A Curious Life

Data to Passion

Hadley Christoffels — Sun, 13 Jun 2021 09:00:00 +0000

Raghav Sukumar is a Vice President at State Street leading the Product Management in EMEA for AlphaSM Data Services which is State Street’s ‘Data as a Service’ (DaaS) offering for institutional investors. He is responsible for solution architecture, managing product roadmap and providing consultancy for EMEA client implementations. Prior to joining State Street he consulted for the Financial Conduct Authority to implement their Market Data Platform for MiFID II regulation, and provided subject matter expertise to deliver data management and regulatory reporting solutions for a FTSE100 bank and large insurance firms.

Raghav holds a Master’s degree in Management from University of Wales, Swansea and a Bachelor’s degree in Information Science and Engineering from Visvesvaraya Technological University.

Sponsor Information

Visit www.yourheights.com and use acuriouslife10 for a 10% discount.

Transcript

Hadley: [00:00:00] Welcome to the show Raghav.

[00:00:03] Raghav: [00:00:03] Thanks for having me, Hadley. It's a pleasure, always pleasure to talk to you.

[00:00:05] Hadley: [00:00:05] So Raghav, as you know, you know, this is a show we want to focus on the trait of curiosity, uh, and, and the impact that it has had on your life and career as a data professional within that wider ecosystem.

[00:00:22] Raghav, imagine this right, we're sitting around a campfire starry night, me and you beer in hand. And you're about to take me on a journey through the life of Raghav. Where do we start? Go back to the beginning. Where were you born? Do you have siblings? Um, what was your early life like?

[00:00:43] Raghav: [00:00:43] Yeah, Hadley. Uh, I was born in India in Bangalore.

[00:00:47] Um, uh, I have one sibling, an elder brother, uh, about six years older than me, uh, which kind of helps, uh, especially, uh, if one has a curious mind, the elder one is always doing something that you haven't seen before are a bit more advanced and so on. And so, uh, for me, I think w

[00:01:05] Hadley: [00:01:05] w if you don't mind me asking, where is he now?

[00:01:08] Raghav: [00:01:08] My brother is now in Texas. Okay. Um, so he moved, um, probably three, four years ago. Um, but, um, but he's, uh, he's been, uh, quite a, uh, uh, an influence during my early ages. Uh, I would say. Hadley: Hmm, cool. And what does he do? Raghav: So he's, um, he's a computer engineer as well. Uh, so he's, uh, he's been within the software industry for a long time.

[00:01:33] And, um, when I was growing up, probably, you know, when I was seven or eight, it was, uh, he was, uh, clued up in computers that kind of, uh, played, uh, quite an important role. Um, my. My parents were entrepreneurs. So there was a computer at home, uh, basically back in, you know, uh, late eighties or early nineties, I would say,

[00:01:54] Hadley: [00:01:54] And did you get exposure to computers and how they work or what does he do exactly within computers now?

[00:02:03] Raghav: [00:02:03] Uh, no, he's, uh, he works for Dell. Uh he's um, he's leading a program management across a lot of the products globally.

[00:02:11] Hadley: [00:02:11] That's fantastic. So, so back then he was already keen and kind of curious to see how these things work and taking it apart.

[00:02:18] Raghav: [00:02:18] He was. He was, yes. And, uh, while he was, you know, uh, learning more about computers and, you know, um, he, he actually assembled the computer, our computer at home.

[00:02:29] And, uh, me, it was all for me, uh, you know, watching him do it and, uh, learning, uh, by, by seeing actually, uh, that's how I picked up things. And, uh, when he wasn't around, uh, I would open it up just to see and then put it back again. Um, but then it,

[00:02:46] Hadley: [00:02:46] did he ever notice? Raghav: Uh, no, no, but then yeah,

[00:02:51] Raghav: [00:02:51] the next step was, um, when, you know, uh, you know, obviously games were a big part computer games and, uh, back in the day, uh, you had, uh, floppy disks and, uh, used to go

[00:03:04] pick up one of the floppy disk, go to a friend's place, copy it. And then come back. And that's where kind of, for me in production of, you know, a command prompt and, you know, copy, command, simple commands to copy the game and then eventually, uh, to get the game and play them. So, uh, that's where I started, uh, you know, actually interaction with the, with the PC.

[00:03:22] Hadley: [00:03:22] And how old were you roundabout then?

[00:03:26] Raghav: [00:03:26] I would say about eight years.

[00:03:27] Hadley: [00:03:27] Oh, wow. So really early on, and this is you still in primary school getting phenomenal insight into, into, you know, what was then still very early days for computers, right? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Cool. And do you, would you say that this had a big impact on, on where you kind of went from there?

[00:03:47] Raghav: [00:03:47] I would say so, uh, I think, uh, to me, curiosity has a, a few facets, I would say, um, one is, uh, you know, uh, there's an exploration part to it, which kind of, you know, gives you, um, you know, there's a, there's an element of mental stimulation and, um, It, it kind of pushes you to the areas where you don't know and try to seek and fill that, uh, knowledge gap or information gap before if I were to put it that way.

[00:04:16] So, um, and anything that was new beat computers in, in this instance, it was something unknown to me. And what, what we could do with it. Um, and, uh, watching either my father work on it or my brother, uh, you know, learning something on it.

[00:04:32] Hadley: [00:04:32] So, so, so just a second. So your father was actually into computers as well?

[00:04:36] Raghav: [00:04:36] No. Well, when I say into computers, because he was running a business, so whether it was to do with, um, you know, moving from typewriters to computers or letters.

[00:04:46] Hadley: [00:04:46] So in his case, it was the use of computers to run his business. Raghav: Correct. Hadley: Okay. Okay. Okay, cool. Perfect. So, so, okay. So, so now we've got an eight year old Raghav, right?

[00:04:58] And an eight year old Raghav, with his brother on the one side, you know, taking these things apart and looking at what's on the inside of them. Um, and on the other, you have your dad entrepreneur create, you know, using software packages. I would imagine to run his business. And, and take me now kind of from an eight year old Raghav that has had this exposure and kind of now through out, you know, maybe high school heading towards university, what, what, what was that journey like?

[00:05:25] Raghav: [00:05:25] Yeah, but by the time I was in high school, you know, um, my, uh, brother was finishing college and, you know, we had this computer magazine subscriptions and CDs that are a new thing. Uh, I think that the PC, the other, for the first one we had didn’t have CD drives back then. Um, but we used to have the CD’s, so the first, uh, production was buying the CD drive and then opening it up.

[00:05:47] But there was, you know, installing it and then the next part was, uh, oh, we need more content, but we didn't have a CD writer. So, uh, eventually I started opening it up now, unplugging cables, uh, you know, borrowing, uh, CD writers from, you know, friends or people who had it and then putting it on our machine to install, softwares, et cetera.

[00:06:08] Uh, and then, um, No, that's that's, uh, that was pretty much, uh, high school to me. So evolving with the, uh, with the technology and computers.

[00:06:19] Hadley: [00:06:19] Okay, perfect. And how do you think that experience then shaped what you kind of did at uni?

[00:06:26] Raghav: [00:06:26] So, uh, this, this is, this was the foundation. So, um, you know, for me, uh, uni, I, uh, I was very much leaning towards the computer science.

[00:06:36] Um, but, um, there was, uh, another, uh, subject area. I would call information science and engineering. So instead of going, uh, into core computer science, I picked, uh, information science where there were a few modules on database housing, et cetera. So, um, That really pushed me, I would say the first step into the data world without actually knowing, you know, 10, 15 years down the line data was, you know, it would be a huge explosion and, you know, I would very well be part of the ethos.

[00:07:09] Hadley: [00:07:09] Okay. And why did you choose that over the engineering route again?

[00:07:14] Raghav: [00:07:14] as I said, I mean, computer science, uh, you know, has been as a, as a subject or a degree was, uh, was there for a while. And I knew a lot of people were going down that road again, this element of, oh, this is new. It is related to computers, but there's something, or on top of that, Which not other people, uh, you know, are taking up.

[00:07:36] So that, that, that, that exploration again is, uh, is what pushed me into, um, into information science.

[00:07:43] Hadley: [00:07:43] And do you think then that's kind of multifaceted, it was both the newness of it, but also the fact that it would then differentiate you from a lot of the people going down, the kind of computer science route.

[00:07:58] Raghav: Absolutely. Yeah. Yep. Hadley: Okay. Okay, perfect. So now, now we got uni Raghav. Yeah. And uni Raghav is not starting is, is, is, is differentiated course down this new path. What was the course? Like what was the experience like? And, and, you know, you you'd obviously be learning. Uh, different layers to what you know, but you will also be learning completely new things.

[00:08:22] How did that university experience impact you? Not just from the studies itself, but the people that you met, the professors, the students, you know, how did uni life and, and in the context of your course impact you at a later date?

[00:08:38] Raghav: [00:08:38] Yeah, so, uh, for me, uni life is, uh, it's two parts. Uh, I did my graduation in Bangalore with the engineering degree and my second part was doing a master's here in the UK.

[00:08:50] Um, and, um, I chose completely, you know, Uh, very different subjects again, uh, only because I didn't, I didn't want to go, uh, you know, specialise in a particular area within what I had, uh, you know, uh, gone through with information science and engineering. Uh, to me once I kind of, uh, was exposed to a lot of, you know, operating systems, databases, structures, C programming, uh, I knew there was something more to

[00:09:22] technology. And, um, I've always been a people's person curious about, um, you know, how people react at times, uh, emotions and why, why somebody reacted that way when it wasn't a necessity. Right. And, um, that kind of pushed me into, uh, you know, uh, wanting to know more about, you know, um, people and management.

[00:09:45] Uh, so th th so this is why I picked a management degree to, um, as my post-graduation.

[00:09:51] Hadley: [00:09:51] Gotcha. So before we get to the post-grads, so before we get to the, the, the masters, right, just up to the end of the course, what, what did that kind of look like? What did that thinking process look like? Um, for you.

[00:10:04] Choosing your post-grad and, and also choosing the UK.

[00:10:08] Raghav: [00:10:08] So, uh, towards the end of it, um, towards the end of sharing, you know, uh, the last part is the, uh, the project. Uh, I, uh, did a project with the ministry of defence, um, in India. Hadley: Cool. Raghav: That was my project. Uh, we got an opportunity to work on, uh, the communication between transponder and the receiver was a nice.

[00:10:33] Yeah. So part of, uh, the project was, you know, without giving out too many details. Not that I can remember.

[00:10:41] Hadley: [00:10:41] Yeah. You might just have a SWAT team come through your window any minute now. Uh,

[00:10:47] Raghav: [00:10:47] so yeah, it was, it was working on a prototype and a mock radar and, you know, passing, you know, uh, information and data that has the location of a particular aircraft.

[00:11:00] What's the height and, you know, altitude and [indistinct] and all sorts of, uh, terminologies that I wasn't exposed before. It's kind of, you know, going into the library and understanding what that actually meant before you actually start analysing or coding it. Um, so yeah.

[00:11:15] Hadley: [00:11:15] Excellent. And was this your kind of first real foray into real world usage and, and working with data?

[00:11:23] Raghav: [00:11:23] Yeah, that, that, that was indeed my first one. Yeah.

[00:11:26] Hadley: [00:11:26] What was your part, man? So, what did you actually do?

[00:11:29] Raghav: [00:11:29] So our part was, um, to the, uh, you know, uh, as part of the data communication, uh, you have to move the data from, uh, let's say a point a to point B, um, With, uh, you know, collecting information, uh, about, uh, the actual positioning, right?

[00:11:48] So you would have various parameters

[00:11:50] Hadley: [00:11:50] of the airplane itself,

[00:11:51] Raghav: [00:11:51] I guess. Yeah. So that, that would actually, uh, you know, uh, point a would actually give you the location and all the parameters and then pushing it back into a point B

[00:12:03] Hadley: [00:12:03] at that point, it wasn't yet streaming technology. Was it kind of beacons? Or communication, uh, at certain intervals and then it would pick up.

[00:12:11] You know, communicated at one point and then point B communicate, point C communicate.

[00:12:18] Raghav: [00:12:18] Yeah. So this was a, this was fairly, uh, you know, big project. Right. And we were a very, very, very small part of it.

[00:12:24] Hadley: [00:12:24] Still cool to be a part of it.

[00:12:26] Raghav: [00:12:26] Right. Yeah. And we, weren't a part of the interfacing or the electronic side of things, but more to do with, uh, you know, uh, the, the software side, um, you know, moving the data, uh, from, uh, From the transponder on to the local, uh, um, setup

[00:12:42] Hadley: [00:12:42] in order for it to be analysed essentially.

[00:12:47] Raghav: Correct. Hadley: Okay, cool. And when you say we, this was the kind of team of students from your university?

[00:12:53] Raghav: [00:12:53] Yeah. W so four of us, uh, from, uh, who were batchmates, uh, we, uh, decided to get in there.

[00:13:01] Hadley: [00:13:01] Fantastic. And what was the selection criteria like? So how did you get in?

[00:13:08] Raghav: [00:13:08] Oh, So, uh, w uh, how, how did we get in, uh, obviously every year, um, you know, uh, they do open up for students for, um, having this, you know, full month, uh, project experience and, um, Oh, we applied for it.

[00:13:25] We had to go through all sorts of security clearance, uh, you know, uh, so that, you know, you get your ID card and, uh, the campus was itself so huge. You had to, you know, parked outside and walk about two miles to get to the actual building.

[00:13:41] Hadley: [00:13:41] So you got your exercise.

[00:13:44] Raghav: [00:13:44] Oh yeah. Yeah. Going in and out was two miles. Yeah.

[00:13:47] Hadley: [00:13:47] And that lasted for four months.

[00:13:48] You say. Raghav: Yeah, yeah. Hadley: Towards the end of your project, uh, or rather towards the, towards the end of your course?

[00:13:56] Raghav: [00:13:56] it was towards the end of my course. Yeah, that's right.

[00:13:59] Hadley: [00:13:59] Okay. When did you decide what you want to do and how did you come to choose the UK?

[00:14:07] Raghav: [00:14:07] I actually started while I was still, uh, while I was in my final year of engineering, uh, in my fourth year.

[00:14:15] Um, so I was, uh, my options were, uh, you know, us, uh, and UK. Um, so I was, while I was in my final year and doing this project, uh, I was taking, you know, uh, certifications for sitting the exam for TOEFL GRE because there were different criteria for an applying to various universities for us and UK. One of the decision points for me to pick UK over us was, um, uh, getting the degree in one year as opposed to two.

[00:14:47] Uh, and on top of that, I got a part scholarship, um, as well.

[00:14:51] Hadley: [00:14:51] So where in the UK did you go to?

[00:14:53] Raghav: [00:14:53] I went to university of Wales.

[00:14:56] Hadley: [00:14:56] So you go from Bangalore, big city to Swansea. Right? How long, how long did that take between, uh, kind off finishing your university degree in Bangalore and starting your post-grad in Swansea?

[00:15:10] Raghav: [00:15:10] Uh, uh, I think it was about a year. I think I would say a year. Um, between, between the two.

[00:15:17] Hadley: [00:15:17] Okay. So you had some time.

[00:15:18] Raghav: [00:15:18] I did have some time, although I started thinking about it, um, while, uh, you know, doing my engineering, uh, I kicked the process off quite early.

[00:15:29] Hadley: [00:15:29] Yeah. Okay. What would you say is kind of some of the most important things to consider when choosing that career?

[00:15:37] Or rather when choosing your degree, the course that you want to do,

[00:15:42] Raghav: [00:15:42] I think the most, uh, important bits are, uh, I think, uh, the interest, uh, I think one, if you have interest or are passionate about a particular subject, I think, uh, that is more important than anything I would say. Um, because if you think about it, uh, It may not be necessarily that you may, uh, you would work in the same area or field, but generally at that point in life, um, I think that would be where you would see yourself saying, I want to study this.

[00:16:16] I want to do that. Whether it happens or not. I think at that point in time, the plan is. Is there. So I think, uh, if you follow that, I think, uh, one would have a bit more structured and, uh, apart into at least a vision into the, you know, the next few steps in the career.

[00:16:35] Hadley: [00:16:35] Gotcha. So basically what you're saying is, you know what,

[00:16:37] at least do something that will make you want to get up in the morning and work at it. Uh, but that might not be where you end up. It simply means that for the next N number of years,...

Embracing Cultural Diversity

Hadley Christoffels — Thu, 03 Jun 2021 09:00:00 +0000

Marinus Heymann is the Regional Managing Director for Jigsaw Advisory in the Middle East and has 15+ years of experience in consulting focussing on Enterprise Performance Management, Corporate Strategy, Analytics and Digital Transformation.

He has extensively worked with clients across the Middle East, Southern Africa and Europe and has led large Strategy and IT transformation engagements.

Marinus holds a double bachelor's degree in Business Management and an MBA from the University of Pretoria.

Sponsor Information

Visit www.yourheights.com and use acuriouslife10 for a 10% discount.

Transcript

Hadley: [00:00:00] Welcome to the show, Marinus.

[00:00:02] Marinus: [00:00:02] Thanks Hadley. Happy to be here.

[00:00:04] Hadley: [00:00:04] Cool. As you know, the show focuses on the trait of curiosity. So today we want to find out the essence of Marinus and we want to understand what your life has been like and how curiosity has played a part in that. So take us on a journey. Where were you born?

[00:00:23] You know, how many siblings did you have? What w what was your family life like? How did that impact you?

[00:00:29] Marinus: [00:00:29] All right. Um, so I was born in Pretoria, South Africa. Uh, with two siblings and older brother and older sister, um, they were quite, Hadley: So you were the baby? Marinus: yeah. Oh yeah. I was, I think, um, and nine years younger than my brother and seven years younger than my sister, so, so, okay.

[00:00:49] Hadley: So were you spoiled? Marinus: Very, very spoiled privileged. Um, so we grew up with a father who, uh, graduated an engineer and a mother who was a nursery school teacher. And, um, when my brother and sister grew up, we had very, very, um, I want to say a little income because my father just invested everything either towards his own learning and studying his MBA or, uh, into the nursery school that my mother, uh, started just before I was born, actually.

[00:01:29] So, so they didn't have that much growing up. Um, When I was young, I kind of got the tail end of it. So luckily, um, and then that's kind of leading into how I was spoiled. Um, not, not ridiculously, but obviously more than my siblings. So, um, so we, we had a wonderful childhood. My parents are great, great people and great parents.

[00:01:56] And, um, my father always had this, this notion of kind of academics first, although I was a terrible student at school. Um, and the reason for his academics first was he, he grew up with grandparents who were all self-taught, um, And who valued a valued learning more than the academic qualification. Uh, his father was a professor in electrical engineering or, um, again, starting from a very humble basis and then, and then pushing that continuous learning and my father kind of built that into me.

[00:02:40] Um,

[00:02:42] Hadley: [00:02:42] just, just, just quickly, a quick aside in that, right? With the availability of quality information and knowledge readily available on the internet, do you think that the same emphasis should be put on a structured academic kind of path especially within technology, right. Um, w when three years down the lane, you know, the information that you gain, you know, at the start of your career or at the start of your course, rather, maybe even be outdated.

[00:03:16] What are your thoughts on that?

[00:03:17] Marinus: [00:03:17] Right. So, so let me put it to you in this way. So our curriculum in school and in varsity is very, very structured and I think no one has a real alternative third for that. And with the COVID pandemic that has been kind of turned upside down and we will see the fallout from not having that co located, facilitated learning.

[00:03:48] Um, but it opens up new new avenues, right? So that's, that's for kind of pre, um, pre varsity pre graduates. Uh, well, pretty graduate education. When we look at technology and it was, it was the case in my study is the case of all my peers and the people that I had managed to work. All way older than I was that all technology, um, training was essentially outdated by the time that they had to, uh, that they got to implement anything.

[00:04:22] So I think in, in the tech space, you will definitely see, um, Google stepping up because they've already rolled out the Google academy type learning. You will see big firms, um, partnering with universities to actually teach the relevant, both practical and theoretical components that are required.

[00:04:48] Hadley: [00:04:48] And do you think that's like short, sharp, targeted courses?

[00:04:51] Marinus: [00:04:51] Um, yeah, so, so I think Google. Uh, they're pushing the, kind of the basic stuff right now. So, uh, user experience, um, basic coding, basics of project management, product management, and so on, and that'll be a tremendous basis for, for guys entering the workplace. Not, not necessarily, uh, that want to go in that formal education direction.

[00:05:19] I would say though, that the underpinning, um, components of a, of a formal education helps you to think a little bit differently now for me, that it was, uh, there was a massive advantage because I'm a, an inherently lazy person that, that needed to be forced into that structure. I’m, um, Lazy, if I'm not given a target and given this is the roadmap for improvement.

[00:05:51] Right. Um, but when I'm given that, it was like, oh, okay. I want to progress to the next level because I don't want to be stuck where I am. Right. So it's, it's kind of a, um, it's called a creative danger, right. So you're giving me the challenge of like, uh, I want to complete the challenge more than I want to do something else and they might just go for it so that it was, there was extremely useful for me.

[00:06:12] And, and I mean, as I said, my, my father had instilled this, this continuous learning, um, motto in our lives and it just never kind of subsided. So, so I was a terrible, I would say kind of mid range, uh, student at school. I always focused on sports because I liked that a lot more, um, in university almost the same, really, um, I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life.

[00:06:41] So I just, I knew that, you know, I kind of appease my father by saying, okay, fine. I'll do my degree. And even after my degree, I thought, okay, it's great, but you need to continue to study and to learn because otherwise what you'll find will be redundant. And that's what I feel right now. So you have many highly educated people that, uh, that have very little sway in their own, uh, in their own field of expertise, just because they've actually stopped learning.

[00:07:11] And you have guys that are absolutely fantastic rock stars in their field, um, just because they never stopped.

[00:07:19] Hadley: [00:07:19] And, and that, and that is, but that is clubhouse. That is, you know, books it's it's and that's the thing I love about. And, and this, this concept of lifelong learning, right. Or continuous learning, you can never learn everything.

[00:07:34] Even if you choose to specialise, there's so much to learn, you know, and there's always so much more that you can add to make what, you know, more complete it's lifelong learning.

[00:07:45] Marinus: [00:07:45] Yeah. And there's this great quote, I forget who said it, but it reads, um, when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.

[00:07:56] Right. That's so true. And that basically it just means, um, when you're ready, you'll learn that next bit, even though you've read it 10 times. But when you're ready, you'll be able to consume that information.

[00:08:09] Hadley: [00:08:09] Here's the thing with that, right, is, is if you want to stand at the core, the, the kind of general vicinity of what you want to learn and what it is you’re interested in and want to know more about, it's almost like a puzzle.

[00:08:21] You start in the middle of the puzzle, right? And, and, you know, the concept of lifelong learning means that you will never finish the puzzle, but you start in the middle and you add the bits that fit. And I love the saying, when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. There's always a next level to everything.

[00:08:38] So I try and apply that to my life right now and go, no matter what it is, find out more, see if there is a structured way of thinking. Not that you adopt everything you learn, you can take anything from, from, from what others have done. And from their experience, tailored it to yourself and make that a part of you

[00:09:00] Marinus: [00:09:00] the part of you way that I've always looked at it.

[00:09:04] I really never knew what I wanted to do with my life. And I really never knew which direction I wanted to go other than general business, as long as it's going forward. And I've put the boundaries quite far apart. And as long as it's going ahead in that general direction, and that was it completely

[00:09:26] Hadley: [00:09:26] agreed.

[00:09:28] Yeah. So sorry for the diversion now. So we were talking about, um, I guess you and,

[00:09:35] Marinus: [00:09:35] so there was kind of childhood and a father's discipline that he tried to instill and, uh, continuous learning and all of that. Yeah. So, um, I would say a significant component of my life was, uh, growing up at least was I was part of the Afrikaans based, um, You can say boy Scouts, right?

[00:10:05] So that was called the Voortrekkers. So any Afrikaans guy who was very cultural will know the voortrekers and most South Africans would. and they installed, uh, not, not installed, but they helped me to understand and unlock what I would consider my, my leadership potential. Right.

[00:10:30] Hadley: [00:10:30] So tell me what that looks like. I mean, that is fascinating.

[00:10:32] That is, that really is so, so, so kind of just give, give us a picture of, of what that looks like. What is the process look like? What are the people in there look like? How did that collective of processing people instill a sense of leadership?

[00:10:49] Marinus: [00:10:49] So if you think about it, it has teamwork. Written all over it with small tasks and small goals that you try to meet.

[00:11:00] And that's from the age of seven when you actually start with the organisation, right? So there's a lot of discipline as, I mean, little badges and then kind of achievements that you get and unlock, but through the whole process of working within a team and trying to help the team lead the team, support the team, all of that different people understand or get to understand the strengths and get to understand how it works to just perform in a team.

[00:11:28] And as I said, like the boy Scouts, the boy Scouts, because the Afrikaans version of the boy Scouts, I think it's a phenomenal undertaking to actually go through that. And I was there, I guess, for, for about 12 or 13 years, And as I said, uh, it made a wonderful impression on me. Um, but at the end I left the, the movement just because of, I would say certain differences in ideology that I only realised later on

[00:12:01] were not where I want it to go. Yeah. Not quite aligned. I mean, the, the people to a large extent are fantastic and wonderful people, but there’s a faction that, that pulls back to the, to the extremes, to the extremes. And I really didn't like that.

[00:12:20] Hadley: [00:12:20] We delve into that just a little bit. Marinus: Sure. Hadley: Okay, cool. So, and context here.

[00:12:25] Right? So, so here's my belief, right? It's people, it's individuals and the system of apartheid was. You know, was exactly that segregation. Right? And no matter on which side of the fence you grew up, it was segregated. So even within the Afrikaans community, that all the white community that was seen as everyone in that camp is, you know, a supporter of the system.

[00:12:50] It's not true. I, children growing up in that environment, like, I didn't know any better. Right. Also didn't know better. And they will obviously always come a time when you do realise, like, you've just said, you know, that actually, you know what, now, now that I'm kind of seeing what's happening here. There are parts of this thing that, that doesn't sit well with me, you know, but it's individuals, it's, it's people and obviously a collection of individuals make some movement, but similarly, a collection of individuals could stop it.

[00:13:20] So if you don't mind, what did that moment actually look like? You know, so, so the moment when, when through this, this organisation, so the voortrekker organisation that you knew as a kid and, and that. Had uh, by the sound of it, a significant impact, positive impact on your life. I'm thinking that must have been quite a challenge.

[00:13:43] You know, something that you've been involved in for so long since you were a child having ideologies that you, you, you instinctively as an individual realise this isn't for you. What was that like? What did it feel like?

[00:13:58] Marinus: [00:13:58] Um, it was rough. So, so when I was in varsity, I, I had a lot of exposure to actual philosophical reading, philosophical thought, critical thinking.

[00:14:13] And the more I delved into it, the more I started to question. The underlying assumptions of where I came from and then who we are and what decisions we make. Right. Uh, the moment that I really started questioning all this was just before I matriculated. So just before in high school and that's kind of expanded and I started questioning more and more and more and more.

[00:14:35] And, uh, my, my parents always told me not to fall to peer pressure. And at some point there was just this inflection of, wait a minute, am I believing this because it's what I really fundamentally believe in it, full through this process, or is that because everyone else around me is thinking and believing this and that's why I had the departure.

[00:14:58] So a lot of the, um, a lot of the Afrikaans stuff, I mean, Afrikaans is a wonderful language, wonderful people, as you said, but there was some. Uh, part I believe is still in the movement. And I just thought, you know what, this is not for me. I don't know why you're doing this because it's not the liberal way that I'm trying to get to right now.

[00:15:18] Yeah. So, um, I am a liberal, I had extreme liberal views. Now it's a lot more moderate, but, um, as you grow up and, and, uh, thought you have children, all of that kind of evolve

[00:15:34] Hadley: [00:15:34] and you find your sense of self, right? Well,

[00:15:37] Marinus: [00:15:37] yes, I, I did find my sense of self more today. End of my, beginning of my twenties was, uh, That was a very rebellious, uh, time for me.

[00:15:50] Hadley: [00:15:50] Yeah. Take, take us through that. So, so, so now, right, we we've, we've got you at the start, your, your mom and your dad, very entrepreneurial, you know, strong Christian beliefs, um, and, and a sense of discipline and, and, and essentially curiosity and lifelong learning right through the, the voortrekkers, your primary school, your high school, and you matriculate now.

[00:16:11] So at this point, are you on your way to university? Are you, are you, have you just finished high school?

[00:16:16] Marinus: [00:16:16] So the rebellious stage kind of started at the end of high school, right? So I started questioning everything and everyone, uh, because that's what, what continuous learning was all about and questioning certain things, going to varsity actually equipped me with some frameworks and some, some questions from.

[00:16:41] Uh, from, uh, I would say ideological and philosophical point of view that I didn't have before, just because I didn't read in that direction that never crossed my path so to speak. So I would say that's, it just had some evolution in my thinking. And then, uh, it didn't necessarily sit well with, um, with my family, with my community.

[00:17:08] I lost a lot of friends and it was just one of those consequences,

[00:17:12] Hadley: [00:17:12] the right choices aren't always the easy choices. So now, um, is there anything else within your, your, your university life that, that you want to touch on? Or are we now going into start of work?

[00:17:25] Marinus: [00:17:25] Yeah, I think start of work, um, sort of work was kind of free, same for the university because I started with the family business.

[00:17:36] Uh, so interning at,

[00:17:38] Hadley: [00:17:38] do, do you want to take us through that a little bit to what the family business was?

[00:17:41] Marinus: [00:17:41] Right. So, so the family business, my father and my brother started fifth discipline consulting in my last year of varsity. And they asked me to just help out as an intern because my father probably thought, look, this guy just wants to go overseas and go do professional cycling, which was a big thing for me at the point.

[00:18:07] And, um, and he said, well, how about you come and join us and just kind of implement what you've learned in varsity here at this firm. And it's going to be great. So I reluctantly joined because strapped for cash student,

[00:18:25] Hadley: [00:18:25] What did fifth discipline do?

[00:18:26] Marinus: [00:18:26] Right. So, so fifth discipline started as a management consulting firm with the ambition to consult on strategy, execution and strategy implementation.

[00:18:38] Right? So that's also what I majored in, uh, in varsity. And so my first job was to understand and dissect and build tons of presentations around the balanced scorecard, which was a big philosophy or management philosophy at the time. Um, and then it's kind of pivoted towards, uh, SAS analytics, implementation and business analysis.

[00:19:07] Now, uh, you will obviously have a lot more, a lot more background in that, but for us, it was. Oh, okay. There's this, uh, there's this analytics, uh, software solution that, uh, kind of relates to strategy implementation. And we have a client called Eskom that needs this to be implemented. And I was the first consultant on site, um, knowing the ins and outs of strategy execution, not knowing the software at all.

[00:19:43] And I had a very of soft landing in that space. Um, so, so fifth discipline at that point, uh, grew, I think, to around 20 consultants, just doing business analysis around what we did and

[00:20:00] Hadley: [00:20:00] over what period of time.

[00:20:03] Marinus: [00:20:03] So that was over probably a two year period.

[00:20:09] Hadley: [00:20:09] That's fantastic, man.

[00:20:19] Marinus: [00:20:19] It comes with its challenges, but from a business...

The Lighter Side of Life

Hadley Christoffels — Fri, 28 May 2021 09:00:00 +0000

Dr. Michael Zimmer is a father, husband, Chief Data Officer and Head of AI/ML at Zurich Germany. He is the editor of various publications on data, analytics and data science and is a Fellow of TDWI Germany. Before joining Zurich, he worked in consulting for more than 13 years. In his main job, he deals with showing the potential of Data and Analytics (D&A), while spreading the joy for Data and AI and is building bridges between business and IT to create a common spirit of optimism.

In addition to supposedly hot topics like AI, however, he is also responsible for defining data strategy, further developing data architecture and data governance. The combination of both areas is the foundation to walk the path with Zurich to become an Insight Driven Insurer.

Sponsor Information

Visit www.yourheights.com and use acuriouslife10 for a 10% discount.

Transcript

Hadley: [00:00:00] Dr. Michael Zimmer. Welcome to the show, dude. Michael: Thanks for being here. Hadley: Cool, cool. Listen, I've really been looking forward to this, to this, this conversation, to, to finding out what's behind you. I've always kind of, you know, read your, your, your posts online and, and the papers that you've written. And I just find it.

[00:00:22] Yeah. You know, that mix between, um, between deep thinking and humour and just you know, um, yeah, zest for life. And, uh, I see that in you. I w I kind of, I identify with that, you know, and, um, and yeah, I'm, I'm looking forward to finding out what's behind the man.

[00:00:41] Michael: [00:00:41] Yeah. I hope, uh, um, yeah, much, but we'll see. You ask the questions.

[00:00:47] Um,

[00:00:48] Hadley: [00:00:48] okay, cool. Yeah. So, so number one, I, look, I always ask my guests right at the start is what does curiosity mean to you?

[00:00:54] Michael: [00:00:54] So I think in the beginning, if I think of curiosity, um, I think about my youth and, um, I think it was an Australian TV show called curiosity show, um, where they showed all kind of research things.

[00:01:09] So that comes to my mind. If I look to it, literally. Curiosity is for me. Um, so I want to have fun at work. I want to, um, develop new things, get new ideas. So for me, uh, it's important, um, to be curious, because it helps me to redefine myself, got to understand new things, um, and also to become a better me, um, personal business, but also from a family point of view.

[00:01:40] So, um, it's important to learn and be curious.

[00:01:44] Hadley: [00:01:44] Yeah, no, I know, I know that, that, you know, you have a young lad and that, you know, uh, again from your posts. I see that you're very involved as an active dad and kind of play out your curiosity through your son as well. Well, how would you say um curious or what, what part do you think curiosity plays in, in the development of a child?

[00:02:04] Michael: [00:02:04] So I think in the end, um, uh, growing up and, um, for a kid it's about stimulations that we have to give them. So we have to be there. We have to talk with them. We have to interact, but in the end they want to understand the world. They want to see the things and they want to be curious with their own eyes.

[00:02:26] So I think for me, Um, curiosity is something that is driving the kids. Um, they don't know it, but they want to explore. They have to explore. And maybe it's also by evolution that they have to do it because, um, there is a German kids show where they are saying in the theme who isn't asking, um, stays um dumb.

[00:02:49] And I think it's like that you have to ask, you have to be curious. And that's what kids are doing. And I think that's something that we can learn from them. And also there is no stupid question. Um, it's only stupid, not knowing and being afraid of asking something, um, because we all have to learn.

[00:03:08] Hadley: [00:03:08] I agree.

[00:03:09] And it's, it's, it's actually being the confidence in yourself to ask a question where you don't think not knowing is what defines you. So let me ask you a question. Doc, children

[00:03:20] Hadley: [00:03:20] seem to have this natural. Innate curiosity kind of built into them. Do you think that as we get older and as adults, that, that what seems to be innate in children get suppressed?

[00:03:31] Michael: [00:03:31] So I, I really think it is because people think they have to be formal. They have to fulfil some, some rules. And I think we want to be straight forward. Nevertheless, um, being curious, asking questions, um, is important. And, um, my wife normally calls me her third child. Um, and I think it's a compliment.

[00:04:01] Hadley: [00:04:01] Yeah, same here. My wife does the same for me.

[00:04:01] Michael: [00:04:01] And so I want to be curious. And if you look at my LinkedIn posts are stuff with a family. I want to show the people that they, that there is family life that you can learn that you don't have to be, um, um, too strict or fulfil all kinds of laws. So I'm chief data officer of a insurance and I'm running around nowadays in t-shirts in some situations.

[00:04:29] Yeah. And it's good because we can and, um, just, um, where wearing a formal shirt, doesn't make me a better person. And it's the same with asking questions and other things. So we have to be curious.

[00:04:42] Hadley: [00:04:42] Completely agreed. It's the asking or not knowing something and having the confidence to ask questions about something you're unsure of.

[00:04:50] I, for me, I think that shows, um, you know, is something that I think is positive rather than what some perceive to be negative and not wanting to be seen, not knowing an answer to something, because there's so much out there. You can't know everything right.

[00:05:06] Michael: [00:05:06] That's a good point that you mentioned. So in consulting I learned, um, sometimes it's good to ask.

[00:05:11] Um, also too, if you don't know, ask stupid questions, it's better to ask them because then you understand something. If not, you won't speak the right language. Um, and no one will, um, harm you. If you ask, as long as they see, you want to understand, and you, you are rolling up your sleeves, um, to support them.

[00:05:33] But I'm never afraid of asking. Um, you should always ask.

[00:05:37] Hadley: [00:05:37] I, I, I agree. And I think sometimes it's actually, you get a fuller understanding than a lot of people that have been doing that job for a long time, because the focus is narrow. And I think asking questions around, you know, where things come from, where does it go?

[00:05:50] What do you do with it? I don't understand this. What do you mean by that? Because you know, people can have different understandings about the same thing and have been working together for five years. Um, you know, it, it sounds, it sounds crazy, but it's, I've, I've seen it

[00:06:06] Michael: [00:06:06] so many times being a sponge for information and, um, take all kinds of information is really good.

[00:06:12] So like a sponges squeezing in the water, we should squeeze in the information.

[00:06:17] Hadley: [00:06:17] Okay. But listen, this is a show about you doc. So, um, Let's go to the beginning. Right? Normally what I tell people is imagine this is we're all sitting around a campfire, everyone's telling their life story and tag you’re it.

[00:06:31] Um, what were your parents like? What was early life like? Did you have siblings?

[00:06:36] Michael: [00:06:36] So, um, I got a sibling when I was older, but my early life was, I grew up, um, in a normal middle-class German family had the situation, um, that my parents got divorced. For me this was a thing, um, where I decided instead of being, um, uh, let's say

[00:07:00] the ball that was kicked around between the lawyers of my mom and my dad. I said, okay, I want to go to my grandma and decided, um, when I was six or seven years, um, that I want to live with my grandma. And she became my second mother, or I became her, um, son number four because, um, she had eight kids, seven kids, eight with me.

[00:07:24] Hadley: Okay, cool. Michael: And, um, I grew up there, um, with my aunts and uncles and was able to learn quite much.

[00:07:33] Hadley: [00:07:33] Okay, cool. Uh, that's actually a story that resonates with me. I spent a massive part of my childhood growing up with my grandma also on my mom's side. And in fact, you know, they were eight kids as well, so at a very in different ages, uh, and to me, they, they almost became like brothers and sisters rather than aunts and uncles, because I spent so much time there.

[00:07:52] But what was it like for you then and living with your aunts and uncles and what kind of influence did they have on you?

[00:07:59] Michael: [00:07:59] So, um, they were older, so my uncles and aunts were, um, about 30 years older, um, or 20 to 30 years older than I was. So for them, I was, um, the little nephew and they supported me. So, um, the uncles learnt me how to become, um, to, to do things in the house, repair things.

[00:08:22] Um, my aunt, um, who was around an academic. Um, supported me with computers. I was standing next to her for hours and looking how she worked. I learned how to use shortcuts in, um, in word, she, she bought me, my first computer. Um, and I did some programming, but also for. Um, she, um, um, she raised my interest to German punk bands with let's say, um, Um, um, lyrics that are, um, critical to society.

[00:08:57] And this also helped me to, to, to look behind, um, um, the happy life of a middle aged class. Yeah,

[00:09:06] Hadley: [00:09:06] yeah. Behind the scenes, essentially. Right. Yeah. Okay, cool. How did that kind of exposure to computers then influence you and what you're doing today? Did it have an influence or was it. What was the route at least through schooling, to, uh, what you chose at uni.

[00:09:26] Michael: [00:09:26] So for me um a computer. Um, Indifference to my friends. They used it as a toy Hadley: To play games. Michael: Most of them play games. Um, I used it as some kind of tool I also played, but I also knew how to change registries, uh, install things, repair things. Um, nevertheless, I never was. Um, let's, let's be in some kind of, um, Um, boxes.

[00:09:55] I never was the nerd. So I was listening to hip hop, um, was skateboarding, um, and all the things. So kind of things partying. But what I realised when I become older, also in school, um, for me, education was important, but, um, I did it because. I was good at it. It wasn't hard for me and the nerds in the end were the more cooler guys, than our partying guys, because when I realised that they are good at it, they like what they do.

[00:10:30] It's not, I have to learn to become successful because they learn because they liked it or, or it was easy to them that this was interesting to me. And with the computers, for example, I also learned quite much with them. Um, yeah, I re. Computers were part of me, but never like the programming geek for the whole time.

[00:10:53] Hadley: [00:10:53] So. Sure. So you had a varied existence, you liked different things and you were exposed to different things and computers just happened to be one of them.

[00:11:01] Michael: [00:11:01] Yeah. And I also think, um, I also was part of many groups and this also helps me nowadays. So, um, the skater guys, the rap guys, the computer guys, um, the old friends at schools.

[00:11:14] Hadley: [00:11:14] So you can. You can speak to different people,

[00:11:16] Michael: [00:11:16] essentially. Yeah. The only sad thing is, um, or not sad thing, but compared to friends of mine, they had their group of friends. Um, it was 21 and they are together with them. Um, for ages, for me, it's I had friends out of every group, so I don't, I can't go to a place and meet all of my friends because they are separated all over.

[00:11:38] But if I look at my job. It helps me to translate nowadays, because I think I learned much about different people there. Right?

[00:11:48] Hadley: [00:11:48] Yeah. And, and I guess that is also because of that sense of curiosity is, is, uh, I think. You know, it's hard to not want to know more about different people, about different subjects, about different, just different things.

[00:12:00] Right? Cause that innate sense of curiosity is almost a, like you want to know more stuff. I was, I was similar to you. In fact, we, you know, it, wasn't just a specific group of friends. I liked people and I like learning about new people. So I'm also very varied and, and. Let's just through

[00:12:21] school then and to university.

[00:12:24] What was it like in school and, and what was it in the end that kind of led you to choose the degree you chose?

[00:12:30] Michael: [00:12:30] So I think in, in school I was, uh, okay. Um, students, I could have been better. But I didn't do my decisions there for a reason. So I went to primary school, I got the approval for the German, A level, and I was in there.

[00:12:50] So I was floating with the others, um, and, um, succeeded, but I didn't do it for any reasons because I was at the gymnasium, which is called in Germany. Um, I did my best, um, too, or did enough to succeed, but not more, um, I think, um, the, the choice of, um, uh, subject for the university came. So computer was part of my life.

[00:13:20] Um, since I was six. So as my mom worked at IBM, I also got the old computers quite easily, too. Hadley: What did she do at IBM, by the way? Michael: Um, she was some kind of, uh, only supporting, um, for, um, audit and compliance and she was also assistance. Um, but no tech jobs. So she was, uh, In that age, the, the classical, mid educated, um, wife who was doing a job there, nevertheless, IBM back in the days was a really good place to work for.

[00:13:57] Hadley: [00:13:57] Yeah, man, I suppose even now, I mean, they're pretty big company and. Back then it wouldn't have been, you know, um, I guess it would have been somewhat earlier days, right. Even to, to IBM and their growth and becoming this massive, big blue.

[00:14:11] Michael: [00:14:11] Yeah. So it was nice. Um, but if I look, look back why I choose, um, the subject.

[00:14:21] So as I mentioned, um, I was between already walking between different groups. Um, I had to work, um, part-time at school. Um, so I came into IT jobs because my, um, geeky friends were programmers. They realised, okay, I'm not the best programmer. Like they are. Nevertheless, I can do it. Um, I'm better in communication.

[00:14:48] And I started as a programmer in a small company for, um, school software and ended up being the, the hotline, um, release guy, going to the schools, talking to the teachers, getting requirements, understanding the problems. So they are, what's the first thing we are realised. Okay. Um, becoming a programmer and studying, um, pure IT.

[00:15:12] It's not what I want. And I went for information systems where I could combine business and IT and I never regretted it.

[00:15:21] Hadley: [00:15:21] Well, I mean, I just, we know today is a massive gap and usually within businesses between IT and the business and having that common understanding. So having that skillset is an extremely valuable skill to have.

[00:15:36] So, and you realising that that early on, uh, I guess is, is, uh, it's pretty cool as well. So your first job, then what, what happened kind of between your first degree going into your first job and you then doing your doctorate?

[00:15:53] Michael: [00:15:53] Okay. So, um, I was one of the.. Germany, we changed our, uh, university system from diploma to bachelor and master.

[00:16:00] So I was one of the guys. Uh, who did the first bachelor degree, um, in Stuttgart, which was not so funny, 70 people started, um, to do the bachelor, um, 11 got the bachelor's. So about 60 people failed, um, at least

[00:16:19] Hadley: [00:16:19] over what period of time was that? That the dropouts happened?

[00:16:22] Michael: [00:16:22] Um, mainly in the first one and a half to two years, the 12 to 15 people, um, Um, they succeeded later on, maybe not like me, um, in the normal period, um, after the study time, but one or two years later, but, um, we had a massive, massive dropout.

[00:16:44] Hadley: [00:16:44] Okay. And was it, was it really difficult or did they just not like the content? What, what was the main reason?

[00:16:50] Michael: [00:16:50] Um, in the past in Germany, you had some kind of free diploma and, um, the diploma phases and the pre diploma, it was about, um, uh, getting a C and that's fine. Um, but with a bachelor's degree, um, they didn't realise that we had now, um, 60% of such exams where you had a, um, uh, a failure rate of 60 to 80%.

[00:17:18] And we had also some classes, but 100% fail. Um, and they didn't realise it. And the really bad thing was they also didn't realise that it was important for us to get good grades from day one. So, um, I got my bachelor's degree with a C and still with a C I was part of the top 10 of my peer group. Hadley: Whoa.

[00:17:41] Michael: Okay. So that's something you can't tell. Um, but, um, with a bachelor in the pocket, um, I did my master's degree. So with that

[00:17:52] Hadley: [00:17:52] You did it. You did it immediately afterwards or did you go work somewhere first?

[00:17:54] Michael: [00:17:54] Um, I work part-time, um, when I was studying, so I, uh, kept on, uh, doing the master's degree. Um, and, um, while I did that, I also, um, made one, in the end of the master’s, one semester, um, in Singapore.

[00:18:13] So I started, um, I wanted to go to China. Um, didn't manage to learn Chinese language, and then I thought, okay, let's go for Singapore....

Learning to Love Learning

Hadley Christoffels — Thu, 20 May 2021 09:00:00 +0000

Pat Renzi is a Principal at Milliman and the CEO of Milliman’s Life Technology Solutions business.

Having spent 30 years providing commercial technology solutions to support actuaries in risk management, product development, and financial reporting, she is passionate about leveraging technology to allow insurers to better serve their customers, their employees, and their shareholders.

Pat is a strong advocate for more diversity within actuarial science and technology, understanding the importance of diversity in background as we expand the use of data in driving decisions. Pat is the Chairperson of Milliman’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee and is working with a small group of insurers to leverage technology to provide resiliency strategies to Black-Owned small businesses

Sponsor Information

Visit www.yourheights.com and use acuriouslife10 for a 10% discount.

Transcript

Hadley: [00:00:00] So Pat, welcome to the show.

[00:00:03] Patricia Renzi: [00:00:03] Thank you very much for having me glad to be here.

[00:00:05] Hadley: [00:00:05] I cannot begin to tell you how much of an honour it is to be having this conversation with you to be, to have you on my show. I think hands down you are one of the most inspiring leaders that I've ever had the pleasure of working with hats off, um, and much respect.

[00:00:22] Patricia Renzi: Thank you very much. Hadley: Okay. So back, I normally kick off the show by asking people one simple question. Uh, what does curiosity mean to you?

[00:00:31] Patricia Renzi: [00:00:31] So whenever I hear the word curiosity, I always think of curious, George and I love curious, George, and, and the reason I love curious George is because he just always wants to learn, you know, he just dives in and he's so excited about learning new things.

[00:00:51] And that's what curiosity means to me is just that, that passion around learning new things and wanting to just dive in, explore, jump from thing to thing and just, you know, always want to learn more. So that's what curiosity means to me

[00:01:06] Hadley: [00:01:06] that I think captures it perfectly. So, okay. Back now, again, you know, this is a campfire, like type discussion.

[00:01:15] Um, and essentially we just gonna talk about you, um, and find out what's behind the woman. Right. Um, and generally where we start with that is right at the beginning. So where you were born parents siblings.

[00:01:30] Patricia Renzi: [00:01:30] So, um, I am the middle of three girls, um, and I was born in Westchester, Pennsylvania, so small town outside of Philadelphia.

[00:01:44] Uh, my mother and father were both born and raised in Westchester. Um, Farmers. Hadley: Okay. What kind of farmers? Patricia Renzi: Uh, so my mother's family was, um, they had milk cows and then they also raised sheep.

[00:02:04] Hadley: [00:02:04] Okay. So did you grow up on a farm?

[00:02:05] Patricia Renzi: [00:02:05] I did not, no. my, both my parents.

[00:02:10] Hadley: [00:02:10] Okay. So your parents and their families were farmers.

[00:02:13] Patricia Renzi: [00:02:13] Yeah. So, and my grandfather, um, on both sides, they still had farms. So as a child, we would go to the farms. And so, yeah.

[00:02:24] Hadley: [00:02:24] Understood. Okay. So you used to the, not necessarily just the Philly kind of inner city life, but the, the big wide open world and which is the one that resonates with you most. So, so I'm assuming you've, you've kind of have an association with, with both the open-world as well as the inner cities or

[00:02:44] Patricia Renzi: [00:02:44] until I went to university, it was, um, even though I lived in.

[00:02:49] Yeah, sort of a suburban area. Um, it was still, everything was farmland around me. And so going into Philadelphia, even though, you know, it's 30 minutes, it was like a big trip. Right. And so,

[00:03:06] Hadley: [00:03:06] yeah. Yeah. Did you have to put on your Sunday clothes or

[00:03:14] Patricia Renzi: [00:03:14] yeah. Yeah. It was a big trip to go into the city. And, um, so, so definitely, um, you know, as a child, um, it was very much of a not city life. I w it was, that was really foreign to me until I went away to university

[00:03:35] Hadley: [00:03:35] with this kind of backdrop of curiosity. Most people don't necessarily remember the detail, but was there anything that stood out in that early life that you think has

[00:03:46] played a part in who you are today?

[00:03:47] Patricia Renzi: [00:03:47] So, um, I, I think as the middle child, um, I was maybe, I don't know if I felt protected between not being the youngest and not being the pressure of the oldest child and, and the freedom of being the youngest child. I felt like, um, you know, I think a lot of the middle children feel like they were ignored, but I loved that because that allowed me to just kind of be myself.

[00:04:19] And so, um, so I was very curious and, um, and felt like I kind of had that freedom to do that. Yeah. So when I was four, um, we had a house fire and, um, my father was killed and my younger sister was burned very badly.

[00:04:42] Hadley: [00:04:42] I'm really sorry to hear that.

[00:04:42] Patricia Renzi: [00:04:42] So it was, uh, I mean, it was was traumatic, but it also was, um, the outcome of that was probably the most influential thing in my life.

[00:04:56] And that my mother who had been, you know, stay at home, mom, mother of three, took over my father's business, ran it by herself, raised three children. Hadley: What was the business sorry, Pat, just? Patricia Renzi: Uh, he was a pharmacist, so he owned a little, little local pharmacy and, you know, and, um, and she was a phenomenal business woman.

[00:05:21] She was just incredibly strong. And, um, so seeing that was, that was really what drove me. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:05:33] Hadley: [00:05:33] And I'm assuming, I mean, that must have had. Obviously the, the tragedy of your dad, but also the strength of your mum and how she reacted to such tremendous tragedy, but with strength, you know, I mean, you can imagine what were the things that drove, her children, her kids, and, and it's, it's kind of a, well, this is what I have to do, right.

[00:05:57] For, for the sake of my children, life goes on.

[00:06:00] Patricia Renzi: [00:06:00] Yeah. And as an adult, I think you, you appreciate much more the emotion that she must have, what she, you know, the sadness and the loss that she was feeling. But, um, but we never saw that. It was just, you know, I'm, I'm moving forward. Of course we're going to do this and yeah.

[00:06:22] Hadley: [00:06:22] Yeah. And that takes strength. That takes strength of character. Okay. And, and then, and you were four at a time, so, so what, what, what are those, what are those next kind of years look like now as your mom is, is taking on this, this, the onus of building a business as, as you say, an exceptional business woman, but clearly also an exceptionally strong one.

[00:06:48] Patricia Renzi: [00:06:48] Yeah. So it was, um, you know, I have to say that and you know, this is certain, certainly hats off to my mother, but I felt like I had kind of the most normal, happy childhood anybody could have. It was, I, it was, um, you know, we used to. Uh, we used to help my mom in the store and, you know, do inventory. And it was one of these old fashioned pharmacies that had the soda fountain in it, you know?

[00:07:21] And, and so, um,

[00:07:24] Hadley: [00:07:24] yeah, it’s more than a pharmacy.

[00:07:26] Patricia Renzi: [00:07:26] so we used to help her, um, you know, get everything cleaned and make the simple syrup to make the different sodas. We'd help her with that on the, you know, and it was just, um, it was just fun. It was, uh, you know, it was a great life. We lived in this small town and, um, you know, we just rode our bikes everywhere and everybody knew each other.

[00:07:50] And so everybody was looking out for each other and it was just really, it was idyllic. And there's this, you know, there was this tragic thing that happened, but. My mother never. We never felt that.

[00:08:07] Hadley: [00:08:07] Yes, I get what you mean. And, and where the community, it sounds like the community around it would have been supportive or were there issues, I guess, going back a little while, was, were there issues, the fact that she was a woman or was the community, like completely supportive of it?

[00:08:21] Patricia Renzi: [00:08:21] No, it was, and this is probably the other thing that, um, certainly drove me is that, and you know, again, I didn't know this until I was in my late teens, but, um, but when my, when my mom went to take over my dad's pharmacy, um, you know, she had just lost her husband. She had her youngest daughter who was two years old, was in the hospital and was in the hospital for two years straight.

[00:08:54] And she was going to run this pharmacy and the bank would not turn the loan over to her. As a female, unless she had to have her father who was a retired farmer, sign it,

[00:09:11] Hadley: [00:09:11] Oh, my word, I guess it was signs of the time. And maybe that's even where the question came from. Right. And, and I guess part of that question is, is also just looking to understand some of the things that drive you, you know, I mean, I know that, that you are very driven by equality and fairness and, and, you know, it sounds like these are the kinds of things that, that played a kind of very important part or significant part in, in, in that

[00:09:44] Patricia Renzi: [00:09:44] I think the other thing that, you know, was my younger sister, um, is, is badly scarred from the fire.

[00:09:55] And, um, when she was in school, um, We were in primary school and I must have been in fourth grade and she would have been in second grade. And, um, she would for, she was, was like sick every day. You know, she couldn't go to school. She was, and, um, they couldn't figure out what's going on. And the doctor said, you know, this is, she's just, there's like fear.

[00:10:25] She's sick to her stomach because she's afraid. And so what we found out is that she was being bullied. And, um, so, you know, I am a very peaceful person,

[00:10:37] Hadley: [00:10:37] but don't get on your bad side.

[00:10:42] Patricia Renzi: [00:10:42] So yeah, here I am. Um, you know, and at that point, you know, girls wore their little dresses to school and, you know, I, Hadley: You stood up for your sister. Patricia Renzi: I just, I stood up.

[00:10:56] Um, yes, I got, um, I got called into the principal's office, but I think you see those kinds of things and it's just that, um, those injustices, the inequities, the, the, you know, and so, and then also how my mother was treated. I know that, I mean, we had very supportive neighbours who were willing to help her in, um, you know, like taking us places and things like that.

[00:11:23] But. But because she was a single woman, she was never invited to dinner parties. She was never invited to. And so I saw her being excluded and I saw my sister being, um, you know, being bullied or being, being ostracised. And I think those things just stick with you. And so that has sort of become my calling is to really focus on those things

[00:11:50] Hadley: [00:11:50] and just quickly, how old, so what's the difference between you and your elder sister?

[00:11:55] Patricia Renzi: [00:11:55] Almost exactly two years and then 18 months with my younger sister.

[00:12:01] Hadley: [00:12:01] Understood. Okay, cool. And so, so, so I guess from this point, then getting to this place where you were saying, you're now a teenager and you now understand, you know, you got to understand a little bit more about what your mom has gone through.

[00:12:15] Why did that come about? And I'm assuming this is you in high school now, right? Yeah.

[00:12:20] Patricia Renzi: [00:12:20] So when I was in high school, um, I. Uh, it was, uh, it was my curiosity. I think that I just, you know, you, you see things and you look around. And so then I would just ask my mother, you know, why is this happening? Why, um, you know, why are you not allowed to do this in your business?

[00:12:46] Why are these things happening? Um, you know, there was a chamber of commerce in our little town. And, um, my father was actually the president of the chamber of commerce before he was killed. And then, uh, after that, they wouldn't allow my mother to join, but they would let my sisters and I attend like their Christmas parties, but we had to be taken there by one of the other business men in the community and you see these things.

[00:13:20] And so then. Yeah, you just kind of, as you're, when you're younger, you see it. But then as I got older, I would, I asked why. Yeah. And I was like, well, this doesn't make sense to me. Why is it this way? And, um, yeah. And you just, you start to see those things. And then I realised the challenges that my mother had and how strong she had to be to just, um, you know, to move through that and to be, I mean, she was a phenomenal mother.

[00:13:54] She was so involved in our lives and yet she was trying to run this business with all these headwinds. And, um, you know, so as you get older and you start to just question those things and you put it all together,

[00:14:07] Hadley: [00:14:07] I guess it's even more so because it's avoidable because it's simply someone's mindset that happens to be off-centre that makes a situation that is already unthinkable

[00:14:21] worse because of the way that you think, you know, and nah, I'm with you. So what was the thing that got like the business through that phase? Was it like additional support from the community coming to buy more stuff or because it was anyway central to the community and the kind of only pharmacy in the, was there anything that made it easier for your mom or that helped?

[00:14:44] Patricia Renzi: [00:14:44] So I think that, um, it was fairly central to the, um, to the, this little small town that we lived in. Um, there were two pharmacies in the town. I mean, my mother was, she just was very persistent and she was, she was, um, she was really a good business person. She by training as a nurse. And so, um, so what she did was she said, you know, I need to lock in contracts

[00:15:17] with the hospitals and with, with like nursing homes and because she understood how that all worked. And so, um, so she just went and talked to people that she knew at the hospital where she had used to work and then she would, you know, went to nursing homes and just, and she locked in these contracts and she expanded the business and it really thrived.[00:15:43]

[00:15:43] Hadley: [00:15:43] So, you know, it's stories like that. That just makes me, I kind of almost, you feel like you're feeling inside and like yeah. I'm, I'm ready to rock. I’m rocking it.

[00:15:52] Patricia Renzi: [00:15:52] Yeah. Yep. Oh, she was, yeah, she was, uh, she really, she drove the business forward. Yeah.

[00:16:00] Hadley: [00:16:00] Okay, cool. And, and from that point then, so, you know, from the point at which curiosity leads to

[00:16:06] I now understand a little better what my mom has gone through. And more importantly, what she achieved against all odds, you know, from, from that moment then, you know, well, what does it look like throughout the rest of high school?

[00:16:22] Patricia Renzi: [00:16:22] So, um, at that point, um, I'm not sure that I, you know, it was, I certainly wasn't sitting there saying, you know, I'm gonna, this is what I'm going to do.

[00:16:37] I was, but I was very focused on, um, sort of making her proud. Right. And so it was, I'm going to do well in school. I'm going, uh, you know, I'm going to, um, I'm going to get a good job. Um, I am going, I'm going to make something, help her. I'm going to, I'm going to do something. Right. And it was more just, um, it was not so much about that.

[00:17:02] It wasn't even really seeing what she had been through. It was just knowing that it was really important to her that I succeed. And so that was what was really driving me was just to make her proud

[00:17:16] Hadley: [00:17:16] well done. And I mean, she has to be. Never mind the success is I keep saying this Pat, but you, as a person are just phenomenal, you know?

[00:17:30] Patricia Renzi: [00:17:30] Well, that's my mom that she was a phenomenal person. She was, um, yeah.

[00:17:37] Hadley: [00:17:37] Um, okay, so, so, so how did that influence then what you studied? So I'm assuming this drive to make her proud and to make something of yourself and to help her and, you know, has resulted in good grades. So how does that influence or how do you go about choosing what to study at uni?

[00:17:55] Patricia Renzi: [00:17:55] So, um, I, when I first went to university, I wanted to be a doctor and, um, and that was really driven by, um, you know, her being a nurse and being in the medical profession and, um, you know, wanting to just, you know, show her that I could do it because she had such, um, uh, she was, I'm sure she was proud of what she accomplished, but she, as a nurse, she just really, um, had strong admiration for doctors.

[00:18:32] And so I said, all right, I'm going to do that. And, um, people told me that you should be a physical therapist, you know, you're a girl it's too hard, you know, and

[00:18:46] Hadley: [00:18:46] I guess that was like a bull to a red flag, I guess, bring it on! I guess I’m becoming a doctor then

[00:18:55] Patricia Renzi: [00:18:55] you know, tell me I can't do it. And that's what I'll do. Um, although as I, you know, once I got, uh, into school, I realised that, um, every time I see blood, I pass out. So I thought

[00:19:16] but, um, but I, I always loved math. I mean, I just, and I think that's curiosity too, you know, math is just, um, math just leads you to be curious, right. It's just, it's kind of the underpinnings of everything. And so it's, um, So and you can, you can discover so much through math. So I always loved math. So, um, so I decided I would major in math.

[00:19:45] Um, but I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do, um, with that. Um, and so, um, when I graduated, I started, um, I started graduate school in...

Ethics in AI

Hadley Christoffels — Thu, 13 May 2021 14:26:00 +0000

Toju Duke is an EMEA Responsible AI Program Manager at Google with over 15 years experience spanning Advertising, Retail, Not-For-Profits, and Tech.

She designs Responsible AI Programs focussed on the development and implementation of Ethical AI frameworks amongst Google's product teams. She is committed to driving social justice through AI while acknowledging the diverse backgrounds, cultures and ethnicities of society, and ensuring Responsible AI frameworks are applied to developing such technologies.

She is a prolific public speaker with a proven track record on business success and project management. In addition, she is the Founder of Refyne, a Manager for Women in AI Ireland, Head of Black and Brilliant AI solutions, and Tech start-up Mentor and Business Advisor

Sponsor Information

Visit www.yourheights.com and use acuriouslife10 for a 10% discount.

Transcript

Hadley: [00:00:00] Tells you absolute pleasure to see you again after so many years. And welcome to the show.

[00:00:05] Toju: [00:00:05] Thank you very much, Hadley. Good to see you again as well.

[00:00:09] Hadley: [00:00:09] Awesome. So, so listen, as you know, this is a show where essentially we want to, we want to find out in this case, the woman behind the movement, right.

[00:00:17] And we want to know more about you. So, uh, we kind of take this approach of campfire, like discussions where imagine you're sitting around a campfire, telling the story of our life and yeah, you're up, you know, but before we get into Toju and what makes her tick, um, I've got one question that I ask each guest.

[00:00:36] Uh, and this is what does curiosity mean to you?

[00:00:38] Toju: [00:00:38] Yeah, that's a, that's a good question. Um, I always say about curiosity did not kill the cat because where we grew up, we grew up with the saying of curiosity, killed the cat. So don't be too curious cause it can get killed and I've learned that that's not the case.

[00:00:52] So I think for me, curiosity is just having a genuine hunger and thirst to learn more. And to know more, to understand what lies beneath the surface on different subject topics on subject matters. So it's, um, just wanting to go deeper, dig a little bit deeper, being willing and open to learn new things.

[00:01:14] And if you hear about a certain concept, just being curious enough to know what it means, um, why, why it exists, what are the challenges? And you find out that the more curious you are in life, it gets more interesting because you're learning so many different things and that can even help yeah. That can help with, you know, your direction in life, in your career, your personal life, you know, and you just accumulate so much knowledge by being curious.

[00:01:40] Yeah.

[00:01:41] Hadley: [00:01:41] And do you, do you find sometimes that actually it's because having, and one of my other guests classes it as general curiosity, right. But if by having a general curiosity about things, you tend to discover more about yourself. And in fact, um, what direction. You want to go in right? Uh, in life and your personal life as well as professional life.

[00:02:02] Do you, do you find that statement to be accurate?

[00:02:05] Toju: [00:02:05] Yeah, that's what's happened to me now. I got into the field of AI is from curiosity. I was just curious, what is this whole ML hype about? And there was a, uh, sales, um, there was a training for non-techies at my workplace in Google. And I, I went out of curiosity.

[00:02:20] I was like, I just want to learn more. What's this whole hype about, at the moment I heard about it, I was like, wow, I want more. But I kept on wanting more. I'm still watching more. Yay. That's pretty much me,

[00:02:32] Hadley: [00:02:32] but isn't that the beauty about it? It's like the fact that there you'll never ever be able to learn

[00:02:39] everything is, is encouraging because you know, it just means that your curiosity needs no bounds and it needs no ends. It just needs a little direction from time to time and watch you go deeper on, but, you know, curiosity itself doesn't necessarily need an end point.

[00:02:54] Toju: [00:02:54] Exactly. And it just makes life interesting.

[00:02:56] You should never settle down and just think, you know, everything. I don't want to learn more. That's, that's, that's a dead man's position. Like it's only people in the grave that can never learn anything more. And like, you always have to be open to taking on so much more knowledge and it's to just guide you in your life decisions on, you know, where you're going to go.

[00:03:14] And, you know, sometimes everyone still wants profit. I'm making my money. Like, it's just, it's just important to be curious, really important.

[00:03:21] Hadley: [00:03:21] That's awesome. So come on. Let's, let's find out about Toju let's find out the essence of Toju, right? So, so, so give us, give us tell us a story, right? Um, where were you born siblings, et cetera.

[00:03:33] Um, Take us to the very beginning. Okay.

[00:03:36] Toju: [00:03:36] All right. Um, I'm not going to tell you my age is not gonna go that way.

[00:03:40] Hadley: [00:03:40] Of course not and I will not ask you, I'm a gentleman or you look about 21, right? So I'm going to just go with that.

[00:03:46] Toju: [00:03:46] I think I'm 16. And so I was born in 1925, so I'm actually Nigerian. Um, I grew up in Nigeria.

[00:03:58] I was born in Nigeria, so my mom, Hadley: which part of Nigeria, sorry, Toju: down South called river States. Um, the city is called Port Harcourt and that's where all the oil companies were all based. So we had Shell Chevron, Chevron, wasn't in Port Harcourt it was in Lagos, but we had, uh, Slumber J and all the oil servicing and production companies are all based in Port Harcourt.

[00:04:22] Okay.

[00:04:23] Hadley: [00:04:23] So it was a pretty industrial type city, but, but pretty large. And I guess with oil, there was a lot of money as well.

[00:04:31] Toju: [00:04:31] Yes. The money was flowing in there a lot. Um, everything is in the past now because it just got really bad. Um, people started kidnapping, anyone who seemed affluent. So. Um, I think with time the companies had to relocate, um, and leave.

[00:04:45] And I think the economy got a little bit bad, but it wasn't, it was great then, because it was just offering jobs to, you know, the local indigents. And it was just a great way. Everyone, a lot of people wanted to become engineers, especially the men so that they can end up getting a job in the old company.

[00:05:00] Cause you know, once you get a job in the oil company, they literally made like the pay really well. Yeah. So, um,

[00:05:07] Hadley: [00:05:07] it's actually something I want to touch on earlier. It's just that statement, especially the men, right. Because it's engineering and I'm assuming that at least in part that has an influence on, on your responsible and equitable AI kind of, um, mission right now.

[00:05:23] But, but we'll, we'll get, we'll get there later. Yeah. So, so, so, so we in the city. Yeah. How do you pronounce it again? Just to remind me.

[00:05:33] Toju: [00:05:33] So ports, Port is one word and Harcourt is the second word. So it's almost like an English word. Um, and, uh, the state was full of seas, so there were always thunderstorms and lightnings and he had some stories, like there was always this makeup story don't stand under the tree because you could get struck by lightning.

[00:05:52] Um, we've had stories of people dying from being struck by lightning. Yeah. So anytime.. Hadley: That’s shocking! I know.

[00:06:04] Sorry. All right. Yeah. Laughter is always the best way to deal with stuff, but I couldn't let that one go.

[00:06:13] Toju: I didn't know anyone. I'm trying to think of real stories. I don't think they were many like whether there were odd, odd, odd ones, but yeah, in a way right now, if I hear thunderstorms, now I get excited cause it reminds me of my childhood and, and it

[00:06:27] Hadley: [00:06:27] reminds you yeah. Johannesburg is kinda the same where the sky lights up.

[00:06:30] Right. It's it's crazy. So, so, okay. Family, mother, father, siblings.

[00:06:36] Toju: [00:06:36] Yeah. So, um, I'm actually the only child. Um, my mom, my mom had three miscarriages that I'm aware of. Um, so I grew up as an only child and I absolutely hated it. You know, I used to talk to myself, talk to my dolls. Well, it's just such a lonely experience.

[00:06:52] So sometimes I used to imagine that I had three other siblings and I was like the third child. I, when I was a teenager, my mom used to annoy me. I would just be like thinking of how it all revolted against my parents. Um, and actually at that time, I've lost my dad. I lost my dad at 12, Hadley: Sorry to hear that Toju: thank you. so it was just near my mom when she was really.

[00:07:09] She was really over-protective as well. Um, and I saw the impact it had on my mom, but I just grew up with, um, a very large imagination. And, um, at some stage I have to work on it because I could just sit down and just scare myself to death. I could just sit down and start imagining crazy stuff and start screaming.

[00:07:25] And I was like, Oh, Hey, you have to stop this nonsense. It's like, you need some drama. Hadley: That's awesome. Well, everybody needs to spice it up a little. Toju: Okay. Okay. So I kind of worked on that. Um, and I went into acting at some stage and I love that. Maybe that was just a way of me expressing myself, but I was always like a very good actress.

[00:07:50] I was always like taking the lead

[00:07:56] Hadley: [00:07:56] a little bit more constructive way to express your creativity. Love darling.

[00:07:57] Toju: [00:07:57] Yes. Exactly exactly. And you know, your imagination and all that. So, so that, that's a, that's the family side of things. Um, okay. Okay.

[00:08:08] Hadley: [00:08:08] And, and were you spoiled?

[00:08:10] Toju: [00:08:10] Well, people say I was, but I’ll never admit it

[00:08:17] um, well, you know, when I was going out, a few people met me and said that they never knew I was an only child. Like if I didn't say it, sorry, I guess I was also pretty much grown up and pretty responsible to a certain degree.

[00:08:31] Hadley: [00:08:31] And, and did you do your schooling in, in, in Port Harcourt?

[00:08:33] Toju: [00:08:33] Yeah, so my mom was doing a PhD.

[00:08:36] She gave birth to me and she was actually in the UK Loughborough. Um, and then went back to Nigeria to give birth to me, and then took me back with her to Loughborough when I was about one or two, six months. And I was very annoyed with her when I was an adult, because I couldn't get a visa into the UK easily. And I was like but I was almost born here.

[00:08:57] Um, so I was in the UK. I was in Loughborough for like four or five years. Then I went back to Nigeria.

[00:09:04] Hadley: [00:09:04] Um, so what was your mom's PhD in?

[00:09:06] Toju: [00:09:06] Um, I think it was physiology, so she's, uh, she's a lecturer she's she retired two years ago. So she was a professor, my dad, who was a professor. She was, um, physiology and nutrition.

[00:09:16] Um, on my dad's, um, was microbiology, so both scientists, um, yeah.

[00:09:23] Hadley: [00:09:23] And did that not have an influence or some form of pressure for you to go down this PhD route as well? Yeah,

[00:09:30] Toju: [00:09:30] No. Really because really, because I've seen that in Nigeria, the government doesn't value the lectures on the educational system. So they’re always going on strike.

[00:09:40] The unions were always going on strike. There were paid pennies. Uh, and I was like, there's no way I'm going to study this hard to be paid pennies Hadley: For that long. Toju: For that long. So my mom always used to call me a dunce and say that I'm the only one in the family that has refused to do a PhD. And I'm like, even till today, I'm still having, I'm like, you know, I keep on having this conversations, you know, and I'm like, I keep on asking myself, I don't want to go into academia.

[00:10:07] So why do I need a PhD? You know? And that's, uh, for me, it's not just about the titles. And I think about the four years, I'm going to sink my life into it. And I'm like, you know, I know the other routes. Now you can do PhD by publication, but that's still me doing some research and writing a few research papers and I still don't see the need.

[00:10:24] Hadley: [00:10:24] Any other moments that is memorable to you, kind of, you know, going through primary school, going through high school that you think you want to kind of call out as either significant in your life going forward or especially this, this, this moving between England or the UK and Nigeria, you know, uh, what that was like and how it impacted you.

[00:10:46] Toju: [00:10:46] Yeah, I think the move from the UK, I mean, it was a culture shift for me. Um, but I don't remember so much of it apart from the fact that my mom said I had an accent and I, and I swallowed it with Gary, which is a Nigerian male that she always used to joke about that. Um, but the significant part is, is the same thing you've touched upon is making that choice on what to studying in university.

[00:11:09] So, um, I'm, I'm pretty sure it's the same in Johannesburg as in Nigeria. And I think for almost every family of colour for us, you know, growing up, there were only three professions you could get into. It was either being a lawyer, a doctor or an engineer. Yeah. It's worthless. Don't even think about going into the arts man.

[00:11:30]

[00:11:30] Hadley: [00:11:30] It's like you serious?! get a proper job!

[00:11:43] Toju: [00:11:43] I’m almost subconsciously doing the same thing to my kids, but not intentionally, but sometimes I am just like, this one will be an engineer, an engineer, this one a doctor I'll be like, this could be a doctor or a technical doctor or something. But anyway, um, but my parents, I just chose medicine because to the point that we made before engineering was almost for boys.

[00:12:01] But at that stage, I didn't realize that I just. Doctor just felt great. So my dad's friends would come to the house and be like Toju, what do you want to be when you grow up? And I'm like, I want to be a, doctor and they like Yay!

[00:12:14] mommy's proud. Daddy's proud. And I that's my goal

[00:12:19] Hadley: [00:12:19] because there's this big props to the parents as well at that point. Right. It's almost more about them than it is about like you want to do.

[00:12:26] Toju: [00:12:26] Exactly. Exactly. And it's so funny because my parents are doctors. I'm surprised that didn't come up as a, as an option.

[00:12:33] Right. And most of my parents' friends are lecturers as well, but it always had to fall within those three different careers. Um, so I grew up saying, okay, I wanted to be a doctor. And then by the time I got to my fifth year in high school, I thought about it. I was like, no, I don't want to be a doctor anymore.

[00:12:50] I know now the universities are always going on strike and, uh, it's almost like seven to eight odd years to get a medical degree. Like I think it was supposed to take like six years, but because of all the strikes and the strikes could be as long as six months, six months and university students are out of university, they can't do anything.

[00:13:10] They can't study. They can’t do anything, they can’t do their exams. Um, by the time I’d heard all of that. You know, I'd heard of stories of people eight to nine years. They still hadn't graduated from medical school. And I was like, that is not for me. Then the second thing was, you know, I learned that you have to study, study, study, don't have time for a life.

[00:13:26] Don't have time to party and all that. And I was like, I'm going to party and stuff. So I was like, I'm not going to do it. Um, but then I didn't realize that was almost too late to make that choice. So I had to retake my A levels exams. I had to wait for an extra year. So

[00:13:44] Hadley: [00:13:44] you did your A levels here and sorry, you did your levels in the UK?

[00:13:47] Toju: [00:13:47] No, in Nigeria. It's it's, I'm just, I'm just using the equivalence. We call it jam over there. Um, jam exams. Um, so I had to retake that I had to wait an extra year to retake it because now I was asking to switch from a science student to an art student and I had no idea what I wanted to study. So the only thing I could think of was mass communication.

[00:14:08] I know I wanted to be like a newscaster. Now I wasn't quite passionate about that, but out of all the options that were available, that just seems to be the most interesting thing. And I have friends who, who wants to do it as well. So I, I.

[00:14:25] Hadley: [00:14:25] And you could get in. Toju: No I couldn’t get in, no. Hadley: Oh, not yet. Oh, you had to actually take the exam again. Okay.

[00:14:28] Toju: [00:14:28] So take the exams for an art students. And they said, I'm not an art student. I'm a science student

[00:14:36] day. Hadley: You get over there.

[00:14:42] Toju: Yeah, it was just a bit, it was almost getting late, you know, I'm like, I can't wait another year and you know, all that. Um, so my uncle, one of my uncles was a lecturer, you know, and I tried getting into the mass communication department and I couldn't get it. And he was a chair of sociology and he just got me into...

Rocking Maths

Hadley Christoffels — Thu, 06 May 2021 09:00:00 +0000

Udo Sglavo is Vice President of Analytics R&D at analytics powerhouse SAS, where he is passionate about shaping the vision and directing the implementation of some of the world's most powerful analytical techniques. SAS has been applying analytics to complex business problems for decades, and in his role Udo has the privilege of leading a team of highly skilled individuals responsible for building and testing the SAS analytical ecosystem.

He received a diploma in mathematics from the University of Applied Sciences, Darmstadt, Germany and is a proud holder of several patents in the area of advance analytics.

He formed part of the team responsible for editing the original volume of Business Forecasting: Practical Problems and Solutions and the new volume, Business Forecasting: The Emerging Role of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, will be released in Spring 2021.

Sponsor Information

Visit www.yourheights.com and use acuriouslife10 for a 10% discount.

Transcript

Hadley: [00:00:00] Udo. Welcome to the show, dude.

[00:00:04] Udo: [00:00:04] How are you doing?

[00:00:05] Hadley: [00:00:05] All right, mate. Doing all right. And, uh, yeah, looking forward to just finding out more about Udo. I'm really looking forward to this interview, dude.

[00:00:14] Udo: [00:00:14] Hey Hadley. First of all, thank you so much for having me. I'm really looking forward to our discussion.

[00:00:19] That should be a lot of fun.

[00:00:21] Hadley: [00:00:21] Okay, cool. So, uh, to kick things off I normally ask my guests, what does curiosity mean to you?

[00:00:29] Udo: [00:00:29] Well, Hadley, that's already a, an awesome question because, uh, I, I truly believe that we live and, uh, in the century of curiosity really, we do, but what does it mean to me? I think curiosity is the first stage for creativity and what I mean by that is, you know, in order to be creative in order to.

[00:00:55] You know, solve problems, which we may have never seen before or problems, which we are aware of, but we just didn't have the means to solve them previously. You know, we need a lot of creativity in our day and age, but typically it's curiosity, which points you in the direction of these problems, you know, it's like, well, why is this happening?

[00:01:20] Why is this a problem in the first place? You know, or, you know, why haven't we talked about this previously? So I frankly wouldn't label mySCLf as a very curious person. I really don't try, but, you know, I think when I sink my teeth into something, right, I get really curious. Right. You know, so what I mean by that Hadley is, um, you know, I'm not the type of person who is kind of driving

[00:01:50] or is curious about many different things. Right. You know, like today I'm curious about that. And tomorrow I'm curious about this, you know, I think I'm more narrow in my focus to be frank

[00:02:02] Hadley: [00:02:02] understood and I do get that. And I think, um, I'm kind of the same as that. It's not that I want to know a little bit about everything, but it's when something piques my curiosity, then, you know, that's when kind of this, this, uh, process kicks in and then you want to find out more.

[00:02:20] And as I've said before, you know, I, I find that curiosity is an enabler to discovery and a discovery of SCLf. So you start to understand a bit more about what you like and what you are interested in. And then obviously also discovery of the topic itSCLf, because normally there's so many different layers.

[00:02:38] Udo: [00:02:39] I like that. I like that. And also, you know, probably it's also we have to be humble about our abilities. Right? Cause you know, you may be curious about a lot of things, but then it's more like this general interest type of level. Right. You know, I think if there's something you're passionate about, you know, you need to be, you know, informed and you need to be, you know, reading up a lot of things on this topic and that requires you to limit yourSCLf and, you know, the amount of things you can process.

[00:03:15] Right. And again, I mean, probably that's more a question for the, for the next generation, you know, how do you cope with all the information which is hitting your desk on a day to day level and you know, Um, how, how do you filter the noise from the signal, right. You know, which brings me again to data analytics.

[00:03:39] Right. Because that's what we do, you know, typically, right?

[00:03:44] Hadley: [00:03:44] Yes, exactly. Okay. But listen, we’re here to find out about you. And what I normally tell my guests is, is the feel of the conversation is essentially like us having a discussion around the campfire. Right. We're chilling, telling the story of who we are and tag you’re up.

[00:04:00] You're it. Uh, and yeah, everybody wants to know about Udo. So let's start with where you were born. Let's go all the way back to the beginning. When, where were you born? So sisters, brothers, father, mother, that kind of thing. What was family life like?

[00:04:14] Udo: [00:04:14] All right. Okay. So I was born in Germany, in a town called Aschaffenburg, which is close to Frankfurt, Frankfurt, and the West.

[00:04:26] Growing up with an older sister. Interesting fact, probably for the sake of the discussion as my father's Italian, my mother's German, we grew up in Germany, which was, you know, I was born end of the sixties and interesting experience. Right. Of course, you know, it's nothing like, you know, um, having a different skin color or anything like this, you know, which, you know, kind of shows that you, uh, you know, special right, but um the person, the interesting experience as a kid, you know, because, um, of course people realised, Hey, your, your father is not German.

[00:05:10] You know, what's going on? You know, why aren't you living in Italy, blah, blah, blah. Are you going back to Italy? You know, these kinds of Hadley: was that the kind of questions that people ask? Udo: Well, yeah, absolutely. Mate, Yeah. You know, really, you have to imagine that this was Germany in the seventies, right? So our teachers were, you know, brought up in a very strange system.

[00:05:33] Right. You know, so we, we still had, you know, this, you know, elderly generation who looked very unfavourably at strangers who come into the country.

[00:05:47] Hadley: [00:05:47] Okay. You know what, I never really thought about it like that. This is, this is really interesting. So, so when was, when was the end of the, of the world war?

[00:05:59] Udo: [00:05:59] Well, world war two ended in 45, right?

[00:06:02] So you basically. You know, the, the kids who were brought up during that time, but of course, you know, brainwashed, you know, they, you know, uh, basically born, uh, brought up in a system where they believe, you know, we are superior to the rest of the world. Right. And of course, you know, people change. Right. You know, but still that is the notion.

[00:06:26] Right. You know, I don't know how to explain this proper. Right. But, you know, I ran into some teachers where in hindsight, you know, it didn't occur to me back then, but in hindsight, I would've thought, but he was just an idiot. Right. You know, basically, you know, segmented you out because of your heritage, you know?

[00:06:47] Hadley: [00:06:47] Oh, my word. I had no idea. It makes sense. You know, it absolutely makes sense that it would happen that way because it's only 15 years later, right. Let’s call it 20 years later. And I'm trying to kind of put this in the context of the apartheid system, not, not in, in drawing a parallel with what has happened, but rather the time that it takes for generations to change.

[00:07:12] And you know what, 20 years is not a long, that's not a long time.

[00:07:14] Udo: [00:07:14] And then of course, I mean the best thing I think, which happened to our generation is the ’68 revolution where, you know, the kids of those guys who became our parents and younger teachers were asking the hard questions. What did you do during that time?

[00:07:34] You know, um, you know, what did grandfather do during that time? I didn't know. And they basically. It set the stage for all of us, you know, my generation and all the generations after, because now this has handled, right. I mean, Germany now is it’s very different to Germany in beginning of 20th century.

[00:07:55] Right. You know, it's a, it's an open society, you know? Uh, I love Germany. I have to say I loved living there, but, um, you know, it's, it's an interesting experience I have to say, which also resonated in my school career. Right. Cause at some point in time I lost interest in school completely. Right. You know, I was a good soccer player.

[00:08:19] Right. You know, like probably every third kid in, in, in Germany and in Europe, in the UK. And so I always, so that's my calling. Right. You know, you will become a professional soccer player, like probably a lot of kids. Right. So, you know, schoolwork.

[00:08:36] Hadley: [00:08:36] Do you still do you still play today, by the way, do you like play

[00:08:40] Udo: [00:08:40] The head wants to play. The body says no. Right.

[00:08:47] Hadley: [00:08:47] I play a little bit of. It’s only dad's like, you know, like friends, but the same age as me, but it's, it's one of the moments in my week that I so look forward to, I'm always aching the next day, but it's just so nice.

[00:08:59] Udo: [00:08:59] Yeah. And you see what happened to me is that, um, I think it was at the age of 13 or 14 when, um, the doctors told me that I can't continue playing soccer because of some injury I had, you know?

[00:09:15] So that was kind of the first major you know, impact on my life. Right. And it's kind of interesting when I look back, you know, I'm in my fifties now, you know, there are these turning points and that was probably one of the first turning points, right. Where all of a sudden, somebody tells you, you know, I was playing soccer every day, literally.

[00:09:35] Right. You can't do this anymore. Right. You have to find something new. Right. Which was very disturbing as a child I have to say,

[00:09:42] Hadley: [00:09:42] I tell you Udo, that's a moment we can, let's get to that moment. Right. So, so something I just don't want to, I don't want to lose just yet, is the, this schooling. And cause I want to understand how this impacted and shaped your thinking.

[00:10:00] Now, how has, how has going through that process? And even if it's in hindsight impacted you today, the process of being at school and being marginalized.

[00:10:09] Udo: [00:10:09] Okay. Yeah. I think, you know, in a way, the way it impacted me is that, you know, I thought for mySCLf, you have to be the master of your own fate. Right. You know, you can't expect a lot of, you know, support gifts from your environment.

[00:10:32] Right. You know what I'm trying to say? So it was almost like they treat you a little bit different. So, you know, maybe you are different try to, and maybe, you know, that's the advantage which you will have later on in life, you know, that you find your niche and you are not following a path, which has been walked by many people before, but you have to create your own path because, you know, frankly, um, and maybe that's a good story to, to add to this headline is that my father, when he came to Germany after the war, he was part of the first generation of so-called

[00:11:16] You know, they, they called them gastarbeiter, which basically means you come to Germany to help rebuild the country after the war, because you know, the, the men were either dead or in prison or, you know, uh, injured and, you know, there was not enough manpower available. So they asked Germany asked, you know, other countries for help Italy, initially Greece, Portugal, and those countries were suffering economy-wise as well.

[00:11:46] Right. So they basically sent their manpower to Germany. And the idea Hadley was always, you, you, you stay for a couple of years, you help rebuild the country and then you go home. Right. Thank you very much. Right. But you see, life happens. My father met my mother and he decided to stay in Germany.

[00:12:07] Hadley: [00:12:07] That's typically the kind of life that happens is boy meets girl,

[00:12:13] Udo: [00:12:13] And of course, you know, there's no way that you can plan for that. Right. But the reason why I'm saying this is that I'm trying to stress that, that post the first generation where this happened, which right. In a, in a larger scale, right. And all those guys or girls who were brought up with either two parents being, not German or one German, one non German parent, we didn't have any role models to adjust to.

[00:12:43] Right. To basically say, Hey, what did X do in my situation.

[00:12:49] Hadley: [00:12:49] yeah, you will actually forging that path.

[00:12:51] Udo: [00:12:51] Right. I had to basically find this out mySCLf. Right. And maybe build the path for other generations to follow.

[00:13:01] Hadley: [00:13:01] Right. Yeah, future generations, you can kind of understand, not condone, but you can understand that impacting the teachers and them still thinking that way.

[00:13:10] What about the other kids that you went to school with? What was it like amongst your peers?

[00:13:15] Udo: [00:13:15] Yeah, it's, it's similar. So I didn't have a lot of friends. Right. Because, you know, It's the same kind of situation, right. They were looking at you. Oh, you know, is he German or is he not German. Right. You know, does he speak German.

[00:13:28] Right. You know? And it was also very interesting Hadley. When I, when we went to Italy for vacation, it was the other way around. Right. They'd be like, Oh, there's the German. Right. You know, it’s kind of funny now.

[00:13:47] Hadley: Only half. I’m the Italian half now. Udo: Exactly. Right. So, you know, you always feel like, you know, you don't belong. I guess that's, that's the point I'm trying to make. And you know, my, my wife is still joking with me sometimes that I didn't have any roots. Right. That's why it was so easy for me then to go to the States at some point in time, because I didn't feel like, you know, You know, a lot of things are holding me back from, uh, from a roots perspective, like a long tradition.

[00:14:15] Right. You know,

[00:14:16] Hadley: [00:14:16] I completely get that. I mean, I kind of have a weird thing. Well, I say a weird thing, but this is just part of who I am. Right. So when you typically say the word coloured, there is a connotation attached to it that I didn't understand, kind of growing up. So in South Africa, there's blacks.

[00:14:36] There's what is called Coloureds, which is the third kind of most populous, um, uh, racial group, I guess, or ethnic group. Um, and it's kind of the same, the same thing. For me, you know, is, is as both, my parents were classed as coloured and their kind of parents before them. But somewhere down the line, there was, there was a coming together of, of different nations.

[00:15:03] And I think the, this coloured community grew up. And as I said, it's the third, most populous kind of ethnic group in South Africa. But it was, it was kind of that similar thing. You're not black, you're not white. You kind of, you know, somewhere in the middle. However, for me, as I grew up, I am, I fully, you know, classify mySCLf and even today, I would say I'm coloured.

[00:15:26] But when I moved out, when I moved out of South Africa and when I told people that I was coloured, they were like, Whoa, how could you say that about yourSCLf? And I'm like, well, actually I don't know any different, there’s like millions of us back home, actually look looking back, you know, if you look at my, my, my South African identity book, you'll see there that I'm coloured. And I'm like, I don't know what you on about, man.

[00:15:49] But, but, uh, but anyway, yeah. So, so a point I'm trying to make is I get, I get what you mean about kind of this, this feeling stuck in the middle of two worlds when, when you just want to be you and you, you, you don't see the relevance of either.

[00:16:06] Udo: [00:16:06] That's exactly right.

[00:16:07] You know, and you're trying to find your power. I mean, growing up, it's not easy, you know, for everyone, I guess. Right. And, you know, that was just an additional interesting experience, you know? I mean, it, it's all about the little things, right. So for example, You know, um, in Germany back then they had special schools for people or for kids, for families who are not German.

[00:16:35] And the idea was that they will get additional German classes. Right. Because, you know, they probably didn't speak German at home, you know, so they needed some additional education. And, you know, when the decision was pending, you know, which kind of school should I go to, you know, they actually wanted to have me in that school and I'm like, I don't belong.

[00:17:00] Right. Cause you know, I’m German right. So for me as a person, I never considered mySCLf, you know, as a person with two nationalities. I mean back then, of course, as a kid, you always look for, you know, where do I belong? Right. You know, which group.

[00:17:19] Hadley: [00:17:19] And you were born and bred in Germany, right?

[00:17:19] Udo: [00:17:19] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:17:20] Right. And so to me, I didn't even understand the question right. To me, I'm like, I'm German. Why is this even a point? You know, but it was kind of interesting. Right. But, you know, like I said, that was kind of a pattern in my life very early on. And like I said, you know, then that the football thing collapsed, right.

[00:17:39] So, you know, there's almost like this rough cuts right. Where I had to basically decide, okay, w w what's coming now. Right. You know, you've just got to,

[00:17:49] Hadley: [00:17:49] so what, what did happen at that point then Udo?

[00:17:51] Udo: [00:17:51] Well I discovered music. But I also think then I discovered music and, you know, um, I joined a couple of bands and that was basically the career path, the new career.

[00:18:03] Hadley: What did you, what did you play then? Udo: I was singing in a band, you know? Yeah, yeah. Actually several bands. Right. So I really, you know, after the initial, you know, shyness and, you know, the initial stage fright, you know, I really enjoy being on the stage. You know, I always thought this is the best thing, by the...

Overconfident and Under-equipped

Hadley Christoffels — Thu, 29 Apr 2021 08:44:00 +0000

Richard Potter advises business leaders around the world on a range of digital transformation challenges. However, it's the building of innovative enterprises that is his real passion.

In his day job, Richard works with Microsoft's customers giving them clarity and confidence about their digital journeys, helping them turn their aspirations into transformational business results.

He is a renowned keynote speaker and event facilitator with an energising and engaging style. He lives in the UK but travels extensively, shamelessly collecting and telling stories everywhere he goes.

Sponsor Information

Visit www.yourheights.com and use acuriouslife10 for a 10% discount.

Transcript

Hadley: [00:00:00] So welcome to the show, Richard. Great to have you.

[00:00:04] Richard: [00:00:04] It's great to be here. Great to be here.

[00:00:07] Hadley: [00:00:07] Cool. So, so look as you know, We want to essentially get to understand the essence of our guests, right? Uh, we want to know what makes you tick. We want to know what brings you alive, and we want to know how the trait of curiosity has impacted you over your life and career, uh, from when you were young through to now.

[00:00:26] Uh, so, so what we'll do is we will have campfire, like discussions, uh, imagine yourself sitting around a campfire and we telling the story of our lives and tag. You it. So before we get into the, the essence of Richard, tell me what does curiosity mean to you?

[00:00:48] Richard: [00:00:48] Wow. I would say Hadley. I think curiosity ultimately is the measure of your success to navigate the world.

[00:00:56] It's just, it's so important to me, what it really is in my head at least, is that little sweet spot between humility and confidence. It's the humility to recognize that there's learning everywhere, but it's, it's coupled with that, that self-confidence to investigate and make sense of it. And it's that fine balance between those two bits and your ability to sit in that sweet spot I would contend is the greatest ability that you can have in your life.

[00:01:34] Hadley: [00:01:34] That makes sense. In fact, I think I take the confidence thing just one step further and saying it's also the confidence to ask questions because so many people don't have the confidence to ask questions. Then most of the times everybody else in the room would ask if only they had the self-confidence to know that the lack of understanding a specific question, or having the answer to a specific question, doesn't define your worth.

[00:02:01] Richard: [00:02:01] Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's so, that's so true, Hadley. It is that confidence of inquiry. Isn't it, rather than the confidence of conceit in thinking that there is no more to know. So it is. Yeah. I mean, it's in that, that location.

[00:02:18] Hadley: [00:02:18] Awesome. I love that. In fact, one of the things I always say is, and this it's not being cocky, but it's being confident in your ability to learn something.

[00:02:27] And I firmly believe that I can do anything that anyone else can do. As long as I've had the same exposure to get to that point because nobody just knows what they know or can do what they do well without what has come before.

[00:02:42] Richard: [00:02:42] So that's great. And you know, a nice thing. This is what the topic of your conversations are with, with your guest in this space.

[00:02:50] Is, is that, that, that exposure, how did everybody through exposure through their lives, equip themselves with the ability to be curious. That's where we are.

[00:03:03] Hadley: [00:03:03] Awesome. So speaking of life now, come on. Tell us, where were you born? Did you have siblings? You know, how many? What were your parents like? Give us, give us a little window into your world.

[00:03:12] Richard: [00:03:12] Well, I mean, I kind of feel now beholden that we've got this sort of curiosity, narrative and editorial all my life. So it's sort of, it kind of makes more sense that way I think. um, I was, I was born in Africa. Um, I was born in actually quite a remote part of Southern Zambia. Um, and that, the only thing is, is that I was, I was born to, um, a couple of, I suppose, I don't know, I mean, lower middle class, upper working class, um, you know, uh, folks that went out to Africa completely.

[00:03:48] Well, it was my, my father, my father was a very bright guy that managed to get a scholarship to this grammar school and then got into Cambridge and, and then became an agronomist. Hadley: So I know exactly what that is. Don't even bother explaining what is an agronomist. Richard: Let me indulge you, Hadley. I mean, he's an agricultural advisor. So he was an expert in plants, in crops and, um, in, in growing grass and Maize and things like that.

[00:04:22] And at that time, which I suppose was sort of the late sixties, many of the British empire territories were now independent, but, but the, the British Commonwealth was, was, was seeding these, these new countries with experts. Um, and my father was, was one of them and he was dispatched out to a small town in Southern Zambia, um, to help run a research station, to, to look at the impact on crops and production, and also to train up local experts so that they could, they could sort of pick up some of that expertise and, and harness it for their own country's development.

[00:05:04] So, I mean, the thing that always strikes me, whenever I talk to my parents about their journey there was, was their naivety, utter naivety about what, what on earth they were doing. Particularly my mother, who, who I think had, had, had maybe a single trip to the continent beforehand, but had never ventured out into the wilderness or there was something.

[00:05:30] There about that curiosity and the self-confidence to be, to be curious in that space.

[00:05:39] Hadley: [00:05:39] Don't you think that naivety is actually essential? Cause you know, cause sometimes we overthink things and, and, and you know, back to kids, kids just go out, ah well, I'm going to try this. Right. Exactly. And then the naivety is actually

[00:05:52] I think it's a strength because sometimes we overthink things and we stop ourselves from doing something even before we've tried it.

[00:05:58] Richard: [00:05:58] Absolutely true. Absolutely true. And I do, I reflect on quite, quite regularly. My, my father passed away in 2012. Um, and I had the privilege of standing up and saying, if you were at his funeral and I can remember there was one, one line that I very, very, very frivolously threw into what I was saying about him was, was that much of my childhood and my, my two siblings

[00:06:21] I have an older sister and a younger brother. Um, much of our experiences as children growing up in Africa, um, were defined by the fact that most situations we were in, we were overconfident and under equipped. And then, and then solve it and then. And then deal with it, uh,

[00:06:43] Hadley: [00:06:43] but does that mean that actually it wasn't being overconfident.

[00:06:46] If you actually solve the problem in the end, wasn't overconfidence, it just meant it was harder than you thought it would be

[00:06:51] Richard: [00:06:51] a little way in a, in a, in a homily to my father. But, you know, I think that that ability to, you know, to go out into some of the, you know, the, the biggest wildernesses that you can imagine, um, get.

[00:07:05] Yeah, absolutely lost. Um, but then have this belief that you can negotiate your way out of this. Um, my, my childhood is littered with those stories littered with them.

[00:07:21] Hadley: [00:07:21] So tell us more then. So you mentioned siblings, so your, your mom and your dad that sound amazing and a massive influence influence in your life?

[00:07:30] I would, I would, no doubt imagine.

[00:07:32] Richard: [00:07:32] Yeah, siblings. I've got a, an eldest sister. My sister, Sarah was born two years before me. Uh, and then my, my, my brother is five and a half years younger than me. Um, we were all born in Africa. I, me and my sister were born in Zambia, but by the time my brother came along, we'd actually, we'd actually relocated and moved to Kenya.

[00:07:51] Um, but we were still, we were still living, uh, uh, slightly an intrepid life of some description. Um, and, uh, and experiencing, experiencing, you know, drama and lessons and learning in, in every, every day that we, we survived. Um, and it was, it was terrific and, and, and very much defined by the attitude of my parents, the way that my, my parents dealt with.

[00:08:21] I mean, these weren't life-threatening situations in any way, but the way that the, the little dramas that, that we were exposed to as, you know, as kids growing up, um, I'm sure I carry that with me now. And it drives that curiosity that I have that we're, we're now talking about.

[00:08:41] Hadley: [00:08:41] Fantastic. And, and what about the local people?

[00:08:42] What was life like? I mean, how old were you when you left, but before you get there, You know, what was school like? Um, what, what was your interaction with other kids and people like in families around where you were?

[00:08:55] Richard: [00:08:55] I remember it well, you know, everywhere that we live because of the nature of my father's work, we lived out of town.

[00:09:03] We lived out in, you know, out at, not in the back of beyond that, but certainly out in a rural environment in a sort of an agricultural environment, close to close to the local community. Um, I, I went to school in relatively privileged circumstances. I tended to go to school, uh, British schools that were equipping me for

[00:09:28] you know, the kind of education that my parents felt that I needed. Um, but much of my, my, my life outside school was, was in the community. Um, and I think that it was always very important for my parents to, to remember the privilege that I had and to, you know, to, to, to accept that, that those that were surrounding us were, were significantly less

[00:09:56] less privileged than we were. Um, so I, I mean, I'm very, I'm very conscious of that as well as, you know, as we, as we’d grown up and it's something and I'm sure we'll talk about it later on, but I th th the deep connection that I still retain with Africa, I think is very much influenced by, by those, those kinds of values that my parents were instilling in me at that, at that young age.

[00:10:20] Hadley: [00:10:20] Okay. And, and how did that contrast? So, so I'm assuming just quickly, how old were you when you then left? Uh, Africa essentially?

[00:10:28] Richard: [00:10:28] So I was, I, my entire childhood was in Africa and I think my parents left Africa when I was at university back in the UK.

[00:10:39] Hadley: [00:10:39] I see. So you live like all the way through even high school

[00:10:41] Richard: [00:10:41] Live lived all the way there. Um, when I was 13, I was dispatched back over to the UK for boarding school, but still journeying back out to Africa three times a year and spending my holidays out there.

[00:10:55] Hadley: [00:10:55] Okay, cool. Now. What was the contrast like? So essentially you spend you, you, your days and the social side of life within the community, and you'll spend your schooling within I guess what is, what was more of a British, um, environment, right?

[00:11:12] Yeah. What, what was that like? Um, and how did that impact you? Your way of thinking and. Um, you know, conversing with others.

[00:11:20] Richard: [00:11:20] Yeah. You know, it's different. I mean, this is, this is relatively distanct, so I'm sure I'm post rationalising a significant amounts of it. But, but I certainly felt that we, you know, we were very

[00:11:34] we were very exposed to the challenges, the, the, you know, the, the local communities were facing at that time. Um, you know, it was, it was an environment within which you, you weren't, you weren't experiencing starvation and famine, but you know, you, you were very aware of things like the impact of the rains and weather, you know, if the rains would come on crop harvests.

[00:12:00] And, um, my father being my father was, was always stepping forward, trying to help, um, you know, the challenges that, that local, local, you know, local farmers might have, you know, that that may be there. Their maize silo had burned down and he would be out fixing that, or he would be dealing with, you know, with, with, with mothers that had very poorly children.

[00:12:24] And, um, and I tagged along for much of that. I certainly remember some of my childhood being with my father and visiting, um, visiting communities a lot. Um, so yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, it was cool. It's a context. It was a backdrop to too much of, much of what I was, I was experiencing as I grew up.

[00:12:45] Hadley: [00:12:45] Okay, so that kind of takes us through your, your primary school career.

[00:12:48] So we know that at 13, uh, the, the dynamics change a little and you're off to boarding school, um, back in England, right? Where, where was that?

[00:12:57] Richard: [00:12:57] I actually went to boarding school up in North Wales. So my parents originally come from the Northwest of England. They're from, they're from Newearle.

[00:13:06] Hadley: Okay. So, um, on the border of Wales, essentially, right. Richard: In order to be close to my grandparents who were still living up in that part of the world, I went to, I went to boarding school up there and had a terrific time. I, you know, I, I loved the, um, The independence that I felt at boarding, uh, you know, I, I, I genuinely felt that, um, that I was, I've been given this opportunity to be responsible on my own.

[00:13:35] um, and built some great friendships and some of the friendships that I built there. And they're still still with me today.

[00:13:43] Hadley: [00:13:43] And what was, what was high school like then from, uh, you know, are they. And, and so now you, you, you essentially, as you say, you know, you, you learning at a very young age where normally kids would have that level of independence going into high school by perhaps. My son is in fact going, Oh, I can't even imagine that time has gone by so quickly, but he is starting high school in September.

[00:14:06] And one of the things that he's looking forward to is this level of independence that he gets to go to school on his bike, mom and dad freaking out, you know, is he going to cross the road safely? My boy, my baby, but

[00:14:21] he is, um, he's relishing it, you know, but you kind of got that on steroids. Not just are you going to school and coming back home by yourself, you are awake on a different continent from your parents, and I can completely understand now.

[00:14:35] You know, yeah. I need to grow up. I need to learn and I need to do it.

[00:14:38] Richard: [00:14:38] I think back on some of the anecdotes. So I am incredibly aware of the immense privilege that I experienced and being able to go to boarding school and then to be able to travel, travel back to, you know, you know, a very beautiful and warm country, like Kenya.

[00:14:58] Um, but. But the independence in that was stark. And you know, the idea that as a 13 year old, You would get on a train from North Wales, make sure you've got your passport. And it was on one of those trips that I forgot my passport, really 14 traveled down to London.

[00:15:22] Cross London, you know, get out to an air, an airport. Yeah.

[00:15:31] Without my passport. Um, and you know, and there, there are many opportunities and, and, uh, that, that are there for problem solving. And in that instance, particularly digital experience where I got halfway to London on the train before I realized that I had forgotten my passport. You don't panic because.

[00:15:52] You're recalling that time when you've been stuck in the Bush, in Africa, uh, overconfident and under equipped and you say Okay. What, what, what can I do? I'm I've got to think this problem through and do you, you somehow get through it and make it happen

[00:16:10] Hadley: [00:16:10] when growing up without much, you essentially are growing up in an environment that forces you to be innovative, forces you to think outside the box.

[00:16:20] To achieve something without necessarily, you know, all of the right resources, whether that's money, whether that's time, whether that's equipment, whether that's access to education. I think you are 100%, right. It's not really about the independence. It's about cultivating that ability to look at a challenge and have the confidence to go look, there is a way through this and we'll find it.

[00:16:47] And it might not look the way that, you know, uh, we might kind of envision it at first, but there's going to be a way through this. There's going to be a way around this. We will be okay.

[00:16:59] Richard: [00:16:59] Listen, Hadley. I mean, there are people that face incredibly difficult challenges and, you know, these are relatively frivolous experiences that we're talking about, but the thing, the thing that

[00:17:10] strikes me about is how easily I made the association between the fact that when you're in a moment of difficulty, you don't panic. You, you become curious and problem solve, and I, and I'm, I'm sure I, um, I see a very close line between that and the way that I was brought up by my parents. It's very obvious.

[00:17:35] Hadley: [00:17:35] Cool. So, so the rest of high school then, and I think, I mean already, I think we've touched on a big part of you, a big part of the way that you go about things and also why that has come about and how that was installed in you. Is there anything else within your kind of high school career, per se, that was memorable to you or something that you feel, you know, this had a significant impact on me, or it was kind of a key moment that that showed up because of curiosity.

[00:18:04] Richard: [00:18:04] Yeah. I mean, I suppose the big thing that I would probably draw from that was, was that I had an incredibly well-rounded education. I never did anything brilliantly, but I did lots of things relatively well. Um, so I, I made kind of the, this sort of the second team sports teams. I, I was in the, the, the drama activities and I was in the school plays and I did relatively well academically.

[00:18:34] Um, I, I just, I had a real, really broad experience of, of life through there and made some really really good friendships and obviously some great education from, from the teachers that I had. So I think that sort of presented me to the world at the end of this journey. With a rounded education, I was, you know, relatively confident...

Do Fast First

Hadley Christoffels — Thu, 22 Apr 2021 13:05:00 +0000

Oliver Schabenberger is Chief Innovation Officer at SingleStore. He is a former academian and seasoned technology executive with more than 20 years global experience in data management, advanced analytics and AI. Oliver formerly served as COO and CTO of SAS, where he lead the design, development and go to-market-effort of massively scaleable analytic tools and solutions and helped organisations become more data driven. He is a fellow of the American Statistical Association, has co-authored three books, and earned Ph.D and M.S. degrees from Virginia Tech.

Sponsor Information

Visit www.yourheights.com and use acuriouslife10 for a 10% discount.

Interview transcript

Hadley: [00:00:00] Welcome to the show. Oliver. It's an absolute honor to have you on.

[00:00:04] Oliver: [00:00:04] Thank you, Hadley. I'm delighted to be here. I'm delighted to be on a curious life. And I'm curious what we're going to talk about in this podcast.

[00:00:13] Hadley: [00:00:13] Well, as you know, like Peter pan shadow, we're going to go off and find the essence of Oliver today.

[00:00:20] Oliver: [00:00:20] I'm curious, curious what that essence is.

[00:00:23]Hadley: [00:00:23] Let's do it. So, you know, this is a show where we look for a window into the lives of our guests. What makes you tick and, and essentially to understand the essence of you and to understand that the trait of curiosity has impacted your life in Korea. So how we do that is we imagine that we sitting around a campfire sharing stories about our life and tag.

[00:00:44] You all right. So where we'll start is where you were born, whether you had siblings, you know, what were your parents like? What was your early life like? And we'll take that all the way through to today and onto tomorrow. But before we do that, the question that I ask all my guests is what does curiosity mean?

[00:01:00] Well, I think curiosity is something in eight and all humans to different degrees. To me, it's a quality that relates to exploration, uh, inquisition and learning, you know, the drive to find out about something it's really the pursuit of knowledge. I sometimes call it lifelong learning. Um, but to me, it's about the strive to continuously improve and get.

[00:01:26] Better at something. Awesome.

[00:01:28] And do you, do you think that's innate in children and suppressed as you get older or just inmate and the individual? I think it's

[00:01:36] Oliver: [00:01:36] innate in the individual. Um, but I think you can suppress it and, and you could, could block us around it. And I think we should encourage the opposite.

[00:01:46] Um, for example, when we, when we look at the qualities we like to see in individuals, we work for, we went from defining skills to emotional quotient, and today it's also something called the adaptability quotient. And that's really the, your ability to ask what if questions instead of what is right. And so what would happen if, what would happen if your top five customers leave you tomorrow?

[00:02:14] How would you deal with this? The ability to explore something. Overexploiting something and there is an immediate sense of, okay, what do I have available as technology right now? What have we built in the past? Let's start with that and build on top of that. That's exploitation, right? That's building on what you already know versus, okay.

[00:02:35] Let's step back. Let's get, give our curiosity some room to roam and imagine what it would be. And sometimes you start from marketing, you start from scratch and you can actually get you to, to where you need to go faster because you're not encumbered and you're not weighted down

[00:02:54] Hadley: [00:02:54] by preconceptions, I guess.

[00:02:56] Oliver: [00:02:56] Yeah. And the things you've built in the past, you know, the assumption that everything I've done before needs to be reflected in what I do now,

[00:03:01] Hadley: [00:03:01] that's true. Would you say curiosity is a kind of essential trait for innovation to thrive?

[00:03:07] Oliver: [00:03:07] Part of it? Innovation is actually my definition of it is to transform curiosity and creativity.

[00:03:14] Into value. And there's a lot in those few words to unpack creativity is really that's what creates the spark. You know, the ideation, my curiosity drives me to explore something and then, uh, creativity, uh, um, uh, generates a novel idea, but creativity by itself, something novel to me, it's not innovation.

[00:03:38] Innovation has to be tied to a value, something I want to pursue in an organization. It could be monetary value could be valuation of a company. It could be the purpose. The reason why I'm doing that to me, if it's very simple. If I asked myself with everything I do every day, I get better and I get better as an individual, then we get better as an organization.

[00:04:03] If we get better as a, as a society, do I

[00:04:06] Hadley: [00:04:06] know more today than I did yesterday? Yeah.

[00:04:09] Oliver: [00:04:09] Correct. The powerful thing is that you don't compare yourself to others. You compare yourself to yourself. I love that. Am I a better speaker today than I was two months ago? Am I a better leader? Am I playing an instrument better than I did?

[00:04:24] Six months ago? That to me matters, that is the continuous improvement. I would may pick up woodworking and I will never be a master carpenter, but I can hopefully build furniture in six months better than I do today. And that to me is incredibly satisfying that journey.

[00:04:43] Hadley: [00:04:43] But, um, but I think comparing yourself against yourself yesterday is a fantastic way of going about growth.

[00:04:51] Personal. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:04:53] Oliver: [00:04:53] That is to me, the manifestation of a growth mindset.

[00:04:57] Hadley: [00:04:57] Go back to something you said earlier, would you say then that curiosity is, is really finding the question and creativity is how you would go about answering those questions?

[00:05:08] Oliver: [00:05:08] Curiosity is what makes me pursue a question. Um, once we did dig into something creates more knowledge by doing so, and creativity is how I take that new knowledge and turn it into something interesting and novel.

[00:05:25] So curiosity is, I might be curious about finding out about electric cars. Oh, I want to broaden my horizon. What's there to know what do I need to know about electric cars? A specific curiosity would be, I want to know exactly what the, how the batteries work on an electric car going deep, right? And so you can be curious without a problem to solve.

[00:05:47] Curiosity does not need a problem, but it helps off. It's often triggered that, okay, I need to accomplish something. I have a problem to solve something needs to be approved. And because of that, we start that exploration and we start pursuing knowledge and learning about something. And then there has to be some somewhere else.

[00:06:05] So sort of a creative spark, an idea solution to the problem at the end. But I think curiosity by itself without a problem is incredibly useful.

[00:06:15] Hadley: [00:06:15] I'm curious about something and going deeper within something kind of puts you into a frame of mind doing to, uh, a framework that sparks an idea of, Hey, now that I know this, now that my knowledge is more complete in an area, I might tie it to something else that I've learned before.

[00:06:31] And Hey, now I can bring these two things together and it's innovation, right?

[00:06:36] Oliver: [00:06:36] I found that innovation teams are, um, very productive if they have the right blend of this general curiosity and specific curiosity, um, about going after a specific problem, but then allowing themselves of their curiosity to roll and let the curiosity be curious.

[00:06:56] Um, so I work really well with engineers that, um, know exactly. What's going on in the engine and how to improve the engine and go deep and sometimes just step back. And maybe it's part, because I don't have formal training in a lot of the things that I'm doing, then I asked different questions. I said, what if, what if we could hook up this system with that system that says they have never been combined, but what would happen if

[00:07:23] Hadley: [00:07:23] sometimes people are restricted by not wanting to expose themselves when actually most of the time everybody around you is asking the same question, you know?

[00:07:34] And, and I've found that that having the confidence to simply ask means that very quickly, you, you accumulate knowledge that might not be as deep as each composite part, but the value is in understanding the whole. So the question is, do you think that a lack of self-confidence sometimes can stop people from asking questions?

[00:07:57] Oliver: [00:07:57] Um, yeah. So I don't know if it's lack of self-confidence or if it's, um, Not being vulnerable enough. There's a certain vulnerability that's required to think big because he might, this might not work. And, uh, this, this may have no legs at all. You know, as project or combining these technologies, it's just not meaningful.

[00:08:18] It shouldn't be done or can't be done. Um, but again, we sometimes founding ourselves, but by the things we know how to build this, or this would be really, really hard. Ooh, this would be a really tough project. Yes. I mean, that's why we call them. It's why we call them moonshots. That's what we don't do that every day.

[00:08:39] These are big bets. Um, so the trick is to allow yourself, to explore, allow yourself to get started and build in the, the, the, the, the milestones and the triggers and the decision points that tell you. Yeah, that was the best bad idea we've had all week, sir. And admit that and stopped doing it. But you've learned something in the process.

[00:09:04] You've probably learned something about what your technology can or cannot do or what is possible. It's not possible you rule hypotheses and you better for it.

[00:09:12] Hadley: [00:09:12] So, so now, now let's find out the path that got you to this thinking. So give us a little bit of insight into the young Oliver. And family life.

[00:09:23] Oliver: [00:09:23] Okay. Yeah. I was born in 1965 in Germany, the black forest. Um, I have two brothers I'm the middle child, middle child syndrome, which means that I know how to navigate extremes. Um, um, I'm generation X. I grew up in a very loving family in the black forest. I went to, you know, normal schooling and in, in Germany I've started school actually a year earlier than, than my peers.

[00:09:50] There was an aptitude test with, uh, I would be able to start school at age five more than I think age six, which was normal. And for some odd reason, I passed it. And so for 13 years throughout my schooling in Germany, I was always one year younger than everyone, which was interesting experience. When I graduated, when I got my I'll be to us, it's called in Germany, uh, on a grad from high school.

[00:10:14] I was also a year younger than everyone else. And I'm too young to serve in the military as what's required at the time. So I got to, uh, start my first education and post, uh, I'll be to education. Um, and so that was actually very fortuitous for me. So I could, uh, I could go through those four years of education.

[00:10:37] And then actually by the time I got to the next, uh, Waypoint, my younger brother was kind enough to have served me. Um, so I was continue on right away. I choose a profession at the time I choose to study something. I remember I was sitting on the. And the portrait of my dad and we were talking about, uh, what paths should I choose?

[00:10:57] And, uh, he hunted, he was a hobby Hunter in, in, in Germany. And I like to be out in the woods with him and maybe it was part of pleasing dad. Um, and I choose forestry as a, as my professional path.

[00:11:13] Hadley: [00:11:13] I see. So, so, so just, just to pick up on something there. So, so you said to please, dad, tell us a bit more about your parents and their influence,

[00:11:21] Oliver: [00:11:21] loving parents, wonderful protect the childhood.

[00:11:24] You know, um, one of the things that I always remember to this day is my mom. My mom's heard when she was not able to pursue the kind of education that you wanted. Do you want to go to college? And that was not possible for her. And so she was determined. That her kids would have any educational opportunity.

[00:11:46] There is we can study anything we want, um, for as long as we want, whatever discipline. And, um, that was just wonderful influence and, and the support we got for that. So I was lucky to go through two post-graduate, uh, experiences in, in Germany and then come to the United States for a doctorate. And, um, I really study until I was about age 30.

[00:12:11] So. Put it together. It was 25 years. Wow. But when I went to school non-stop education,

[00:12:18] Hadley: [00:12:18] would you say that, that your mom and kind of the drive behind that was, was a big influence in you, your passion and love for the world of academia? Yes.

[00:12:27] Oliver: [00:12:27] And for learning and for learning and for there's always something else to be picked up.

[00:12:32] So, you know, today, our chief innovation officer, a single store, a software company, a database company before I was CEO and CTO, SAS and analytics company. And I started in forestry. So there's how, how do you bridge that? So when I look back and it's, when you look in the rear view mirror, it all makes a lot of sense, right?

[00:12:53] It's like, Oh yeah, this was that decision that led me from here to there. And it it's, it doesn't look like, um, such a strange path. But if you, if you had a time machine and you would go back and think about a conversation I had with my dad at age 17, You couldn't plop that. So I tell

[00:13:11] Hadley: [00:13:11] you what let's take that time machine back to when you were kids.

[00:13:14] So let's, let's get on that time machine. Let's go back. So, so we have a young lot of a loving house, middle child syndrome, and, you know, the sense of, of lifelong learning and curiosity instilled and encouraged within you as a child. Right. So, so younger life. And I guess, as you say, normal schooling, and I'm assuming that's all the way through, through primary school as well as through high school.

[00:13:39] Yeah. Is there anything in that kind of early life that you, that you would say sparks a memory of how curiosity has played a part, um, into creating one of those memorable moments? Or do we go to that point where you're 17 in this conversation with your dad? How do we get to that point? I

[00:13:56] Oliver: [00:13:56] don't think of myself as a super curious child or having a, you know, super curious childhood as I came towards towards the end of my high school in Germany, there was some.

[00:14:08] Some things that it clicked for me, for example, I had periods where I was not very good at math periods where I was incredibly good at math. And I remember in a math exam, it was one of those. You have three subjects that you study very deeply and with whom it was math history and something else. Um, and then you take long, long exams in, in, in those areas.

[00:14:35] And I remember I was in one exam that had to do with functional analysis and I looked at the problem and I remember, or that something occurred to me that if I apply something from geometry, I can solve this problem. That will be an unconventional way of going about it. But I knew that was the right solution.

[00:14:54] So I did. And all of a sudden, you know, it occurred to me how these things that you study in isolation. I'm not isolated. We just have not connected them. Well, I have not connected them in my, in my thinking in my brain. And by doing this, I actually, all of a sudden was a better mathematician because it enriched the way I was able to solve that particular problem.

[00:15:18] Absolutely. That, that triggered something. And I knew that those connections are incredibly valuable and they're probably that there are a lot of connections out there that need to be made. And I have not yet made,

[00:15:30] Hadley: [00:15:30] let's go back to this the 17 year old out of, uh, now, uh, and, and this, this conversation with your dad, but why, why is that conversation so memorable?

[00:15:38] Because

[00:15:38] Oliver: [00:15:38] I taught at universities before I joined SAS in 2002, and I often get asked by students, so what should I do? How should I choose modern professional path? Should I focus on this area or that area? When I think back to that compensation and I enjoyed it. That part of my education and forestry a lot.

[00:15:59] The reason why I chose that particular program was because it was really, really difficult to get into. It was actually a government program, your government employee, as you go through those four years of forest management training, getting into was difficult. But once you're in you kind of guaranteed a job at the end.

[00:16:18] So it was kind of high risk getting in, but then good reward. So I sort of thought, yeah, I like to be in the woods. And I like to take a chance on this. If I get in, it's kind of a sign, isn't it? Because you have to go to days and days of, of testing and rigorous examinations, whether you, whether you get into the program.

[00:16:39] So I sort of confirmation that I've made the right choice. So I used to the, the, the, the examinations as sort of a proving ground, or, you know, to bet myself against that aspiration in hindsight, How can you make a decision about your professional life at that age? I was not possible. You don't know what you need to know what you don't know, what you don't know and why does this, that conversation what's so important is because I thought at the time, this was exactly what I wanted to do.

[00:17:12] What I needed to open myself up to is if you go down a path, all the other things that come your way, that you might see that might interest you, and you might want to pursue those as well. So to keep yourself open, to make changes now, in, in, in the culture I grew up in, you take a path, you choose a path and you are very likely staying with that path.

[00:17:40] So for me to, you know, at age 27, leave Germany moved my life to the United States. Uh, come here. Um, That was a big step, but it was not, it's not usual, not usual for the sort of the environment in which I, I grew up in. It was the first time I was on a plane. I've never flown when I came to U yes, that was the first time I stepped on an airplane.

[00:18:07] And so that was a pretty big step, you know, leaving the country.

[00:18:10] Hadley:...

Movement of Change

Hadley Christoffels — Thu, 22 Apr 2021 13:05:00 +0000

Riedwaan Benefeld is the CEO and founder of Jiracron, a South African consultancy dedicated to providing a platform for historically disadvantaged individuals to succeed in the world of data and analytics. As a co-founder of Sasuka Channel, one of the first channel partners to SAS in South Africa, Riedwaan was instrumental in creating a movement that trained and developed non-white individuals in the post-apartheid era. Through his efforts, they helped hundreds of individuals become successful data professionals. Many of whom have gone on to hold senior positions in large organisations or now run businesses of their own.
Continuing this work, he has renewed his deep partnership with SAS to make a difference to the lives of individuals who otherwise may not have had the opportunity. Together creating a deeper and more diverse talent pool to address the global skills shortage in the market.
Sponsorship
Visit www.yourheights.com and use acuriouslife10 for a 10% discount.
Transcript
Hadley Christoffels: [00:00:00] So Riedwaan, welcome to the show.
[00:00:01] Riedwaan Benefeld: [00:00:01] Thank you. Thank you.
[00:00:02] Hadley Christoffels: [00:00:02] What we're going to do today. We ultimately want to understand the essence of you. We want to know who Riedwaan is, and we want to understand how the trait of curiosity has impacted your life throughout whether as a child, as you grew up in your career and where you're going from here, essentially,
[00:00:16] Riedwaan Benefeld: [00:00:16] I'm the youngest of nine children. I was born in a place called Albertville. Yeah. I specifically mentioned in Albertville and where I was born because I didn't stay there for a long time. Um, as you know, I was born in the heart of apartheid. I mean, the reason why I mentioned Albertville, I remember very little of it.
[00:00:37] Hadley Christoffels: [00:00:37] Okay, cool. So, so in Albertville, in Johannesburg, in South Africa, and we're in the middle of apartheid ,
[00:00:43]Riedwaan Benefeld: [00:00:43] mid sixties to late sixties, Albertville then was declared as a white area and,
[00:00:51] Hadley Christoffels: [00:00:51] and maybe the significance of that as well. Right? Cause I think this is actually a key part and maybe this is where you're going, but this seems like a key part of, of, of the future story, which we'll get to. Right. But, but what the impact of that, because my, like when my parents grew up in port, Elizabeth was kind of a similar thing. They lived in what was a coloured area.
[00:01:08] And we do need to get into that because coloured has a different connotation in different parts of the world, right? Not like the way we know it, for instance. So tell our listeners, just like what that means. Being classed from coloured area to a white area,
[00:01:21] Riedwaan Benefeld: [00:01:21] it means that, um, remember in apartheid, everybody everybody's segregated and it's illegal to actually live in the area that doesn't fall into your classification.
[00:01:33] So if you, you are classified as a coloured, you can't go and live in a black area or you can't go and live in an Indian area or you can go and live in a white area . So by them classifying Albertville as a white area, we had to move out
[00:01:48]we then moved to the area called Bosmont where I'm talking to you from now.
[00:01:54] Hadley Christoffels: [00:01:54] Cool. Back to your roots, back to my roots.
[00:01:59] Riedwaan Benefeld: [00:01:59] Yes. The funny thing is when we moved, we actually moved to a better house than what we stayed in before, but it was a house that my father and my brother built themselves.
[00:02:08] Hadley Christoffels: [00:02:08] Gotcha.
[00:02:09] Riedwaan Benefeld: [00:02:09] So Bosmont really became then the, I mean, one of the most iconic coloured suburbs in Johannesburg,
[00:02:17]you know, so, so it's, it's it's it was a vibey area.
[00:02:24]Hadley Christoffels: [00:02:24] My wife is actually from Bosmont
[00:02:26]Riedwaan Benefeld: [00:02:26] Oh, okay. Good, good, good. So she, she will know, you know, we, we had hardly ever, ever left Bosmont. Yeah. Okay. So I went to school in Bosmont third primary, which is grade seven in 1976.
[00:02:44] Hadley Christoffels: [00:02:44] That's the year, I was born
[00:02:49] Riedwaan Benefeld: [00:02:49] quite a significant year in South African history because that's the year that the uprising started and, um, the fight against apartheid and the fight against unequal education and things like that. So, um, in 1978, I would say I was in grade nine and my dad decided no, this is not a good idea because we were in the middle of boycotts and political.
[00:03:19] And he took me out and put me into a private school. Now. That was tough.
[00:03:26] Hadley Christoffels: [00:03:26] In what way?
[00:03:29] Riedwaan Benefeld: [00:03:29] Okay now I'm going to explain to you now, remember I'm a, uh, just the normal coloured boy from this coloured township and I'm Afrikaans and you know what that's the only language I can speak is Afrikaans. I understand a little bit of English. Yeah.
[00:03:48] Hadley Christoffels: [00:03:48] This is at the time now?
[00:03:50] Riedwaan Benefeld: [00:03:50] At the time. Yes. I mean, Afrikaans that, that, that, that was the predominant language in, in, in, in bosmont.
[00:03:57] Hadley Christoffels: [00:03:57] Yeah. And, and, and maybe, maybe for our listeners as well, I guess the, the thing about Afrikaans and English, isn't just a language thing. There's huge cultural, political kind of connotations that's attached to it and it comes with so, so just, just to kind of give them a view. Right. So, so, so you spoke Afrikaans, you come from a Afrikaans community and now you're going to a private school.
[00:04:19] Right. And are you saying that they were English private school?
[00:04:22] Riedwaan Benefeld: [00:04:22] Yes.
[00:04:22] Hadley Christoffels: [00:04:22] Okay
[00:04:22] Riedwaan Benefeld: [00:04:22] the education system is different. You are now getting taught in English, which is totally confusing. I mean, some of those. Words and things like that. You don't even understand what it means
[00:04:34] Hadley Christoffels: [00:04:34] because it's not your first language. Right.
[00:04:38] Riedwaan Benefeld: [00:04:38] It's not my first language at all. And I, uh, it was very tough and somehow I managed to pass there.
[00:04:48] Hadley Christoffels: [00:04:48] Do you kind of put that down to, you know, determination? Do you put it down to hard work? Do you put it down to a little bit of luck?
[00:04:55] Riedwaan Benefeld: [00:04:55] you know, Hadley sometimes they say it's not good being spoiled and things like that. Now me being the baby in our family, I was spoiled. Everybody made a fuss of me and I was good at everything that I did.
[00:05:08] So everybody praised me, everybody, you know, and I was not used to failing. Failing was not part of the equation I had to pass. It's a combination of, of, of, of things determination. Um, avoiding disappointment. Although I think if, if, if I had failed that year, it wouldn't have been a disappointment to my, to my parents.
[00:05:35] Like I thought it would , it wasn't an option. Wasn't an option I scraped through, but I passed so. So from there on it went better because I went now for extra English lessons and .
[00:05:47] Hadley Christoffels: [00:05:47] So let me, let me ask you this, right? So this is now you stayed at the school, I assume until the end of your high school career.
[00:05:52] Right? , it would be a very different people, very different mindsets. How did that impact you?
[00:05:57] Riedwaan Benefeld: [00:05:57] Hadley, I cannot explain to you because remember at the time private schools was predominantly white, so. 95% of the, of the kids were white.
[00:06:10] Hadley Christoffels: [00:06:10] Let me pause it for a second again, just for our listeners. Right? Cause as I said, there'll be a global community listening to this thing and you have to kind of understand apartheid in that sense and what Riedwaan was talking about, you know, apartheid literally is translated into segregation and that's what it done.
[00:06:24] Well, it's segregated. So you literally, in your community, you didn't leave Bosmont.
[00:06:29] You didn't see people of other races, you know? So now not just to , go into an environment where there's predominantly white kids, the fact that it's white kids also, you know, has a significance because you're not used to mingling or even in some ways allowed to mix with white people, right? Yes.
[00:06:48] Riedwaan Benefeld: [00:06:48] But as a child, you sort of get used to it quite quickly. Yeah. You know, a couple of months into it, you get used to, you get used to the barriers, the barrier starts getting broken down and you now start seeing these guys as your friends and things like that. Not as these people, the way you grew up, these are the people that are right up there on a pedastal .
[00:07:11] You know, you start seeing that I can do that. These are just kids like me. We are all people. We are the same. In fact, I'm better at certain things than them. I thought. They better at. Everything. Because you, you then realize that going into life nobody's better than anybody does.
[00:07:33] Hadley Christoffels: [00:07:33] Yes.
[00:07:33] Riedwaan Benefeld: [00:07:33] Because remember it was, it was drilled into your head and things like that, that you also better than others.
[00:07:40] Hadley Christoffels: [00:07:40] Yeah.
[00:07:41] Riedwaan Benefeld: [00:07:41] You sort of in the middle there's people that's better than you and then there's others. Yes. So it was like an eye-opener for me.
[00:07:53] Hadley Christoffels: [00:07:53] So, so can I say then that's kind of what, uh, you know, at least in part that sparked a sense of curiosity ,
[00:07:59] Riedwaan Benefeld: [00:07:59] of course.
[00:08:00]Hadley Christoffels: [00:08:00] So, so now we're in the high school, right? And you come and you go, you know what? Okay. There's some things I'm good at. There's some things, you know, that maybe I'm not too good at, but yeah. I can, as a kid , I fit in, I can do well.
[00:08:13] And your curiosity has been sparking you try sport and you do this and, you know, there's that. So, so that's kind of, so this is where we are now. Right? What happens from there?
[00:08:22] Riedwaan Benefeld: [00:08:22] Okay. So basically I matriculate.
[00:08:25] Hadley Christoffels: [00:08:25] So matriculate is the final accreditation for ending high school, right?
[00:08:30] Riedwaan Benefeld: [00:08:30] Yes.
[00:08:31]Hadley Christoffels: [00:08:31] , Okay cool.
[00:08:32] Riedwaan Benefeld: [00:08:32] So I matriculate in 1981.
[00:08:36] Hadley Christoffels: [00:08:36] I'm five at this point.
[00:08:40] Riedwaan Benefeld: [00:08:40] Okay. And I want to do architecture. Okay. But, um, my marks I'm, I'm sort of three, three or four points short of, of, of qualifying and. I basically said, now, if I can't do that, then I'm not going to study. Y'all remember I'm I'm 18 years old. Right. And my dad comes to me. Okay. What are you going to do now?
[00:09:05] So, so I then decided, nah, you know what, let me relax for this year. You know, I just finished school. Yeah. Let me see, let me take a whole year to decide what I'm going to do. So I go out with my friends and things like that.
[00:09:25] This is now early , 1982. Okay. You know, our parents, that time didn't take nonsense from us. I came home one day. This is, this is February , 1982. And, um, My mom and my sister tells me that, Oh, I'm starting work tomorrow.
[00:09:49] Hadley Christoffels: [00:09:49] By the way,
[00:09:50] Riedwaan Benefeld: [00:09:50] I said what?! I didn't even go for an interview. And the next morning, I'm up at six in the printing industry. I'm doing a trade. Yes. I look at this. I mean, it's, it's, it's an eye opener to see what people are doing out there. To earn money.
[00:10:37] Hadley Christoffels: [00:10:37] Yeah. And look, look, there's no disrespecting anything right. In what you do and whatever. It's more about where the heart is. Right.
[00:10:44] Riedwaan Benefeld: [00:10:44] Yes. And now at the time my brother was in IT. I look at this and I think, no, man, I can't do this. I cannot do this.
[00:10:56] So I go to him, I say, please, man organise me to the job as anything as anything. Um, I'm, I'm earning 60 Rand a week. So my brother says no come for the interview. I go for the interview, you know, the interview went quite well. I didn't get any confirmation or anything. From the interview. Okay. I went straight back to the printing place and resigned.
[00:11:24] Hadley Christoffels: [00:11:24] Yeah.
[00:11:30] Riedwaan Benefeld: [00:11:30] With immediate effect, with immediate leaving. I resigned. Luckily I got the job and, um, as a computer operator, it was a hectic, it was even harder than the printing because we work shifts.
[00:11:44] Hadley Christoffels: [00:11:44] How long did you stay in that?
[00:11:47]Riedwaan Benefeld: [00:11:47] , this is now a couple of months later. Probably about five months later.
[00:11:51] Hadley Christoffels: [00:11:51] So a South African couple
[00:12:00] Riedwaan Benefeld: [00:12:00] yeah, let's say this is about July, July.
[00:12:04]Hadley Christoffels: [00:12:04] Okay. July, but still 82. So this is now more me putting the, the age of computers and computer operator into, into context for the listeners 1982 computer operator. What do they do?
[00:12:17] Riedwaan Benefeld: [00:12:17] Okay. So remember everything is on mainframes, right? Those big, big, big mainframes. And you have these things that you call disk drives.
[00:12:28] Okay. Not like it is today at all. These drives, all of them have specific information on them, or some of them are clean. Okay. So depending whether you have to read information or depending on whether you have to write information, you have to load these disk drives when you run a job. So you have to load
[00:12:53] this drive with the information that is going to be read. And either it's going to create a tape, you know, those big round tapes.
[00:13:00] Hadley Christoffels: [00:13:00] So your input and output data.
[00:13:03]Riedwaan Benefeld: [00:13:03] Yes. So now remember, in those times, all the banks, all the big businesses, had, computer operators, right? So what basically happens is at the end of the day, you shut down the system that all the users Countrywide are using, and then you start running the daily run. And then it also creates certain reports to say these are new, uh, clients and so on and so on.
[00:13:30] And so, and every everywhere you went, insurance companies, banks, everything, this process runs 24 hours. So there had to be operators on shift 24 hours a day. So you basically go in one week and work a morning shift. You'll go the next weekend work afternoon shift, and then you'll go to night shift and then you'll go back to morning shift.
[00:13:57] And it was hectic . And I didn't like it much.
[00:14:02] Hadley Christoffels: [00:14:02] So now you've got this understanding. Look, I'm into computers. I understand a bit more about what it does now. Where do you go from there?
[00:14:09] Riedwaan Benefeld: [00:14:09] When you go from there, you resign.
[00:14:12] Hadley Christoffels: [00:14:12] naturally!
[00:14:13]Riedwaan Benefeld: [00:14:13] In that same year
[00:14:15] Hadley Christoffels: [00:14:15] so you started july and was your resignation before, like december?
[00:14:21] Riedwaan Benefeld: [00:14:21] Yes, yes, yes, yes, it's like October.
[00:14:26] Hadley Christoffels: [00:14:26] Okay. That was your first exposure to data as well. Right? To working with data ,
[00:14:30] Riedwaan Benefeld: [00:14:30] you must remember that you, you want to run a job, okay. That reads those drives and creates those tapes and all of that, the actual job, the program that gets written, a programmer will write it and all the programs code will then be sent to what they call a punch room.
[00:14:52] That's a whole lot of ladies that are sitting there and they copy that code and they type it. And what this does is it creates punch cards. The punch card is a card with holes, you, and depending on the pattern of those holes it represents characters.
[00:15:13] So you then have to read those cards through a card reader and the job goes into the mainframe. Now, remember also this there's no such thing as, as a editor .
[00:15:27] On the mainframe console, you can only type in commands. You can't bring up a screen and go and change here. And there no, no, no, no. You can type commands.
[00:15:37] Hadley Christoffels: [00:15:37] So how did this impact in the rest of the, the, the kind of the following years in your career? So this is the Genesis in your data world. Right . So how does this, this scene impact where you go from here?
[00:15:47] Riedwaan Benefeld: [00:15:47] You know, being in that environment. You catch on what needs to be done quite quickly. And you, you, you, you very quickly realize that it's not rocket science, you know, it's, it's, it's repetitive and you sort of want more for yourself.
[00:16:04] You know what I mean? So anyway, I then went for an interview because I didn't like the shifts. The work was okay. I didn't like the shifts. I had absolutely no time for myself to myself for that matter. So it was kind of illegal, I would say in today's terms, I went in for a interview at a nice company called Anglo American life also as a computer operator, but yeah, you had to go and write tests and things like that.
[00:16:40] I went to...