Ep.15 If you can create, you can design - Andrian Jankowiak

Introduction

0:00Hello ladies and gentlemen, this is Gideon, welcome to one more episode of the world class designer podcast. So this is a very unexpected episode because we didn't plan this. So and I have my guest today, Adrian from Nairobi Design Week, which runs a lot of initiative like in Kenya. And we end up starting to, we were having an informal conversation, but we decided to record

0:37an episode because what I was hearing from Adrian was really interesting. I wanted to share with all of you guys. So like to start, Adrian, I'm sorry, you're going to have to, you're going to have to reintroduce yourself and talk about what you just told me about your story. So welcome to

Adrian's Background

0:57the show and please tell us a bit about yourself. I'm Adrian Jankowiak. I'm a industrial designer and the creative director. And I, I was born in Poland and grew up in Poland until the age of seven and then moved to London. And that's why, that's why I sound like a Londoner. So then studied, studied in the UK and I'll, I'll go into more things. So really, really, I started as a kid,

1:34I was always, always creative, always loved drawing and always into animation. In fact, as a kid, I really thought I would go into being an animator at some stage. And I found that going into industrial design actually let me do the, the physical, the, the really satisfying thing of having a physical output, something that you can touch and feel. So that's what I, why I chose product design.

2:04And during, during my time growing up, I was really heavily influenced by, by my, my family, my grandparents. My grandparents are very creative. My grandfather is an engineer. He's an author. He's a teacher and the model maker. And he's really one of the OGs in the Polish model making scene. He's, he's the kind of guy that people refer to his models and so on. So I, I spent a lot of

2:36time with, with my grandparents, with my granddad and grandma in Poland and played with Lego, played with cardboard, always cutting things out and making models. And like I said, drawing. And then

Design Education

2:51as I, when I moved to the UK, that just carried on. I was that kid in the back of the class who was always drawing on, on their exercise books. And even going into meetings, once I got my first job, actually as a graduate, I'd be doodling in meetings. And the great thing is because of the amazing people worked with there, they actually didn't have a problem with it because it's, it's just my form of note taking. So, so it, that was, that was really nice for me. So I, I then went to school,

3:31did a lot of design and technology at school, did a lot of furniture making. I really loved wood as a material and forming wood, shaping it and the way it down to the way it smells and also worked with plastics and metals. So that introduced me more for when I did actually go to university and, and got to discover the different processes of manufacturing and so on. Um, so what, what else did we want to, did I want to touch on? Did I miss anything?

4:03I think it's, you covered most of it, but I would like to know like how, like how your story, how you end up in Nairobi. It's the recent link there. Of course. Yes. Yeah. We're getting there. You're right. So, um, as a, while studying industrial design, I really aspired to that form of minimal design, um, minimal, not just aesthetically, but actually looking at what needs to starting design with what should be taken out with what

4:35do, what do we not need here? And what are the only components, uh, that, that are necessary for this to function and, and so on, uh, kind of like a first principles approach to design, I guess. Um, and, and while studying industrial design, I think we had a module maybe in my second year that was, uh, about talking to people about doing design research and about finding insights

Design Research

5:03from people. And that was really, that project really gave me, uh, a true understanding of where design is going and the way that I want to look at design. And that being through understanding the people who are, who are utilizing it. And that, that drove me then, uh, even, I think even when, um, I, I went for an internship in India in my third year. So, so in that internship,

5:34I got to design toys. So there were wooden toys made with local artisans, um, in, in Chanapatna in, near Bangalore, which is known for traditionally for its kind of wooden, wooden process. And they were looking to create, use that traditional process to create some products that were, um, for the modern market and for the global market. So we, we created those that were called green toys. And to this moment, it's one of the most fulfilling design projects I've done.

6:08You know, working, working on toys is just a lot of fun. Um, and then, then when I, when I graduated, uh, my, I still aspired, I think to be in consumer electronics, working with physical products. And, uh, so I, I managed to get a, well, my, first of all, my major project was actually a pair of headphones that turned into speakers, um, without any buttons. So I created

6:38those by, yeah, yeah. Um, it was a really, really fun project. So you take this, the headphones off and you would fold them up. And as the, as they folded up within the headband, you would have two outward facing speakers. And those speakers would only be able to turn on if you closed it. So there was no physical switch for someone to turn it on when it was on your head, because that could obviously be dangerous. Uh, so we used a reed switch. What's called

7:11a reed switch was a, as a small glass capsule with two metal strips inside it. And when you put a magnet to those strips, they connect and complete the circuit. So I put a magnet in inside one of the headphones and then put, uh, and put, and put the reed switch in the other headphone. So when you close it, that circuit would close and that would activate the amplifier, which would kick in to play music through the speakers. So it was like a fully buttonless

7:42experience. And that was called Dubnium. It was called Dubnium. You know, at the time,

Dubnium Project

7:47at the time, the word dub was very, very in as well. Dubstep was huge and Dubnium is actually an element. So talking about those little touches in design, um, the, I used the electron layout for Dubnium, the element to put on the insides of the headphones, where the speaker grill is. So it's those, those little things that as a designer give you pleasure, even if 99.5 or 9%

8:17of people won't, won't ever see them. Right. Um, so, so I really, I wanted to go into consumer electronics and even after I graduated, I got, I got a job as a technology sourcing assistant. So actually it wasn't a direct industrial design role and I had to kind of work it into being a design role by that. I mean, my job was to, uh, effectively source and list technologies that we

8:50could use in, in the company. The company I worked for was called Reckitt Benckiser. Now they're just called Reckitt or RB. Um, and they're like a competitor to Unilever and PMT and they do brands such as Airwick, Dettol, Durex, Finish, Strepsils, Neurofen, Veet, and, and so on. And I got to work across all of those brands. I think I got to work on 20 or 30 brands in the time I was there. So, so I was working at the new technologies group, which is a really blue sky department or it used to be

9:25because it's since shut down actually, uh, or been renamed. So the new technologies group was full of amazing future thinking, creative people who were experts in their fields and could really understand, uh, how to connect ideas and how to connect, um, technologies and insights and consumer insights. So we often would work, uh, from a consumer insight or from a technological insight.

9:56So to give you an example, a consumer insight might be that, uh, people are using dishwashers in a new way and we would like to incorporate that behavior into, into what they're doing. And a technological insight might be from that huge list of technologies that we've, we looked through every week. We might find a technology, um, that we're really interested in and we just think that it has some sort of a potential for the company. And these technologies would often be from other industries as well.

10:31So it would be like really trying to fit these puzzles that haven't ever been created before together. Uh, so as a, an example of one of those, um, our department worked on the finished product finishes, a dishwasher brand. Um, just before my time there, they released a dishwasher product that had 12 doses and it was like a rotating cylinder. So each time the dishwasher, uh, the dishwasher ran a cycle,

11:05it would release these different chemicals at different stages throughout the cycle. So, um, now, now that seems quite simple and the way they did it was actually through something called a wax motor and a wax motor is something you might find in a car engine. And in fact, that's where one of our directors who, who came up with this idea, uh, I think that's how they found it. They, they found a wax motor, which changes shape effectively, um, as you heat it. So the wax changes shape and that

11:38allows you to run a ratchet mechanism around this cylinder. And that allows you to have different doses come out as the dishwasher heats. And so that's the basic principle of it now. And then you just have to apply it to every dishwasher cycle in the world. And you have to then start realizing that US dishwasher cycles and Japanese and European dishwasher cycles are totally different from each other. Um, so all of that working with that team of really amazing people kind of furthered,

12:10furthered that urge for connecting ideas for me, really for, um, for wanting to, to be able to, to create better collaborations and how to work with people. So, um, really that, that was kind of a driving force, but also I think something that I found really interesting when I spoke to you was that you really, uh, wanted this to become a world-class designer. That wasn't a thing that, that you had

12:43at the outset. And that's something that really drove me as well. I think, uh, sometimes at university seeing the hard work pays off and seeing, I think a lot of my university education almost got topped up once I was in industry. And I thought I would approach it that I maybe would do a master's afterwards once I get a few years in industry, because I'd get so much more value from that. And so when I

Career Goals

13:12graduated, when I graduated, my real goal was to, um, to be able to create and to be able to design. When I graduated, I knew there were two things that I really loved and those two things were design and to travel. And my goal, I remember, I think, um, listening to a podcast and it may have been, uh, it was maybe a Paula Scher interview and I don't, it was either Paula Scher or Debbie Millman

13:46around that time. And she said that, and I think it was with Tim Ferriss, she said that you have to find your one thing that you want to do and be focused on that one thing. And she gave the example of wanting to be in Manhattan and just after, and just wanting to be a designer and work in Manhattan. And that's what she said. No way. No way. Dude, I was inspired to move to South Africa for the same exact episode and for the same exact, no way, that is impossible.

14:19Can't believe this. Wow. For the same exact words, you have to find your number one non-negotiable thing. Oh, dude, that's amazing.

14:32The non-negotiable. Exactly. What is your non-negotiable? Yeah. Like was that was the part of the Debbie Millman, uh, interview with Tim Ferriss that made me move to South Africa, like five, almost five years ago. Dude, that is a, that thing is like, it's written, you know? Oh, wow. I love it. Yeah. I love it. So yeah. So it was Debbie Millman, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

15:03So, so, um, yeah. So that listening to that, I kind of thought, well, I've got to make my, what is my thing? If I don't have a goal, if I don't have an aim, then what am I doing? And that was kind of the issue for me because I have so many interests. I decided that my non-negotiable is kind of going to have to be this combination of two things, because there are two things that I really wanted to do. And I wanted to be able to travel and I wanted to be able to design and create. And those, um, at the time didn't seem feasible as silly as that might seem in 2021. Uh, it really,

15:44first of all, I remember going to my university during an open day before I even joined the department. And they, we had this scheme that allows you to go on a one year internship and get a diploma for it or whatever. Um, and I asked during that open day, whether I'd be able to travel during the degree, whether it's something where you can do like a Erasmus exchange or something. Um, and none, actually they told me that it's not possible because the level of our degree

16:18is so much above anyone else's that we don't, that you'd have to step back a year. You'd have to just redo a year with us. I said, okay, fine. Um, so I thought I need to get out in other ways. And that's why my travel to India in my third year, because I'd written, I wrote to people in like every country in the world, you know, literally just, I want to, I want to work with you. I want to be in this country and ended up finding through ISC, a student organization.

16:50I highly recommend ISC actually to students who are looking for internship exchange opportunities, but also just to meet people from around the world. Uh, it's a really cool organization. So I ended up, um, back to my non-negotiable, I managed to be doing that kind of stuff with my internship. It was five months, so it wasn't a 12 month thing like most of the other students did, but it was such a life uh, such a, an amazing life experience, not just a professional one, that I knew this was something

17:25I wanted to do more of. So as soon as I graduated, that became my non-negotiable. And one thing I also knew I had to do now going back to this, this idea of world-class design is that I knew I needed to up my game. And I, I knew that I needed to put hard work in and be able to, and be doing things beyond just sitting in an office, especially if I'm not, uh, directly working in as an industrial designer, which I did end up doing, by the way, that technology sourcing assistant role turned into

18:00a technology sourcing associate. And that was much more, I had, I even had a design intern at the time, and we kind of built up this small design team internally. So we became people who, uh, who, who would be referred to with design. So yeah. Um, I knew I needed to up my game. I'd spend the evening sketching. I'd spend the evenings working on my portfolio and applying for, uh, there was only

18:31one master's degree that I wanted to go for at the time. And that was, uh, innovation design engineering at the Royal College of Art, because those, those people are world-class designers. And I said, well, if I'm going to be working like that, I need to, I need to learn from those people. Um, I didn't even get an interview. And so, so that, that actually was, you know, um, a lot of us go, go a long time without facing rejection, right? Even though I'd spent maybe 300

19:06applications for internships, it was a bit different to actually get a letter back from the Royal College of Art and say, you haven't been selected, especially after all those hours, hundreds of hours of work to put into it. So I thought, right, well, okay, I don't have the right experience here and I need to develop that. And that's why I really, I ended up leaving Wreck-It because the experience there was great. The industry, um, the, what I learned there was a really good foundation for me.

19:36And then I went into consulting. So I ended up consulting as a human centered designer. And that's what brought me to Kenya. And I worked for an NGO called WhatSup, uh, water and sanitation for the urban poor. And, and it was a water and sanitation projects that I'd worked on for Gates Foundation NGOs and, uh, for one, for one NGO for multiple projects. So I was based in Nairobi and I worked in Bangladesh in Ghana as well. And so, so I got to go to Bangladesh, go to go to Ghana, got to be in the

20:14office in Nairobi and also got to go to Kisumu, which is, uh, Kenya's third city. And I got to spend a few months there as well, working on directly interviewing people every day, uh, researching, uh, observing how people live and so on. And really at that time, I just arrived in Nairobi. Nairobi was amazing.

Nairobi Design Week

20:38Uh, got immediately within my first few weeks. I met so many incredible creative people here and met, uh, so many people having similar conversations about the impact they are trying to have and about the things they're trying to do. And the more I had these conversations in Nairobi and at the same time, as I was having conversations with people in, through a translator, a lot of the time, an interpreter, because, uh, I'm not, I don't speak Bengali and I don't, I didn't speak any

21:13Swahili at the time. So, and even, and even if you are, uh, someone who is native with a language or fluent with the language, it's much better to have someone who's a native, uh, working on these things. So then these two, these two insights of like an amazing creative community and then, hey, why aren't, why aren't the human centered designers from Kenya? Why aren't they the people working on this? Um, and that got me thinking, well, we, there must be, there must be a way to

21:45to, I kind of not, um, not encourage this thing of let's keep getting foreign, uh, let's keep going for foreign design consultants and let's try to use the local talent and really started building up that network. And then Nairobi design week started. So those are the reasons. Nice, nice, nice. That's, that's a fantastic, uh, uh, so, so yeah, that's a really an amazing story. And, but, uh, like, uh, don't you feel that the mesh, the meet your mission changed over time?

22:20Or are you still the same? Yeah, good, good question. Uh, so in fact, we're not the only people who are working with that sort of a mission. I think our mission has changed. I wanted to just give a shout out, of course, to Tosh and Nairobi design Institute, because they effectively are trying to solve that problem of why aren't there enough designers locally? And they're doing that so effectively, hopefully the, the more, you know, Nairobi has now become like a hub of human centered

22:54design. And I remember having this conversation with Tosh in 2014, um, about it. And it's really, it's really great to see how everything's progressed. And for us, for us, the central key word is community. Everything we do is focused on our community and it's about learning from our community as well. So it's changed in the sense that we are now more trying to help people connect whether,

23:27first of all, I think the, the idea of providing that platform that informs people, that's something that has stuck with us and that's something that we're still doing. And that's where we have daily content and we share people from the community. But I think now also, as we've learned what we should be working on, we also have realized that there are several areas that perhaps we don't need to specialize in because other people have started and they are specializing in those areas such as NDI,

23:59for example. So, um, so what we do now as well is really trying to show the impact of design and that can be small. That can be, of course, from the small touches and the aesthetics, but also up to working out what is, what is the impact on a city of design? How do these different factors, such as lack of, uh, lack of green spaces in a city, for example, how might they impact people?

24:30And really with Nairobi Design Week, what we're looking at now is that now that people are starting to look at Nairobi as a design city, our kind of five-year goal is to, to support Nairobi in an application for a UNESCO creative cities, so that Nairobi becomes the second African UNESCO creative city of design after Cape Town. And Cape Town was, of course, a world design capital in 2014 as well. So, so that's an ambition for us. And we're doing that through the community design studio that we run.

25:07So Nairobi Design Week is the festival and, and all that comes with that annually. So, so, so, so wait, are you guys still applying for that, uh, to make a Nairobi, uh, yes, yes, yes, to, to make Nairobi a UNESCO creative city? Yes. Okay. I think I know the people behind the making Cape Town, the capital, uh, design. So if you want to get introduced to them, I can create a bridge. Thank you. Thank you. I, that's really useful. I know I've spoken to

25:42Sunay and, and Mugendi who were both supporting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like Sunay, she's one of the person and there is another guy from who is responsible for the D school in Cape Town. Hmm. Uh, so yeah, like, I think it's, I'm not sure. Um, to have to confirm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That rings a bell. Cool. Yeah. We can carry on that conversation. So that's, that's where we are. We're a festival and a community design studio that, uh, we're a small

26:15studio that can take on briefs, whether those are client briefs externally, or whether we create our own briefs through an insight, or because we think this is a cool thing that deserves to be worked on, such as, uh, labeled human campaign and, and such as some of the other things we do. And then we bring in experts from the community or young talent from the community to help us work on those things and project manage and creatively direct them. Oh, nice. Nice. That's a very, very big, big ambition.

26:51Uh, like it makes me, it makes me, uh, it makes me want to do the same for my country. Seems like I will try to, to make Maputo a capital, like after Nairobi. Let's see. Let's see. It's very inspiring.

27:09Yeah, man, we should do it. Let's, uh, let's get some more design cities. Yeah. Yeah. That's a, that's a very, very nice. Uh, nice. I will definitely reach out to you to know, uh, what, what are the steps required to, to get into this?

27:27Yeah, we've been, uh, we've been invited to a few ICOD events, International Council of Design. They are, um, they, they, they, yeah, we had our team go to Beijing and then I went to Graz in 20, 2019 to, for this, for like a special meeting that brings together what design weeks from around the world and events from around the world. And a lot of those cities that were attending actually were

27:58already design cities from the UNESCO network. So we're trying to, to learn from those guys and learn what we should be, how, what the process is, et cetera, and then, then go through with it. Yeah. And hopefully that will of course have, you know, an impact on a broader culture. You could say, we would love this to have a tourism impact as well. Right. And for people to start appreciating my, uh, design for, for what it is. Okay. Uh, are you currently still in, in Nairobi? Uh, and why you stay there?

28:38Why? Yes. Good question. Nairobi, Nairobi is amazing because it's a very fast city. I've, I've used the comparison and I've heard other people use it as well, that it's like Berlin used to be, maybe 20 years ago, or 30 years ago. It has that energy, the creative spark. And that's, that comes from the people, of course. Um, so it's, um, really, really very hands-on in the sense that if, if you want to have

29:15a prototype made here, you can draw up a sketch of a table or a chair, and you can take it outside to the carpenter and to the welder and whoever else, and they will make it for you. And that allows you to prototype quickly. That also allows you to get really cool products that have a handmade touch, which we hope we don't lose because the, as they call it, Juwakali, under the hot sun. Um, it's, it's, uh, that's the name of the industry. So we hope, we hope that kind of keeps going from strength

29:52to strength here. And that's something that we try to incorporate into, into the projects we work on as well. Okay. But you said like Nairobi, like, feels like Berlin 30 years ago. Why don't you just go to Berlin then? And you stay in Nairobi? Well, good. Well, I've been to Berlin. I've been a few times. I used to pass through Berlin to go to Poland, but, and, and I love it. And actually it's, yeah, good question. I mean, Nairobi, I said Berlin in the past. Berlin is not like that right now.

30:24Yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah. So like, yeah, the question is why you want Berlin in the past?

30:31Good. Okay. Yeah. That's not to say that we're trying to, that I'm not trying to say that, but that Nairobi is stuck in the past or anything. No, I got it. I understand. I get you. Yeah. No, I know. I wanted to clarify that for, for the listeners as well. Um, but so, so it's, um, um, it's the people that, that you meet here, really, I think the people make the city and my experiences with people all over the world have been positive. You get good people and bad people

31:02everywhere, but you, you get really creative people here. Um, and people who are, who have visions, who are looking to do things differently and do things in a new way. And I think maybe now, now that I'm talking, you've actually, yeah, maybe digging deeper. I think I've touched on that minimalism. Right. And I've always been a designer who tries to go as minimal as possible. And what I've learned maybe in Nairobi and from the creatives in Nairobi is that there is a space for maximalism

31:38and there is a way, and there is a way, I think African design has taught me this in general, that there's a very good way to fit things in. That doesn't have to mean that you leave a blank space. Right. I used to wear plain t-shirts and so on and plain trousers. And now some of the things I wear, I couldn't imagine that I would have worn them when I was at university. Right. Because I wear African fabrics and I love African fabrics. And, and that's something that I've,

32:12I've learned here and I've learned from Nairobi that there are other ways you can approach design that isn't just minimal and that everything, not everything has to be done the same way. So perhaps like, uh, like seeing things on this perspective from maximalism perspective, like make things more interesting. I never, never, never thought about things in this respect because African design or symbolism has nothing minimal. It's like really vibrant, uh, is really rich. And we kind of forcing ourselves to be minimal and like being African have nothing to do with being

32:47minimal. So yeah. And that's maybe where I found like maybe there was like a clash where for me personally, because I was a minimal designer trying to create a brand identity for an African city. Right. And that's why we've really focused as we, as we kind of keep developing to be engaging African creatives because this is a community platform. That's why all of our assets are created

33:18now by African designers. Right. And, and so on. So that, um, we can, we can have that genuine, uh, genuine perspective. And that's taught me as well, how to maybe utilize these assets, how to incorporate some of the things that I'm learning from African design into my design methodology. Oh, that's nice. Yeah. That's, that's, that's, that's a fantastic, uh, like I usually have like questions, uh, for my interviews. I don't think I have for you, like, like your story kind of touched

33:54indirectly, like to almost all the points that they cover on the standard question. So that's going to be a unscripted episode and then really, really nice to do. I'm really happy that we decided to record this and I'm really happy that I'm going to be able to share this conversation with other people.

African Design Perspective

34:13I would regret, I would regret so bad if I didn't do this. So happy, happy. I'm so happy we have it recorded, man. I'm looking forward to this and I know I'm going off on tangents all over and I'm like finishing off a point from 20 minutes ago, but yeah, I'm hoping, trying to give you, give you as much insight so we can get to know each other even better. Yeah. So like, like for me, it was important to understand this because, uh, I, uh, as I always try to do, I try to learn from

34:44other people because, uh, most of the people with, with a mission that is kind of aligned with, with mine, uh, because I think I can, I can speed up the process like on, on, on becoming this world class design and finding someone who actually is doing something from Africa brings a completely different perspective. Example, you talk about maximalism and I don't think it's going to be a very common thing from if I was interviewing someone from the West because the design is more Baha'u centric.

35:19We know like Baha'u centric like influence the way like design is, is done like around the world and everyone's going to say, go minimal, go minimal. And you kind of managed to bring a different perspective. And this is really valuable because helps like Africans embrace Africanis, Africanis. I'm not sure if you use that even a word. Africanism. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, so yeah, it's really, really inspiring and, and, uh, like reading about your, your, your, your trajectory. It's, uh,

35:56it's also inspiring because I was always curious to know what motivates people like you to do what you guys are currently doing because as you know, like in Africa, we, there's not enough people doing this type of things. Uh, and, uh, we wish we were, we were more like, so, because we are the one, like, there is a code that, uh, that we, that I used to use, like to guide myself, that we are the one who we we've been waiting for. So if we're looking for change, probably that's your responsibility. So we

36:30should take charge of that. And, uh, yeah, like I really, I feel really happy when I see people doing that, like for the continent and, uh, in the name of all Africans, I would like to say, thank you for your efforts and you put Africa and especially Nairobi, Kenya on the map. Wow. Thank you, man. That means a lot. It means a lot from you. Yeah. Um, that's, that's, that's really nice. It's all, you know, there's always this kind of balancing act that we're trying to do because I'm, I'm fully aware that I'm not,

37:04I'm not African, but that's, um, we're trying to utilize that, like my experience and networks in London and Europe, for example, so that we can get African design out there. Right. And really, yeah, we do have that focus on trying to get local insights and got people executing locally. Um, so that, so that we can keep growing together and, and really you asked what motivates me. I think

37:34it's fun. Like the, I'm doing what I wanted to be doing. I'm, I'm my one known negotiable was to be designing and to be traveling, which I'm not doing a lot of these days to be fair, but, but I have done. And I'm, I'm, I think I've changed that word travel now to discovering the world's cultures or discovering, maybe learning about the world. I want to be creating and I want to be taking in lots of information from, from what I'm learning. So yeah, I think it's the one, the,

38:09the word we come back to a lot is, is fun and making sure that whatever we're doing, we're having fun with it. We're enjoying it. And if we are not, we need to look at that and say, well, why, you know, why isn't this driving me? Why am I working on a project? Perhaps that isn't something that we want to be working on. Right. We, we need to make sure that's fun for us. Yeah. And the, like, like, like, uh, reinforcing a point that you just said, like about you not being African, actually that is a, is a advantage because we Africans, we are not as confident as

38:43we should be because, you know, like colonialism kind of, uh, made us lose ourselves, our sense of identity. And we always want to be someone else, like someone like from Europe or America. And, uh, it's inspiring. It's actually inspire us when we see someone like you trying to be making being African look cool. I'm not sure if it makes sense. So when we see like Adrian running Nairobi, uh, design week, you're like, okay, because if Adrian who's from Europe is doing Nairobi design school,

39:19I should be doing the same because being in Africa seems cool. Like you kind of like in an indirect way, you kind of giving us back the confidence that we kind of like, uh, and a lot of people might not be able to verbalize this, but I can tell you that you, like, I see this as your mission also, because when people see that it's, it's, it's, it's a non-African running this, we started seeing African in a completely different perspective. It's not because we don't know

39:50but the reinforcement change the perspective. So, yeah.

39:58Yeah. Wow. Really. Um, first of all, thanks. And, and I guess

40:04I understand, I see what you're saying and I can see some remnants of these things, right? Sometimes. And there are, um, there's so much, you, so much leftover from colonialism and that that's still hanging and just things that, things that I find really silly. In fact, something that really pisses me off. Sorry. But it's, it's the fact that a lot of these, let's call it a remnant. Let's say

40:36the curriculum, let's say the education curriculum in a particular African country might be looked down upon as old fashioned by a European, but it was the same European powers who implemented that curriculum 60 years ago. Right. So, so, and then, and then left it without improving it. Right. So a lot of the, yeah, I totally see what you're saying about that kind of confidence as well. And we hope that's, that's coming. Being African is cool and Africa is super cool.

41:13So people need to know about that. Yeah. That's fantastic. I think that's going to be the title of this episode. Being African is cool. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So like, I'm not going to see much of your time. So thank you for, for this, like, this was a fantastic unexpected interview and I really love it. Cheers, man. Yeah. So hopefully talk to you soon, man. Thank you. Yeah. It's been a good catch up. Cheers.