an economy If we want
to be honest about ourselves,right.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
Especially now, kevin .
Yeah, especially now, yeah,yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
A lot of businesses need to be started to solve
unique problems that we have inour economy.
In our current environment,there's so many inefficiencies
in how we do things, and peoplehave ideas on how to solve those
problems, and I think we needto play a role in enabling them,
(10:55):
and so one key thing is dataconnectivity.
And another thing that wethought about also doing is
housing right.
Housing needs to be cheaper.
You need to have a place whereyou could have sanctuary right.
If you happen to be born in afamily where your parents were
(11:16):
living in a kiosk right, thatcan actually make you extremely
disadvantaged towards being assuccessful as someone who was
born living in a more stablehome or whatever right.
So the more accessible and themore cheaper homes are, the more
(11:38):
we include more people into theeconomy, and so we need to move
in that direction, and thegovernment needs to be engaged
in that, and so our goal is toprove, with engineering, that we
can actually use extremely lowcost materials to produce
housing units that are under$10,000, right.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
That's fantastic.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
And that's the benchmark we're trying to hit
using clay.
I don't know if we familiarwith that Taqwami.
Speaker 3 (12:04):
I am Hold that thought there.
Recently I got a message fromone of my older friends that the
UK are developing clay homesthat are going to be
revolutionary for the housingindustry in the UK.
And then the man was basicallytrying to say well, this is
(12:26):
something that we've known inAfrica for years.
I was born in one of thosehomes and we haven't capitalized
on that.
And we've taken that theirsystem of building and then now
they're going back.
Yeah, so it's interesting yousay that.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
Yeah, I think we got to go back to core.
I mean, there's a reason whywhen you go far outskirts of
Ghana, you see these homes thatare built with clay and they've
been there for probably like 50years or 100 years and they're
still in great integrity right.
That says a lot about thestrength and says a lot about
(13:08):
you know.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
And it's so cool in there.
Yeah, it's so cool you know,these days the homes are very
hot.
Yeah.
But those clay houses, thosemud houses are very cool.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Yeah, and there's a reason why they chose to use
clay.
Yes, why.
Ancient knowledge, man 100%.
And it's highly availablematerials.
Yeah, and it requireslow-skilled labor to actually
execute a project of buildingwith clay, right yeah, let's
talk about the Africanprosperity dialogues 2024.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
You were there, I was there.
Yes, the president was there.
Yes, and that was done atPediasa Lodge.
That's correct.
Yes, presidential Lodge yeah,how was it?
How was it?
Speaker 1 (13:53):
You know, it's a breath of fresh air to see all
these leaders come together andpretty much unite on one message
that we have to take our ownprosperity into our own hands.
That was the unifying messagefrom all the leaders, and I
think one person that reallystood out to me and was quite
(14:16):
vocal about some of theinefficiencies in how we operate
was the president of Guyana.
It was quite shocking to seesomeone whose country is not
even on the content be sopassionate about how we can
actually revolutionize Africaand make things a whole lot
(14:36):
better and build a connectionwith the Caribbean populace as
well, and actually it was alsolike a message that says that
Africa is not only for those whoare on the continent of Africa,
also the diaspora that is notcurrently in the continent, but
they have Africa in them.
It's kind of echoing what KormiKrumas said, again, not because
(15:01):
I live in Africa, but becauseAfrican was born in me.
So those who are in Guyana, ifAfrica is born in them, they are
Africans by design and theyshould contribute in the
development of Africa and weneed to actually facilitate and
enable that to occur.
So I was quite impressed by amessage from him and others as
(15:23):
well.
There were leaders fromdifferent banks African
Development Bank, the AfricanBank and them trying to actually
, you know, talking about howthey finance, like big
infrastructure projects gave mea great deal of insight, because
I didn't know a whole lot ofhow all of that comes together
(15:45):
and there are some keyinefficiencies that were exposed
while they were talking.
Right, even the local banks canactually do a whole lot in
financing these localinfrastructures, but they don't
know how to do that and navigatethe risk behind doing that
right.
And I think these larger banksthat are dedicated their
resources towards thesedevelopments, they have figured
(16:08):
out how to do that in efficientway, like, for example, if
you're building a road, thinkingabout how you're going to
finance it and you know, recruitthe money bag.
They use toes to kind of helpdo that.
You know things like that right, yeah.
So these vehicles for financing,it seems like they are all
(16:30):
there.
It seems like we have enoughcapital in Africa to actually
finance.
But I think the delta here isthe gap in knowledge, right, and
so these leaders comingtogether and hopefully the
smaller banks are there,listening in and actually making
connections with these largerbanks and figuring out how they
(16:50):
can, you know, work together tofinance things, yeah, and make
sure that impact is filled.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
It's filled right, absolutely, absolutely.
My question to you is that nowyou've come in and, like I said,
I've seen your billboardseverywhere, you're staying, and
what is making you say, now, I'mgoing to do business now Like
what are you doing differentlyfrom the last time you came?
Speaker 1 (17:13):
in yeah, what's the shift in mindset?
Yeah, so the shift in mindsetis very, very simple.
Right, I'm not going to force.
I'm not going to force likelocal governments to adopt more
efficient processes.
I'm going to focus on buildingenough influence that they seek
(17:36):
out help from my organization tosolve the key problem.
Right Before is more on theoffensive, going after this,
going after that right Now ismore about, you know, proving
myself and my companies to be,you know, a huge asset to them.
(17:56):
And one key thing that I'mreally going to activate and
take advantage of is, if I canplay ball in Ghana, no problem,
I'll play ball in Ethiopia, I'llplay ball in Tanzania.
And eventually, you know, localgovernment in Ghana is going to
realize, hey, this guy isoperating in Ghana, this other
(18:21):
country is benefiting huge fromthis, you know, efficiency and
this thing that you've built forthem, and we're suffering here.
Why are we doing this?
We're not being very smart here, right, eventually, it's pretty
much, you know, it's like ajoke to them.
I'm making mockery of themeventually, right, but not
directly.
And so that's one strategy I'mwilling to, you know, employ.
(18:45):
And I think, unfortunately, Ithink there's a saying I don't
remember the saying.
But another thing, too that I'mmore focused on is the talent
right.
We have a huge amount of talentavailable and they're not put
to good use right Within myorganization.
(19:06):
My goal is to utilize thattalent as efficiently as I can
and also to also help upscalethat talent.
And if most of our businessesfrom outside, I'm okay with that
right.
That's the key shift in mindset.
I'm completely okay with mostof our businesses being from
(19:27):
outside of Africa, but I want tomake sure that I'm using as
much local talent as possible toexecute projects, so then we
can actually still have abusiness right Before if we're
focused on just having you know.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
Government contracts.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
Government contracts and local projects.
You know projects from local,like companies and whatnot, I
think we'll go bankrupt.
You know it won't work.
It's a little bit different andI think we're also in our
infancy, right, we're stillbuilding relationships, we're
still getting to know thedifferent key people in play
(20:13):
that can actually open the doorsfor us, and so until we get to
that point, this is how we'reoperating our business.
So you know that's, I think, amain shift there.
I would say talent is thebiggest asset for anyone coming
together to operate a business.
You know there is hugeunemployment rates, which means
(20:36):
that you're going to get cheaptalent right.
When there's unlimited supplyor a huge amount of supply, then
that means you actually get todictate.
You know how much you payemployees, Pay your employees
fairly and well, but you do knowthat you are not going to be
paying.
You know San Francisco level ofsalaries for your developers
(21:01):
here, right, and that isencouraging, and you can still
have pretty close skill sets.
You know here, If you don'thave that, you need to embark on
a journey to actually trainfolks and bring them to that
level right.
If you're from the outsidetrying to operate here, you
(21:21):
probably have that exposure.
You can bring that exposure tothese local talents to bring
them to that level of expertisethat you already have.
And that's what I'm trying todo.
I spent a lot of time at, youknow, these corporations 4,500
corporations in the US likeBoston Scientific, US Bank,
Wanzik, and then Microsoft,right, what I've been exposed to
(21:45):
and how things are operated andsome of the efficiencies of how
things get done.
I want to instill it on myemployees here.
I want them to understand, hey,we're not just trying to just
scratch the surface here, we'retrying to go world-class level,
right, and the people that I tryto attract to my organization
(22:08):
and my company is people whohave a thirst for knowledge,
right, and then instilling themthe reality about what it takes
to be the best.
Speaker 3 (22:22):
So the average, you know the average guy in him go
to school, get a job, get ahouse, start a family.
You know, that's it.
Now we're struggling from that.
(22:43):
The jobs are not there.
They've all been to the school.
The jobs are not there.
We've heard a lot of thingsabout the great things that tech
can do and a lot of the greatpeople dropping out With all
these tech apps that we use.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
The Melanes and Belanes most of them dropped out
started from their garages.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
What would be your how to get into tech For a young
Ghanaian who probably doesn'teven like university but needs
to create something?
Start a life out of it?
It's got the desire and theinterest.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
First of all, I want to say that there's nothing
against universities about whatI'm going to say.
I think universities play avery, very key role in people's
development.
It's a social space, anartificial environment that is
dedicated to learning.
(23:45):
It's dedicated to buildingconnections and learning how to
learn.
I think, for me, I learned howto learn in the university.
All the challenges that ourteachers gave us of doing
homework, assignments and whatnot encouraged us to learn how
(24:08):
to learn.
You need that skill of learninghow to learn.
If you haven't already learnedhow to learn in high school,
then you're not ready to go onyour own to build a business or
to start venturing into tech tocreate something.
The whole process of buildinganything is learning and
(24:32):
learning how to learnefficiently.
I think in college I learnedhow my brain works.
It's a very, very intimateprocess of spending a lot of
time learning and trying torefine and optimize your
learning process.
You're being challenged tocapture a whole lot of
(24:54):
information and then being ableto perform and demonstrate your
absorption of that amount ofinformation.
You need to figure out how toabsorb that information as fast
as you can and personalize toyou.
I remember back in the day I wasmajoring in mechanical
(25:16):
engineering.
I think it's statistics,statics no, I think I was taking
statics at the time, or maybedynamics.
This is like a mechanicalengineering you measure the
forces in a member and all ofthat stuff.
It's pretty basic stuff formechanical engineering or civil
(25:39):
engineering.
You actually have to calculateall components of a machine or
all components of a building tosee how forces or tensions are
distributed, and all of that.
They'll give you two bigproblems on the test.
This is not like you can't domemory stuff on this.
You need to know and you'regiving about 45 minutes to
(26:04):
complete those two problems.
It takes a lot of calculationsto solve each problem.
You don't have enough timeBecause you know you're going to
have to take that test.
You need to spend time tryingto figure out how to position
your mind to read problems,understand them really quickly
and figure out how to solve this, how to solve that, figure out
(26:25):
what equation you need to use,how to operate the calculator.
Pretty fast I can tell you thisI got to a point where I can
operate a calculator withoutlooking at the calculator
keyboard.
I got to a point where I wasdoing integrals in my head.
That's calculus, by the way,for those who are not familiar,
(26:45):
integrals that will take a longtime on a whiteboard to solve
Because I don't have much timeon the test.
I can do all that stuff in myhead.
I got to a point where I spenta lot of time trying to train
myself that.
I got to a point where I wasdoing like the say, let me do a
simple calculation like 3 to the24th, I think it's in the
(27:07):
billions, the number is in thebillions.
I was doing that in my head.
That's an intimate process thatgot me there.
Integrals that would take like,let me just say you have, like,
let me say, 20 foot whiteboard,right, and you fill it up with
calculations, right, three timesyou wipe it, you do it three
times that level of calculation.
(27:27):
I was able to do it to my headAt that time.
I spent a lot of time trainingmyself and trying to get speed,
you know.
And then you have other people,other engineers, who are sort
of we have these conversationsafter our tests like hey, how
did you do, how did the test go?
And then we tell each other ourtest scores and it was like a
competition, right?
(27:47):
So that's the environment thatuniversity creates right.
And that pushed me to thatpoint where I realized, holy
shit, you know I could be, I'mgood, and my colleagues were
also at the point where they canactually quickly you know
tabulate numbers really fast onthe calculator and be able to
write you know the solution onthe paper really quick and move
(28:10):
on to the next problem, right,it forced us to that point,
right.
So you do need that environmentto actually create this kind of
like conditioning, create thiskind of skill set, right.
You know, if I was to do thatoutside of, people would think
like a magician.
You asked me this and I'm ableto just think about it and just
(28:32):
give you a solution right away.
But that was just a whole likeenvironment that created that.
But if you can create that inyourself at home, then you don't
need the university.
If you're self motivated right,and you're self challenged
right, and say you are going tospend your time going to
conferences and whatnot, so thenyou get like you get to build
(28:54):
connections and whatnot, becauseuniversities give you
connections right by default,then I think you can get to a
point where you can say, yeah, Ican skip college, I can skip
university and focus on actuallysolving a problem or focus on
actually, like you know,learning.
I'll tell you this I actuallynever major in software
engineering or computer science.
(29:15):
I majored in mechanical.
I was four years, did twointernships in mechanical and
then I switched to mathematicsand then I started a company and
that's what moved me out ofuniversity arena and I had to
learn software on my own.
I learned everything on my own.
Mathematics forced me to taketwo courses in computer science.
(29:35):
That was just basic courses.
At that time I thought it was awaste of my time because I was
madly in love with mathematics,right.
So, and one thing I wanna saytoo is, mathematics forced me to
challenge myself constantly,constantly.
Because by design, it's like yousolve this problem.
(29:56):
How do we make this problemmore complex?
So you solve it Quick.
What if we change the scenarios?
What does it imply?
And then it just gets more andmore complex, right, it's like
it doesn't stop.
So it helps with your problemsolving skills.
It helps with the problemsolving skills, right.
And so when I ventured intosoftware engineering, everything
was so easy.
(30:16):
It was just like baby stuff forme.
Because that's problem solving,yes, because like mathematics
is at that point where it's likeintense solving problems all
the time.
And then computer science andengineering was like there is a
limit on how complex it gets,right, whereas in math there was
like no limit on how complex itcan get.
(30:37):
You just get it more and morecomplex and complex, whereas in
computer science it felt likethere was some sort of a cap to
it.
Right, how hard could it be?
Right?
And so that gives youconfidence to approach problems.
And if you build that kind ofconfidence right, this is a
confidence I built in collegeright, if you can build that
confidence at home, right,that's gonna engage you in
(30:59):
solving very, very hard andtechnical problems and by so
doing, you're going to learn theskills necessary to solve that
problem.
Now let me bring it down toearth.
Let's just say you want to be asoftware engineer, right?
Some people have taken thedirection of bootcams.
And what have you?
(31:20):
Right?
Go to a place they teach youHTML, css, javascript, python,
python, what have you?
And you come out of that andyou think you're a software
engineer or you're not.
If I give you a problem, youcan't solve it right, unless
their bootcamp will solely focuson problem solving.
Right, they give you a project.
So I would advise anyone whowants to venture into tech to
(31:43):
pick a problem right and examinethemselves that, hey, am I
willing to be committed tomaking sure that this problem is
solved?
If you answer yes to that, thenyou're committed to doing
whatever it takes to solve thatproblem.
Because it is damn hard to learncomputer science and software
(32:04):
development Because, look,everything is going to fail.
You're going to have a lot ofthings not working the way it
should in the process If you arededicated to solving that
problem.
Once you solve that problem,you learn all the skills that
you need to learn to become anengineer.
So that implies that if youhave to learn algorithms to
(32:26):
solve a certain problems, right,this is stuff that you take in
college.
You take an algorithms coursein college.
Right, if you were to solve aproblem that requires you to
have algorithms knowledge, whatwould you do?
You go and fetch the source ofinformation for that and then
you learn it so you can comeback and continue solving your
problem.
So by then you've taken thecourse by design.
(32:49):
Ok, just because you're tryingto solve a problem, you'll be
taking multiple courses.
Just because you are solvingthat problem and you're not
taking an official course.
You're learning to the extentthat you absorb enough
information as if you weretaking a course in college.
Speaker 3 (33:05):
And that also means that you may not even have to
take any course.
It may all be available on theinternet for you.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
It will be all available for you on the
internet Searching and Iencourage people to start using
Gemini and chat, gpt and whathave you that are out there
Query it?
How would you approach this?
How would you solve thisproblem?
What are the things I need tolearn to be able to solve this
problem?
Yes, you might not give youanswers, because it's not
(33:30):
capable of giving you answers tosolve a certain unique problem,
right.
But it's important to know thatyou need to seek out the
information that's going toenable you, that's going to
empower you, and you need toalign yourself to learning.
Align yourself to be passionateabout learning and absorbing as
(33:53):
much information as youpossibly can, so you can become
that person that solves thatproblem.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
I met a few guys from a renowned tech school.
I think they were at level, Ithink it's 300, whatever they
call it and I asked them whathave you guys done?
And they could improve it.
And these were students,supposedly in their third year,
(34:21):
and I was like, look, just showme what you've done.
In the end, it took them abouttwo weeks to produce something
and, look, this is somethingthat I could have done when I
was 17 years Terrible.
So I understand what you'resaying.
Even if you don't go throughthe school system and you decide
to adopt the mindset of problemsolving, you can become a tech
(34:43):
genius in your own way and I'mgoing to inspire your audience a
little bit.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
I actually don't have a bachelor's.
Yes, I don't, but I was aprincipal engineer manager at
Microsoft.
I was managing engineers thathad master's degrees.
I was managing engineers thathad everything principal
engineers and what have you why?
What made it possible Problemsolving Exactly, I focused on
(35:11):
solving problems and there wasevidence of me solving problems
and when I worked at US Bank, Isolved problems very high
visibility, important problemsthat I could talk about in
interviews.
So you can never underestimatesolving problems.
(35:31):
The degree didn't matter.
I remember back in the day, man,microsoft was this organization
that all they cared about wascredentials and it grew out of
that realizing that, wow, thereare people who didn't actually
go through university system andlearn and get these master's
and PhDs and whatnot, and thereare highly-performance
(35:54):
individuals.
They get a lot of stuff done.
One thing I focused on isgetting stuff done.
I do everything possible toactually make sure that this
particular thing I'm doing itgets to the point where it's
done, and I will spend hours.
I have times when I've donethree days with no sleep or four
(36:18):
days with no sleep because Iwas so motivated in making sure
that I solved this problem oneway or the other.
And when you solve problems atquality not just solving the
problems at quality make surethey are high-quality solutions.
People are going to see thatand when you're talking to
someone, look, I tell peoplethis too.
(36:40):
There are people who have thesedegrees and PhD.
When they put me side to sideto them and we're talking about
something, they'll tell them tobecause they see a clear
difference.
I'm sure when I've doneinterviews, they've had someone
else who did the interview forthe same role, but they were
more impressed with me becausewhat they're hearing and what
(37:01):
I'm talking about shows a wholelot more expertise than that
person who's walking hours withso much credentials.
That problem-solving piece doesall the magic Wow.
Speaker 3 (37:13):
Wow, kevin, I had a guest here.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
Anyway, I'm not advocating for doing four days
of no sleep and three days of nosleep, by the way, Don't do
that.
Speaker 3 (37:26):
I would never do that again.
Whatever works with individualpeople.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
No, don't do it Be healthy and efficient, that's
right.
Speaker 3 (37:34):
I've had a guest here , an awesome lady, Gloria, who's
a multi-melaner, and I can'twait for people to hear her
interview.
She came all the way from theUS as well, and she had a
question for my next guest andit happened to be you.
(37:54):
I didn't know it was going tobe you.
And then the question is if youwere to rewind 20 years, what
will you do differently?
Speaker 1 (38:13):
Man.
Honestly, that time I wasn't soconfident about my capabilities
.
My confidence came at age 20.
At age 20, 19, thereabouts Ispent a lot of time asking
myself what's the best way tolive.
(38:33):
I spent a lot of time readingeverything I read like
philosophy papers.
I read the Bible cover to cover.
I read the Quran and otherthings.
Religious books.
Yeah, religious books.
I really wanted to answer thatquestion in a very concrete and
(38:54):
convincing way, and I wanted tobe analytical.
I really believe that we'regiving brains to think.
I really believe that we're notgiving brains to just simply
not use it.
I think we should use ourbrains, and so I think we should
use our brains.
One thing that I came toconclusion was we are here to
(39:16):
help people, right.
Once I realized that I startedaligning myself, I asked my how
can I help people?
I need to have skills and Ineed to be bold, I need to be
(39:37):
very, very convicted and I needto be honest.
Right, if I had the opportunityto go back in time, I would
have done that work at 20, youknow, not really my age at 14
instead, that would have made ahuge difference in my trajectory
(40:03):
.
That would have meant I wouldhave wasted less time, you know,
trying this, trying that, youknow, and just saying this is
what I need to solve, and Iwould have started solving the
problem that I'm solving todaymuch earlier.
I gained an extra what?
Six years of expertise, and soif I, in that confidence that
(40:33):
I'm talking about, also around20, remember, I talked about how
we pushed ourselves to thelimit and everything In 1920,
we're doing that.
I would have loved to have donethat at 14, right, I think
around that time I didn't know.
(40:54):
Like I just thought thesepeople were just as good and
yeah, that's what they do.
But around 20, you know, Ilearned that, oh, what all those
people are doing, I can do thattoo.
I mean, if I choose to do it, Ican do it.
So if I had the opportunity,challenge myself and then learn
(41:17):
about the best way to liveearlier and would have, you know
, aligned myself much earlierand built skills much earlier,
Fantastic, that's good.
Speaker 3 (41:29):
That's really nice to hear.
So it leads on to our twoquestions Very brief Motivation
or discipline?
Speaker 1 (41:40):
Discipline- Okay, um, discipline.
Look, anything you do in,anything you want to accomplish
in life, you're going to needconsistency.
You know, when motivation isnot high, discipline is what's
going to take over.
Speaker 3 (41:57):
I like that, Kevin.
What's the best advice you'veever received from anyone?
Speaker 1 (42:04):
I'll tell you one thing, that two things that
motivated me.
Back in the day One, when I wasreally young, my grandfather
said when so when I was reallyyoung, right, my, my sister, who
was younger than me, was betterat reading than I was.
So it was usually against meand I felt like bad and all of
(42:29):
that right.
But my grandfather at the timewas telling people to leave me
alone.
When he grows you'll get better.
And then fast forward.
You know, before mid school Iwas in Ghana, around, like you
know, or class six class, classfour, I think around.
(42:53):
Class four is when I wasliterally like the best
mathematician in my class.
You know, I was like the mathguy.
All of a sudden, this guy whowas not really, you know, at the
top, all of a sudden he's atthe top for math.
Right, I look back at that andit's encouraging that to say
(43:14):
that you might not be good today, You're going to be better
tomorrow.
And coupled with this I thinkthis one is 14 when I came
across Kofi Annan I don't knowhim personally, but I saw his
one, his quote he said I'mmiscoding this, but knowledge is
(43:39):
power, Education is thepremises of progress in every
society and every something,something like that.
So I was focused on knowledge,trying to have as much knowledge
as possible.
Gosh, I spent lots and lots andlots of times on Wikipedia just
(43:59):
reading stuff, randomly readingpapers.
I just wanted to know, andeducation is the premises of
progress.
Education you need to educateyourself.
You know, if you don't educateyourself, you're not progressing
.
And so I saw him as my idol,even though I was not going to
go to political routes.
And so those words I held ontoit.
(44:24):
Knowledge is power.
It's kept holding onto it Everytime.
I just tell myself, even thoughI was forcing, I was not really
, like you know, advanced, but Ijust know that I just need to
focus on knowledge, I just needto focus on my studies.
And so in high school, I wastrying to perform the best that
I can, you know, treating myteachers with utmost respect.
(44:47):
They were like God's to me.
I was just like listening.
I was sitting in front of theclass.
Speaker 3 (44:51):
You know a good student, a good student.
I wanted to learn everything.
Speaker 1 (44:55):
I wanted to know everything because I knew
education was important.
So I think those things youwill be better, right and
education and knowledge is power, Fantastic.
Speaker 3 (45:08):
Now this leads us on to the question One less guest.
Speaker 1 (45:25):
Oh well, I think, in the current times we are in, I
think it's appropriate to askour next guest how can AI
machine learning solve yourcurrent problems and how can
they solve problems for yourcommunity, your country and
(45:47):
Africa at large?
Speaker 3 (45:56):
Thank you so much.
Look, if you haven't subscribed, please do share this content
so that we can grow.
We can't wait to get to 10,000subscribers on our YouTube
platform and when we do getthere, we want to do something
great for all our listeners andour viewers.
We want to support somebusinesses in Ghana locally with
(46:19):
some cash.
So let's get there as fast aswe can.
Thank you so much and stayconnected.
Talent is the biggest asset for anyone coming
together to operate a business.
It seems like we have enoughcapital in Africa to actually
finance.
Of course, of course, but Ithink the delta here is the gap
in knowledge.
Data in Africa is extremelyexpensive and it shuts out
people out of the economy ofbusiness.
(00:20):
So if you need to access dataabout starting a business and
resources on how to start abusiness, I mean each time
you're online looking for thoseresources, it's costing you.
Affordability of data is very,very important to the growth of
an economy In Ghana.
If you have certainefficiencies that I've seen here
(00:40):
right, if you have log filesand you're doing manual tasks
inside your company, how are yougoing to compete with the
Google and the Microsoft of theworld?
You?
Just can't.
I'm African, not because I livein Africa.
I'm African because African wasborn in me.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Hey, you're welcome once again to Connective Minds
podcast, and it's me again,derek.
Today, I'm in a conversationwith Kisi, who owns Kisi Co
technology and consulting group.
Now, this company is based inSan Francisco and in Accra.
He's also a leader in his fieldand he runs another company
called Zoey AI and engineeringAfrica.
(01:23):
Now, that's what ConnectiveMinds is about.
We're here to haveconversations that empower you
wherever you are.
Stay connected and be with us.
You're welcome.
How are you doing, man?
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Wonderful.
It's a pleasure to be here andshare my insights and experience
with the audience.
Yeah amazing.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
You do a lot of speaking.
So when I went onto your site,I saw quite a few events that
you've spoken at Bintu Tanzane,a lot of events in Ghana, some
in the US.
So, wow, that's fantastic.
That's fantastic.
You said you want to fostertech innovation, advance
(02:11):
impactful initiatives andcontribute to the ever-evolving
business landscape.
How do you hope to do that?
Speaker 1 (02:22):
First of all, let me address I don't actually speak a
lot.
It's just more recently that Irealized that, in order to have
the impact that I desire to have, influence has to be part of
that.
Before, I just wanted to focuson just the projects that are
impactful, but in order to beable to get the opportunity to
(02:45):
carry out those projects, youneed to engage people who can
actually add value to theprojects.
In order to be able to engagethose individuals, you need to
have some degree of influencefor them to see that you're
worth the while or whatever.
So I started coming out of theshell and going out there.
(03:10):
I got so many speaking,engagement requests and whatnot
when I was at Microsoft.
I was an engineer manager thereat the time and I rejected all
of them because I didn't feellike it's really worth my time.
I wanted to focus on actuallyengineering and actually solving
problems.
So I'm a very traditionalengineer.
(03:31):
I just want to go hidesomewhere, get all the work done
and just do an announcement bigsplash disappear.
Come back, do an announcementbig splash disappear.
But I think it's way more thanthat.
If you want to have actualsustainable impact, you need to
(03:51):
be strategic a whole lot morestrategic than I thought I
needed to be and, like I said,like you were asking, the way I
want to do that is think aboutthe whole bottom line things
that can actually move everybodyforward when it comes to the
(04:16):
business landscape.
Here there is a whole lot ofefficiency that people operate
in and they're used to it, and Ithink that's the way things
should be, or things are, andthey can't get any better.
I want to expose them to thewall of enterprise software and
how it enables businesses tofunction more efficiently and
(04:40):
quite fast.
You can't be a global companyin Ghana if you have certain
efficiencies that I've seen here.
If you have log files andyou're doing manual tasks inside
your company, how are you goingto compete with the Google and
Microsoft of the world?
You just can't.
They are highly optimized toget as much work done.
(05:03):
It's all about production,getting more and more and more
stuff out there and refining thestrategy and getting things
done better.
So Kisienko's fundamentalmission and motive is to
actually engage local businessesand engage local governments to
(05:26):
actually adapt differenttechnologies and different
processes that can actually makethem much more efficient and
actually execute much morefaster and be a lot more
strategic through technology tosome degree, and so aligning
(05:46):
myself to that and my businessis to that is the direction I'm
going in.
The nonprofit side, with theengineer Africa, is more
targeted towards things thatbusinesses don't necessarily
want to engage in.
So I mean businesses can engagein like upskilling the
(06:09):
population, but I thinknonprofit has a more unique
approach to do that for thebenefit of society and not just
for the benefit of the bottomline.
Right, because if you'reinfluenced by the bottom line,
you could probably just try tojust ingest students into
(06:32):
whatever operation you have and,you know, be more superficial
in the things that can attractthem, whereas with a nonprofit
approach you want to actuallyengage them and actually teach
them core skills that canactually pretty much help them
be good contributing citizens inthe engineering area.
(06:55):
So part of our aim is capacitydevelopment, that's the
workshops and training and stuff, and then the other aspect is
projects that we think canactually enable people.
So I spoke to you earlier aboutthe public wifi.
Right, data in Africa isextremely expensive.
(07:16):
Right, and it shuts out peopleout of the economy of business.
Right, if you want to start abusiness and you don't have, if
you're not connected or yourconnectivity is extremely
expensive.
You don't have enough access todata in the world, within the
web, right?
So if you need to access dataabout starting a business and
(07:40):
resources on how to start abusiness, I mean each time
you're online looking for thoseresources, it's costing you yeah
, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,yeah, yeah yeah, Aluminum and
the lake.
Exactly right.
So, by design, you are farbehind than someone who's
operating in the US, who's alsostarting a similar business as
you.
Are right, you have this uniqueidea of solving a global issue.
(08:00):
If someone else is in the USstarting that same issue,
starting a business to solvethat same problem, you are at a
disadvantage.
Right, you are a hugedisadvantage.
This individual can just go toany local coffee shop and have
access to data for free.
Right, they can go.
There are so many differentplaces they can go for free and
(08:21):
access data for free.
You don't have that option herein Ghana right and even if you
do.
it's very limited Very verylimited, it's very, very limited
, very limited, and eventuallythey'll tell you to leave if
you're not buying any of theservices A cup of coffee.
Yeah, you know, if you're not soand you also like certain
things that you wanna do, likeif you're in technology and
(08:42):
you're building, like you know,something like a game or
whatever, right, you need tohave an online game or whatever.
You need to have enoughconnectivity to the inner world
to actually test the game thatyou're developing.
And if your connectivity isquite limited, I mean, you don't
stand a chance compared tosomeone else outside.
(09:03):
Right, absolutely so the keything here is those students.
They don't have enough money tobuy data all the time.
Right, if they're just in acrowd, they can just have access
to data.
All they have to do is justwatch some ad for some time and
then, boom, they are connected.
Right, I've had experienceswhere people will tell me oh,
(09:25):
I'm out of data.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
They have to keep buying data all the time,
whereas data outside isn't acontinuum.
You're constantly connectedright, and that's the way it
should be, and I wanted to getto the point where it's
normalized for people to beconstantly connected.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
Be connected.
Right.
Have you had the situationwhere you were back in the US
and you're trying to contactsomeone in Ghana and you can't
reach them?
And then they contacted you,like my data had been switched
off.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Yeah, yeah, because they're trying to conserve data.
Because of how expensive it ishow expensive it is right, and
so these are challenges that weneed to solve in collaboration
with the local government andlocal municipalities here, and
local telecoms that are here,because affordability of data is
(10:21):
very, very important to thegrowth of an economy If we want
to be honest about ourselves,right.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
Especially now, kevin .
Yeah, especially now, yeah,yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
A lot of businesses need to be started to solve
unique problems that we have inour economy.
In our current environment,there's so many inefficiencies
in how we do things, and peoplehave ideas on how to solve those
problems, and I think we needto play a role in enabling them,
(10:55):
and so one key thing is dataconnectivity.
And another thing that wethought about also doing is
housing right.
Housing needs to be cheaper.
You need to have a place whereyou could have sanctuary right.
If you happen to be born in afamily where your parents were
(11:16):
living in a kiosk right, thatcan actually make you extremely
disadvantaged towards being assuccessful as someone who was
born living in a more stablehome or whatever right.
So the more accessible and themore cheaper homes are, the more
(11:38):
we include more people into theeconomy, and so we need to move
in that direction, and thegovernment needs to be engaged
in that, and so our goal is toprove, with engineering, that we
can actually use extremely lowcost materials to produce
housing units that are under$10,000, right.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
That's fantastic.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
And that's the benchmark we're trying to hit
using clay.
I don't know if we familiarwith that Taqwami.
Speaker 3 (12:04):
I am Hold that thought there.
Recently I got a message fromone of my older friends that the
UK are developing clay homesthat are going to be
revolutionary for the housingindustry in the UK.
And then the man was basicallytrying to say well, this is
(12:26):
something that we've known inAfrica for years.
I was born in one of thosehomes and we haven't capitalized
on that.
And we've taken that theirsystem of building and then now
they're going back.
Yeah, so it's interesting yousay that.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
Yeah, I think we got to go back to core.
I mean, there's a reason whywhen you go far outskirts of
Ghana, you see these homes thatare built with clay and they've
been there for probably like 50years or 100 years and they're
still in great integrity right.
That says a lot about thestrength and says a lot about
(13:08):
you know.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
And it's so cool in there.
Yeah, it's so cool you know,these days the homes are very
hot.
Yeah.
But those clay houses, thosemud houses are very cool.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Yeah, and there's a reason why they chose to use
clay.
Yes, why.
Ancient knowledge, man 100%.
And it's highly availablematerials.
Yeah, and it requireslow-skilled labor to actually
execute a project of buildingwith clay, right yeah, let's
talk about the Africanprosperity dialogues 2024.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
You were there, I was there.
Yes, the president was there.
Yes, and that was done atPediasa Lodge.
That's correct.
Yes, presidential Lodge yeah,how was it?
How was it?
Speaker 1 (13:53):
You know, it's a breath of fresh air to see all
these leaders come together andpretty much unite on one message
that we have to take our ownprosperity into our own hands.
That was the unifying messagefrom all the leaders, and I
think one person that reallystood out to me and was quite
(14:16):
vocal about some of theinefficiencies in how we operate
was the president of Guyana.
It was quite shocking to seesomeone whose country is not
even on the content be sopassionate about how we can
actually revolutionize Africaand make things a whole lot
(14:36):
better and build a connectionwith the Caribbean populace as
well, and actually it was alsolike a message that says that
Africa is not only for those whoare on the continent of Africa,
also the diaspora that is notcurrently in the continent, but
they have Africa in them.
It's kind of echoing what KormiKrumas said, again, not because
(15:01):
I live in Africa, but becauseAfrican was born in me.
So those who are in Guyana, ifAfrica is born in them, they are
Africans by design and theyshould contribute in the
development of Africa and weneed to actually facilitate and
enable that to occur.
So I was quite impressed by amessage from him and others as
(15:23):
well.
There were leaders fromdifferent banks African
Development Bank, the AfricanBank and them trying to actually
, you know, talking about howthey finance, like big
infrastructure projects gave mea great deal of insight, because
I didn't know a whole lot ofhow all of that comes together
(15:45):
and there are some keyinefficiencies that were exposed
while they were talking.
Right, even the local banks canactually do a whole lot in
financing these localinfrastructures, but they don't
know how to do that and navigatethe risk behind doing that
right.
And I think these larger banksthat are dedicated their
resources towards thesedevelopments, they have figured
(16:08):
out how to do that in efficientway, like, for example, if
you're building a road, thinkingabout how you're going to
finance it and you know, recruitthe money bag.
They use toes to kind of helpdo that.
You know things like that right, yeah.
So these vehicles for financing,it seems like they are all
(16:30):
there.
It seems like we have enoughcapital in Africa to actually
finance.
But I think the delta here isthe gap in knowledge, right, and
so these leaders comingtogether and hopefully the
smaller banks are there,listening in and actually making
connections with these largerbanks and figuring out how they
(16:50):
can, you know, work together tofinance things, yeah, and make
sure that impact is filled.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
It's filled right, absolutely, absolutely.
My question to you is that nowyou've come in and, like I said,
I've seen your billboardseverywhere, you're staying, and
what is making you say, now, I'mgoing to do business now Like
what are you doing differentlyfrom the last time you came?
Speaker 1 (17:13):
in yeah, what's the shift in mindset?
Yeah, so the shift in mindsetis very, very simple.
Right, I'm not going to force.
I'm not going to force likelocal governments to adopt more
efficient processes.
I'm going to focus on buildingenough influence that they seek
(17:36):
out help from my organization tosolve the key problem.
Right Before is more on theoffensive, going after this,
going after that right Now ismore about, you know, proving
myself and my companies to be,you know, a huge asset to them.
(17:56):
And one key thing that I'mreally going to activate and
take advantage of is, if I canplay ball in Ghana, no problem,
I'll play ball in Ethiopia, I'llplay ball in Tanzania.
And eventually, you know, localgovernment in Ghana is going to
realize, hey, this guy isoperating in Ghana, this other
(18:21):
country is benefiting huge fromthis, you know, efficiency and
this thing that you've built forthem, and we're suffering here.
Why are we doing this?
We're not being very smart here, right, eventually, it's pretty
much, you know, it's like ajoke to them.
I'm making mockery of themeventually, right, but not
directly.
And so that's one strategy I'mwilling to, you know, employ.
(18:45):
And I think, unfortunately, Ithink there's a saying I don't
remember the saying.
But another thing, too that I'mmore focused on is the talent
right.
We have a huge amount of talentavailable and they're not put
to good use right Within myorganization.
(19:06):
My goal is to utilize thattalent as efficiently as I can
and also to also help upscalethat talent.
And if most of our businessesfrom outside, I'm okay with that
right.
That's the key shift in mindset.
I'm completely okay with mostof our businesses being from
(19:27):
outside of Africa, but I want tomake sure that I'm using as
much local talent as possible toexecute projects, so then we
can actually still have abusiness right Before if we're
focused on just having you know.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
Government contracts.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
Government contracts and local projects.
You know projects from local,like companies and whatnot, I
think we'll go bankrupt.
You know it won't work.
It's a little bit different andI think we're also in our
infancy, right, we're stillbuilding relationships, we're
still getting to know thedifferent key people in play
(20:13):
that can actually open the doorsfor us, and so until we get to
that point, this is how we'reoperating our business.
So you know that's, I think, amain shift there.
I would say talent is thebiggest asset for anyone coming
together to operate a business.
You know there is hugeunemployment rates, which means
(20:36):
that you're going to get cheaptalent right.
When there's unlimited supplyor a huge amount of supply, then
that means you actually get todictate.
You know how much you payemployees, Pay your employees
fairly and well, but you do knowthat you are not going to be
paying.
You know San Francisco level ofsalaries for your developers
(21:01):
here, right, and that isencouraging, and you can still
have pretty close skill sets.
You know here, If you don'thave that, you need to embark on
a journey to actually trainfolks and bring them to that
level right.
If you're from the outsidetrying to operate here, you
(21:21):
probably have that exposure.
You can bring that exposure tothese local talents to bring
them to that level of expertisethat you already have.
And that's what I'm trying todo.
I spent a lot of time at, youknow, these corporations 4,500
corporations in the US likeBoston Scientific, US Bank,
Wanzik, and then Microsoft,right, what I've been exposed to
(21:45):
and how things are operated andsome of the efficiencies of how
things get done.
I want to instill it on myemployees here.
I want them to understand, hey,we're not just trying to just
scratch the surface here, we'retrying to go world-class level,
right, and the people that I tryto attract to my organization
(22:08):
and my company is people whohave a thirst for knowledge,
right, and then instilling themthe reality about what it takes
to be the best.
Speaker 3 (22:22):
So the average, you know the average guy in him go
to school, get a job, get ahouse, start a family.
You know, that's it.
Now we're struggling from that.
(22:43):
The jobs are not there.
They've all been to the school.
The jobs are not there.
We've heard a lot of thingsabout the great things that tech
can do and a lot of the greatpeople dropping out With all
these tech apps that we use.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
The Melanes and Belanes most of them dropped out
started from their garages.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
What would be your how to get into tech For a young
Ghanaian who probably doesn'teven like university but needs
to create something?
Start a life out of it?
It's got the desire and theinterest.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
First of all, I want to say that there's nothing
against universities about whatI'm going to say.
I think universities play avery, very key role in people's
development.
It's a social space, anartificial environment that is
dedicated to learning.
(23:45):
It's dedicated to buildingconnections and learning how to
learn.
I think, for me, I learned howto learn in the university.
All the challenges that ourteachers gave us of doing
homework, assignments and whatnot encouraged us to learn how
(24:08):
to learn.
You need that skill of learninghow to learn.
If you haven't already learnedhow to learn in high school,
then you're not ready to go onyour own to build a business or
to start venturing into tech tocreate something.
The whole process of buildinganything is learning and
(24:32):
learning how to learnefficiently.
I think in college I learnedhow my brain works.
It's a very, very intimateprocess of spending a lot of
time learning and trying torefine and optimize your
learning process.
You're being challenged tocapture a whole lot of
(24:54):
information and then being ableto perform and demonstrate your
absorption of that amount ofinformation.
You need to figure out how toabsorb that information as fast
as you can and personalize toyou.
I remember back in the day I wasmajoring in mechanical
(25:16):
engineering.
I think it's statistics,statics no, I think I was taking
statics at the time, or maybedynamics.
This is like a mechanicalengineering you measure the
forces in a member and all ofthat stuff.
It's pretty basic stuff formechanical engineering or civil
(25:39):
engineering.
You actually have to calculateall components of a machine or
all components of a building tosee how forces or tensions are
distributed, and all of that.
They'll give you two bigproblems on the test.
This is not like you can't domemory stuff on this.
You need to know and you'regiving about 45 minutes to
(26:04):
complete those two problems.
It takes a lot of calculationsto solve each problem.
You don't have enough timeBecause you know you're going to
have to take that test.
You need to spend time tryingto figure out how to position
your mind to read problems,understand them really quickly
and figure out how to solve this, how to solve that, figure out
(26:25):
what equation you need to use,how to operate the calculator.
Pretty fast I can tell you thisI got to a point where I can
operate a calculator withoutlooking at the calculator
keyboard.
I got to a point where I wasdoing integrals in my head.
That's calculus, by the way,for those who are not familiar,
(26:45):
integrals that will take a longtime on a whiteboard to solve
Because I don't have much timeon the test.
I can do all that stuff in myhead.
I got to a point where I spenta lot of time trying to train
myself that.
I got to a point where I wasdoing like the say, let me do a
simple calculation like 3 to the24th, I think it's in the
(27:07):
billions, the number is in thebillions.
I was doing that in my head.
That's an intimate process thatgot me there.
Integrals that would take like,let me just say you have, like,
let me say, 20 foot whiteboard,right, and you fill it up with
calculations, right, three timesyou wipe it, you do it three
times that level of calculation.
(27:27):
I was able to do it to my headAt that time.
I spent a lot of time trainingmyself and trying to get speed,
you know.
And then you have other people,other engineers, who are sort
of we have these conversationsafter our tests like hey, how
did you do, how did the test go?
And then we tell each other ourtest scores and it was like a
competition, right?
(27:47):
So that's the environment thatuniversity creates right.
And that pushed me to thatpoint where I realized, holy
shit, you know I could be, I'mgood, and my colleagues were
also at the point where they canactually quickly you know
tabulate numbers really fast onthe calculator and be able to
write you know the solution onthe paper really quick and move
(28:10):
on to the next problem, right,it forced us to that point,
right.
So you do need that environmentto actually create this kind of
like conditioning, create thiskind of skill set, right.
You know, if I was to do thatoutside of, people would think
like a magician.
You asked me this and I'm ableto just think about it and just
(28:32):
give you a solution right away.
But that was just a whole likeenvironment that created that.
But if you can create that inyourself at home, then you don't
need the university.
If you're self motivated right,and you're self challenged
right, and say you are going tospend your time going to
conferences and whatnot, so thenyou get like you get to build
(28:54):
connections and whatnot, becauseuniversities give you
connections right by default,then I think you can get to a
point where you can say, yeah, Ican skip college, I can skip
university and focus on actuallysolving a problem or focus on
actually, like you know,learning.
I'll tell you this I actuallynever major in software
engineering or computer science.
(29:15):
I majored in mechanical.
I was four years, did twointernships in mechanical and
then I switched to mathematicsand then I started a company and
that's what moved me out ofuniversity arena and I had to
learn software on my own.
I learned everything on my own.
Mathematics forced me to taketwo courses in computer science.
(29:35):
That was just basic courses.
At that time I thought it was awaste of my time because I was
madly in love with mathematics,right.
So, and one thing I wanna saytoo is, mathematics forced me to
challenge myself constantly,constantly.
Because by design, it's like yousolve this problem.
(29:56):
How do we make this problemmore complex?
So you solve it Quick.
What if we change the scenarios?
What does it imply?
And then it just gets more andmore complex, right, it's like
it doesn't stop.
So it helps with your problemsolving skills.
It helps with the problemsolving skills, right.
And so when I ventured intosoftware engineering, everything
was so easy.
(30:16):
It was just like baby stuff forme.
Because that's problem solving,yes, because like mathematics
is at that point where it's likeintense solving problems all
the time.
And then computer science andengineering was like there is a
limit on how complex it gets,right, whereas in math there was
like no limit on how complex itcan get.
(30:37):
You just get it more and morecomplex and complex, whereas in
computer science it felt likethere was some sort of a cap to
it.
Right, how hard could it be?
Right?
And so that gives youconfidence to approach problems.
And if you build that kind ofconfidence right, this is a
confidence I built in collegeright, if you can build that
confidence at home, right,that's gonna engage you in
(30:59):
solving very, very hard andtechnical problems and by so
doing, you're going to learn theskills necessary to solve that
problem.
Now let me bring it down toearth.
Let's just say you want to be asoftware engineer, right?
Some people have taken thedirection of bootcams.
And what have you?
(31:20):
Right?
Go to a place they teach youHTML, css, javascript, python,
python, what have you?
And you come out of that andyou think you're a software
engineer or you're not.
If I give you a problem, youcan't solve it right, unless
their bootcamp will solely focuson problem solving.
Right, they give you a project.
So I would advise anyone whowants to venture into tech to
(31:43):
pick a problem right and examinethemselves that, hey, am I
willing to be committed tomaking sure that this problem is
solved?
If you answer yes to that, thenyou're committed to doing
whatever it takes to solve thatproblem.
Because it is damn hard to learncomputer science and software
(32:04):
development Because, look,everything is going to fail.
You're going to have a lot ofthings not working the way it
should in the process If you arededicated to solving that
problem.
Once you solve that problem,you learn all the skills that
you need to learn to become anengineer.
So that implies that if youhave to learn algorithms to
(32:26):
solve a certain problems, right,this is stuff that you take in
college.
You take an algorithms coursein college.
Right, if you were to solve aproblem that requires you to
have algorithms knowledge, whatwould you do?
You go and fetch the source ofinformation for that and then
you learn it so you can comeback and continue solving your
problem.
So by then you've taken thecourse by design.
(32:49):
Ok, just because you're tryingto solve a problem, you'll be
taking multiple courses.
Just because you are solvingthat problem and you're not
taking an official course.
You're learning to the extentthat you absorb enough
information as if you weretaking a course in college.
Speaker 3 (33:05):
And that also means that you may not even have to
take any course.
It may all be available on theinternet for you.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
It will be all available for you on the
internet Searching and Iencourage people to start using
Gemini and chat, gpt and whathave you that are out there
Query it?
How would you approach this?
How would you solve thisproblem?
What are the things I need tolearn to be able to solve this
problem?
Yes, you might not give youanswers, because it's not
(33:30):
capable of giving you answers tosolve a certain unique problem,
right.
But it's important to know thatyou need to seek out the
information that's going toenable you, that's going to
empower you, and you need toalign yourself to learning.
Align yourself to be passionateabout learning and absorbing as
(33:53):
much information as youpossibly can, so you can become
that person that solves thatproblem.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
I met a few guys from a renowned tech school.
I think they were at level, Ithink it's 300, whatever they
call it and I asked them whathave you guys done?
And they could improve it.
And these were students,supposedly in their third year,
(34:21):
and I was like, look, just showme what you've done.
In the end, it took them abouttwo weeks to produce something
and, look, this is somethingthat I could have done when I
was 17 years Terrible.
So I understand what you'resaying.
Even if you don't go throughthe school system and you decide
to adopt the mindset of problemsolving, you can become a tech
(34:43):
genius in your own way and I'mgoing to inspire your audience a
little bit.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
I actually don't have a bachelor's.
Yes, I don't, but I was aprincipal engineer manager at
Microsoft.
I was managing engineers thathad master's degrees.
I was managing engineers thathad everything principal
engineers and what have you why?
What made it possible Problemsolving Exactly, I focused on
(35:11):
solving problems and there wasevidence of me solving problems
and when I worked at US Bank, Isolved problems very high
visibility, important problemsthat I could talk about in
interviews.
So you can never underestimatesolving problems.
(35:31):
The degree didn't matter.
I remember back in the day, man,microsoft was this organization
that all they cared about wascredentials and it grew out of
that realizing that, wow, thereare people who didn't actually
go through university system andlearn and get these master's
and PhDs and whatnot, and thereare highly-performance
(35:54):
individuals.
They get a lot of stuff done.
One thing I focused on isgetting stuff done.
I do everything possible toactually make sure that this
particular thing I'm doing itgets to the point where it's
done, and I will spend hours.
I have times when I've donethree days with no sleep or four
(36:18):
days with no sleep because Iwas so motivated in making sure
that I solved this problem oneway or the other.
And when you solve problems atquality not just solving the
problems at quality make surethey are high-quality solutions.
People are going to see thatand when you're talking to
someone, look, I tell peoplethis too.
(36:40):
There are people who have thesedegrees and PhD.
When they put me side to sideto them and we're talking about
something, they'll tell them tobecause they see a clear
difference.
I'm sure when I've doneinterviews, they've had someone
else who did the interview forthe same role, but they were
more impressed with me becausewhat they're hearing and what
(37:01):
I'm talking about shows a wholelot more expertise than that
person who's walking hours withso much credentials.
That problem-solving piece doesall the magic Wow.
Speaker 3 (37:13):
Wow, kevin, I had a guest here.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
Anyway, I'm not advocating for doing four days
of no sleep and three days of nosleep, by the way, Don't do
that.
Speaker 3 (37:26):
I would never do that again.
Whatever works with individualpeople.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
No, don't do it Be healthy and efficient, that's
right.
Speaker 3 (37:34):
I've had a guest here , an awesome lady, Gloria, who's
a multi-melaner, and I can'twait for people to hear her
interview.
She came all the way from theUS as well, and she had a
question for my next guest andit happened to be you.
(37:54):
I didn't know it was going tobe you.
And then the question is if youwere to rewind 20 years, what
will you do differently?
Speaker 1 (38:13):
Man.
Honestly, that time I wasn't soconfident about my capabilities
.
My confidence came at age 20.
At age 20, 19, thereabouts Ispent a lot of time asking
myself what's the best way tolive.
(38:33):
I spent a lot of time readingeverything I read like
philosophy papers.
I read the Bible cover to cover.
I read the Quran and otherthings.
Religious books.
Yeah, religious books.
I really wanted to answer thatquestion in a very concrete and
(38:54):
convincing way, and I wanted tobe analytical.
I really believe that we'regiving brains to think.
I really believe that we're notgiving brains to just simply
not use it.
I think we should use ourbrains, and so I think we should
use our brains.
One thing that I came toconclusion was we are here to
(39:16):
help people, right.
Once I realized that I startedaligning myself, I asked my how
can I help people?
I need to have skills and Ineed to be bold, I need to be
(39:37):
very, very convicted and I needto be honest.
Right, if I had the opportunityto go back in time, I would
have done that work at 20, youknow, not really my age at 14
instead, that would have made ahuge difference in my trajectory
(40:03):
.
That would have meant I wouldhave wasted less time, you know,
trying this, trying that, youknow, and just saying this is
what I need to solve, and Iwould have started solving the
problem that I'm solving todaymuch earlier.
I gained an extra what?
Six years of expertise, and soif I, in that confidence that
(40:33):
I'm talking about, also around20, remember, I talked about how
we pushed ourselves to thelimit and everything In 1920,
we're doing that.
I would have loved to have donethat at 14, right, I think
around that time I didn't know.
(40:54):
Like I just thought thesepeople were just as good and
yeah, that's what they do.
But around 20, you know, Ilearned that, oh, what all those
people are doing, I can do thattoo.
I mean, if I choose to do it, Ican do it.
So if I had the opportunity,challenge myself and then learn
(41:17):
about the best way to liveearlier and would have, you know
, aligned myself much earlierand built skills much earlier,
Fantastic, that's good.
Speaker 3 (41:29):
That's really nice to hear.
So it leads on to our twoquestions Very brief Motivation
or discipline?
Speaker 1 (41:40):
Discipline- Okay, um, discipline.
Look, anything you do in,anything you want to accomplish
in life, you're going to needconsistency.
You know, when motivation isnot high, discipline is what's
going to take over.
Speaker 3 (41:57):
I like that, Kevin.
What's the best advice you'veever received from anyone?
Speaker 1 (42:04):
I'll tell you one thing, that two things that
motivated me.
Back in the day One, when I wasreally young, my grandfather
said when so when I was reallyyoung, right, my, my sister, who
was younger than me, was betterat reading than I was.
So it was usually against meand I felt like bad and all of
(42:29):
that right.
But my grandfather at the timewas telling people to leave me
alone.
When he grows you'll get better.
And then fast forward.
You know, before mid school Iwas in Ghana, around, like you
know, or class six class, classfour, I think around.
(42:53):
Class four is when I wasliterally like the best
mathematician in my class.
You know, I was like the mathguy.
All of a sudden, this guy whowas not really, you know, at the
top, all of a sudden he's atthe top for math.
Right, I look back at that andit's encouraging that to say
(43:14):
that you might not be good today, You're going to be better
tomorrow.
And coupled with this I thinkthis one is 14 when I came
across Kofi Annan I don't knowhim personally, but I saw his
one, his quote he said I'mmiscoding this, but knowledge is
(43:39):
power, Education is thepremises of progress in every
society and every something,something like that.
So I was focused on knowledge,trying to have as much knowledge
as possible.
Gosh, I spent lots and lots andlots of times on Wikipedia just
(43:59):
reading stuff, randomly readingpapers.
I just wanted to know, andeducation is the premises of
progress.
Education you need to educateyourself.
You know, if you don't educateyourself, you're not progressing
.
And so I saw him as my idol,even though I was not going to
go to political routes.
And so those words I held ontoit.
(44:24):
Knowledge is power.
It's kept holding onto it Everytime.
I just tell myself, even thoughI was forcing, I was not really
, like you know, advanced, but Ijust know that I just need to
focus on knowledge, I just needto focus on my studies.
And so in high school, I wastrying to perform the best that
I can, you know, treating myteachers with utmost respect.
(44:47):
They were like God's to me.
I was just like listening.
I was sitting in front of theclass.
Speaker 3 (44:51):
You know a good student, a good student.
I wanted to learn everything.
Speaker 1 (44:55):
I wanted to know everything because I knew
education was important.
So I think those things youwill be better, right and
education and knowledge is power, Fantastic.
Speaker 3 (45:08):
Now this leads us on to the question One less guest.
Speaker 1 (45:25):
Oh well, I think, in the current times we are in, I
think it's appropriate to askour next guest how can AI
machine learning solve yourcurrent problems and how can
they solve problems for yourcommunity, your country and
(45:47):
Africa at large?
Speaker 3 (45:56):
Thank you so much.
Look, if you haven't subscribed, please do share this content
so that we can grow.
We can't wait to get to 10,000subscribers on our YouTube
platform and when we do getthere, we want to do something
great for all our listeners andour viewers.
We want to support somebusinesses in Ghana locally with
(46:19):
some cash.
So let's get there as fast aswe can.
Thank you so much and stayconnected.
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