T.M. Kayode

2018 is wrapping up. It feels like it was just a couple of weeks ago that we said Happy New year and now we are literally in the last days to the end of the year. This is a good opportunity to take stock of the year and be grateful for all the successes and achievements. The next couple of blogs will highlight some of the remarkable things I experienced and achieved in this past year, what I learned and possibly how I hope to replicate these successes in the coming year.

Here we go;

Experience and Lesson 1 – When life throws opportunities, take it – Don’t chicken out

So, in June 2018, I presented my first lightning Talk at TNC. TNC is the largest and most prestigious European research networking conference. To be honest, being nominated was a little sudden, I had not prepared for it or even anticipated it until that time. Anyway, when I got the nomination; there was the option of submitting a lightning talk proposal which may lead to being selected for 5 minutes speech. First off, I hadn’t the foggiest idea what to talk about. I hadn’t been to that type of conference before – most of the conferences I had been to were purely academic conferences. I googled to have an idea of the focus of the conference so I could prepare accordingly. All I was getting was networking, internet connectivity, educational resources for institutions blah blah blah. My main research focus is Renewable Energy.  I didn’t know what I could possibly say that would interest these people and matter to me as well.

I kept puttering about the internet, luckily I stumbled upon a lightning talk given by Cathrin Stover in 2017. One of the things she said that struck me was that Africa is one of the most connected continents in the world from a cable perspective, however, internet penetration is still one of the lowest in the world. For days, that sentence kept replaying in my head. It evoked both happy and sad feelings. Happy – in the sense that we are one of the most connected continents and Sad – because internet penetration is one of the lowest.

I am a solution driven person, so when I see a problem the minions in my brain go into hyper gear trying to find a solution. Anyway, I decided that one of the reasons many regions in Africa experience low internet penetration was low access to electricity ergo a suitable solution to this in the African region would be; drum rolls please – Solar Powered Base Stations! And that was what my lightning talk was about.

As at the time of preparing my talk, I had not worked out the maths for the Solar Base Stations, I also wanted to include schematic diagrams of my proposed idea in my presentation slides. However, I forged ahead with my lightning talk proposal and submitted the document. My proposal was accepted and I was scheduled to speak to it at the conference.  In order to ensure that we were well prepared for our presentations, the conference organizers set up a training session with Barbara Rogoski – Executive Speaker Coach (she has trained many Ted talk participants and honestly have you ever heard any bad ted talk). Anyway, at that time I realized how serious the presentation was.

My talk was very well received at the conference (I may do a blog highlighting some of the tips Barbara taught us – If you want to read that, please write that in the comments below).  I was so happy that I could talk about my interests and still resonate with the general interest of the people in the auditorium. I did make a number of friends and networked with a number of people.

Here’s what I learnt – Sometimes we may feel unprepared or “underqualified” for certain experiences and exposure; I think this stems from not wanting to fail especially with so many people watching. I want to encourage you to take hold of those opportunities and don’t let it go. Prepare well and even you will be surprised by the outcomes. Don’t pass up opportunities because you are scared. Come on, stare fear in its face and roar; I bet you fear will run away. We must act in spite of Fear – Mark Twain.

What’s more – Can you imagine; a couple of weeks ago I saw an advert on YouTube; MTN and Huawei publicized a solar-powered base station project in off-grid communities called RuralStar. This means my idea wasn’t far-fetched after all.

To watch the full video of my presentation please check out here, my talk comes up at the 23:22 minute. See you in the next blog post.

Blog Banner Photo Credit: tnc18.geant.org