On Developing African Renewable Energy - A Conversation with Henri Nyakarundi

Episode Transcript

Claire  00:09

Hi everyone, and welcome to a new episode of the Narratives of Purpose podcast. I am your host Claire Murigande. On this podcast I bring you inspiring individual stories of ordinary people who are making extraordinary social impact in their communities all around the world. So just like in the previous episode, where I had a conversation with the co-founder of an eco-friendly African shoe brand, we will continue to focus on sustainability made in Africa today as well, with yet another entrepreneur based in Rwanda. My guest today is Henri Nyakarundi, founder of the ARED group, the African Renewable Energy Distribution group. ARED is a pioneer in the use of integrating deep Tech Edge solutions in solar powered kiosks. These solar power kiosks enable digital access to people in semi urban and rural areas in Africa. Henry is also the author of the book, my African dream. And in our conversation today, he shares his journey as an entrepreneur and his views on innovation in Africa. Please take a moment to rate and review our show by subscribing to your favourite podcast app. But for now, have a listen to Henry's story and his commitment to change the African narrative. Good afternoon, Henry. Welcome to the podcast. So it's really, really a pleasure for me to have you on the show. Because I've been really, you know, exploring and looking at the role of technology and digitization at large to some extent, through innovation and entrepreneurship, in the development of the African continent. And when I was looking at your LinkedIn profile, you described yourself as a Pan African at heart. And also this other word,you probably need to help me there because I don't know exactly what it means. You describe yourself as a "deep tech socent," I'm not sure I'm pronouncing that right. So let me pass it on to you for some introduction. And tell us a bit about yourself.

 

Henri  02:25

Yeah, deep tech, it's like, it's another layer of technology that combines hardware and software. It's much deeper and complex. And "socent" is actually a social enterprise. But myself briefly, I grew up in Burundi, traditional story of my parents, my mom, Rwandese and my dad is half Belgian and half Rwandese in 96, move to the US with my sister, after I graduated from high school, ended up in Atlanta to continue my studies and got tired of the US and decided it was time to move back in 2008/2009. That's when I started working on the project to come back and finally came back in December 2012. But my journey is mostly in the entrepreneurship journey. I've been an entrepreneur now for over 20 years. And now I'm living more in passing the knowledge and empowering other entrepreneurs, the younger generation, I feel like there's a huge gap in passing on information and helping the next generation. And that's what I'm trying to do.

 

Claire  03:33

So I see that you're not only an entrepreneur, but you're also thinking of the future and passing on your knowledge to the next generation. I think that is something I would also like to address, perhaps at a later point in the discussion. First of all, just tell me more about your company. So I saw that you're the founder of the ARED Group - African renewable energy distribution. And perhaps to link that into how I got to know about you, I heard about you I think was a couple of years ago. So when your book came out, I also saw different reports in different media outlets on the Smart Solar Kiosk. So tell me how that started. And if that was the beginning of your company, the ARED group?

 

Henri  04:21

Absolutely. So ARED was an idea when I decided it was time for me to come back on the continent. I wanted to come back with a project basically, at this time, compared to my previous businesses, all my previous businesses where businesses have existing products or solutions for example, the business I was doing previously to ARED was a logistical company, a trucking company in the US, but I wanted to develop something from scratch. I've always been interested in Technology. But I felt like that would be extremely interesting and challenging to come up with a product from scratch instead of trying to, you know, find a product in Asia and all adapted to the market. So that was the initial idea. Now, I wanted to figure out which sector, I looked at different sectors. But the the energy sector initially was what was very interesting and the kiosk, what I saw in the energy sector was a focus mostly on the home system home solar system. But one of the problematic issues I saw was people were having problems back then I'm talking about 2009/2010. The biggest problem with people and it's still relevant today was charging phones. But mostly charging feature phone, smartphone came later. So I was like, okay, it could be very interesting to have a solution that can charge phones on the go. So that was the initial idea of ARED, a few years later have built the first prototype moved to run by December 2012, brought the prototype tested it. But as 2013, especially 2014, came about smartphone started getting into the market. And the idea of access to connectivity was becoming more and more relevant for people. So the idea evolved from a charging kiosk to a smart kiosk, providing not just charging functionalities, but also services but mostly connectivity. And then when I got into the connectivity space, I realised there's huge problems in our network and connectivity. So that's where my new journey started developing a new type of technology called Edge  Technology. Basically what it is, is, instead of accessing digital application via the Internet only, why not build a localised network, where you install mini servers closer to the user, whether it's within the kiosk or any other micro infrastructure, where you can store those applications on this mini server, and distribute it via Wi Fi. So it took another year and a half, close to two years to develop that technology. And today, we're the first company to have built what we call a smart Solar Kiosk. And we do more now because we also help optimise existing third party kiosks on the ecosystem. But that's pretty much the journey. I mean, the first seven years of the journey has been about development testing, failing a lot and understanding the problematic but is truly a product that was developed specifically for the African market.

 

Claire  07:58

I see. And just to come back on something that you said before, about the development, you said that you came into Rwanda with this idea, so basically developed the idea before you came back to Rwanda? How did that work? I mean, did you come with a prototype? Or did you develop the prototype on site with the people there?

 

Henri  08:17

No, the first prototype took three years, I didn't want to come and just sit around and wait for the prototype to be ready. So yeah, it's just a concept. So the concept actually came about when I used to travel a lot. And I used to see charging at airports, where you can charge in Europe and all. So it was like that type of concept. But on the go in the marketplace, bus stops where people hang and wait for the buses or go shopping, how can I bring this concept? So that's where the idea started. So I drew on a piece of paper, how the initial product was supposed to look like, obviously, I'm not an engineer. I'm definitely not a product developer or designer. So the first design was not what it is today. But that was something I already had in mind. It had to be mobile. So it's a kiosk on wheels, it had to be very compact, it had to be light, you know, and it had to be solar. So from there I hired a designer from Poland, who spent three years designing, developing the technology, testing it, and finally, in September 2012 -so I'm talking about I started in the end of 2009. So September 2012 -that's when he said, Okay, the prototype is ready, test this one, then I packed up my bag, I sold my business. I sold my house, sold everything I could sell stuff I couldn't sell, I gave it away, I bought a one way ticket, and I just moved and shipped the product out from Poland to Rwanda. And it got here and I got on the ground and started hustling. I mean from day one. I started hustling. And obviously, when the product game, there were a lot of issues with the product, the product was not adapted for the market. so on and so forth. I mean, hardware is the hardest thing I've done, hardware business is extremely difficult. I was very naive about how tough and difficult developing your brand is. Now I know why you don't see that many people developing their own physical products.

 

Claire  10:27

But still, your product is evolving, obviously, as you said, it started from a Solar Kiosk to a smart one. So not being an engineer and having to work with different people and facing the challenges you didn't know about because it was, in essence, not your area of expertise. How did you go about all these challenges? Especially, you know, being back in a country where you hadn't been living in for over a decade, I suppose. How did that happen for you? And what did you do? And how did you go around these challenges?

 

Henri  10:59

Yeah, I've never even lived in one ever. First time I visited one that was in 96, then left, first time I came back, but I mean, the process was a lot of mistakes, a lot of mistakes, a lot of mistakes, learning from the mistakes and just keep on grinding. Again, when you've been in business for this long, you develop a certain mindset of understanding that there is a process to everything, and understanding that. If AREN was my first business, I would have quit a long time ago. But I understood the process of business, there's a process and the process varies based on what type of business you're doing. The mistakes I've made now, you know, it's always that same story. If I knew what I know now, I wouldn't have done this and this and that, I should have got some expertise on the hardware side of things, solar solid things from the beginning. What I mean by that is finding either an advisor or bringing a co-founder that has engineering and understanding. I didn't do that. I trusted the wrong people in the beginning, that did not do great jobs on the software side, the hardware side, but always stayed focused on the vision. And that's where you have to do when things are not working properly on a day to day basis, the only thing you need to hold on is the vision. That's what's going to keep you going. And I hold on to the vision, and I'm glad I did because of what it is today and always felt like if you quit today, you never know what could have or should have happened, you know. So that's also my mentality, keep pushing. Because you have to know that as long as you keep pushing, you're gonna find a way to solve that problem. And sometimes it takes time, you know, the edge technology took us years to fix, you just have to keep pushing, you push, you push it push. Sometimes you pause to take a breather, it also the stress doesn't kill you, and then you keep going.

 

Claire  12:59

It's actually interesting that you mentioned that because I don't know if it's pure coincidence today, when I logged into LinkedIn, the first item in my feed was a video that you had just posted. And he was talking about that, you know, as an entrepreneur, you shouldn't define your success as comparing to other people's journey. And your message, in essence was you know, if you have to compete, you have to compete with yourself. So I'm curious to know, was this the mindset that you had from the beginning? Or something that you had to learn the hard way so to speak?

 

Henri  13:34

No, yeah, I mean, you know, entrepreneurship is a very, very lonely road. That's why I tell all the young entrepreneurs, it's extremely lonely, because you are fighting to build a business that you don't know if it's gonna work or not. You fight to convince your friends and family because it's highly risky. So it's a fight. Fighting is so much fun. And sometimes, it doesn't take much to mess up your momentum. You know, your biggest tool is your mindset, how strong your mind is, to deal with all those different fronts of fights you have to take on. So it's extremely difficult. So you have to understand that the only person you need to improve to get where you need to be is yourself. And what I see is a lot of young men and women, especially men, young entrepreneurs, they look at the success of other entrepreneurs, magazines, or vlogs. Or, or this guy raised X amount of money, and then they define themselves or they define success based on that. And then when you do that, you set yourself up for failure. Because you don't know what that person went through. You don't even know that person might come from a rich family or maybe much more connected and you need to focus on your own journey. It might take three times you know, it might take you 10 years. 1520 years to achieve your goal, but who cares, as long as you get there, but you have to find a way to improve you. And to do that, you have to find a way to compete with yourself and find a way to say, Okay, this is how it was yesterday, this is the mistake I've made for the last two weeks, I'm gonna mitigate and eliminate that aspect of myself that is weak on this, this this point to be a better entrepreneur in this particular case. So if you stay true and focus on yourself, there is no way you're going to fail. But if you start comparing yourself with others, I mean, you're just gonna end up quitting for sure.

 

Claire  15:41

Yeah, that's really some great advice. Thank you for sharing that. And coming back to the smart kiosk in your company. You told me that you were now in five markets. So in West Africa and East Africa. So which countries are you operating in right now?

 

Henri  15:56

We're in Rwanda, Uganda, ivory, Coast, Burkina Faso, and we just started Ethiopia. And hopefully, before the end of the year, we should be in Nigeria.

 

Claire  16:06

So what has been your impact since you started? Now, obviously, you've grown, you've expanded, you studied in Rwanda, and now you're in five countries. So how can you describe the social impact you've had with your business?

 

Henri  16:19

Yeah, so if we define it by impact, we usually define it to two sets of impact, direct and indirect impact. Obviously, our technology evolved, but also our business model evolved, and maybe I can elaborate on that. But as far as the impact, first we've had, the direct impact we've had is the job creation aspect. Mostly, we have a focus on women and people with disabilities, who operate those kiosks and generate revenue from those kiosks. The indirect impact is the customers that come to use the services from our kiosk, we serve, since for the last six and a half years, over a million customers across three markets. So our business model has evolved. And has changed. So I always had in mind expansion, what I didn't factor in is how difficult and how fragmented the African market is still, essentially, and having a great product is one thing, but you have to have a very innovative business model. And also spend a lot of time developing the right model that will allow us to expand quickly, without having to raise so much money, because a lot of the mistakes a lot of companies make, they expand. But they have to raise money continuously, because they set up shops and teams and all that in every market they go into. So I had to find a way to mitigate that aspect. Because when you build a social enterprise, you usually cater to low income people, what they call the base of the pyramid, the people making less than $5 a day, that's a true social enterprise bringing a solution that is sustainable, it has to be sustainable, which is the opposite of an NGO. It's sustainable and has an impact at the base of the pyramid. The challenge is when you deal with the base of the pyramid, you're dealing with very low purchasing power. And there's no way, I don't care what people say, there's no way to squeeze money from someone that earn only $5 or $10 a day, and they have to pay school fees, put a roof over their head, buy food, that's the bare minimum, they don't have extra money to buy extra stuff. So you have to have a very innovative business model. But in our particular case, we realised instead of trying to monetize our solution, from the customer standpoint, why not work with organisation businesses Telecom, FinTech that need a smart solution to to build a distribution channel across the continent. So that was a game changer for us. And then the second game changer, of course, was how do you set up shop in those markets? Do you set up shop physically, yourself? That's suicide - because again, it costs a lot of money. You know, the first expansion we did was in Uganda. Uganda is totally different than Rwanda in a lot of ways tax wise, mentality wise, business wise, and so on. So just to set up shop, understand the market, find the right people, you end up spending over $100,000 without even seeing a dime yet, so you have to develop what they call a partnership model. So all those things came from failure, trying the model that doesn't work, so on so forth.

 

Claire  19:53

That's really interesting, because even just what you describe with Rwanda and Uganda and you couldn't even imagine how implementing yourself or setting up shop in West Africa has been?

 

Henri  20:07

Yeah. I always catch slack for this. West Africa is my favourite market. I love the West African market - it's the mindset, they understand business much better than East Africa. I feel that's my personal opinion. I can give you a lot of stories, Rwanda was my toughest market. And again, because of the mindset, partnership between big companies and smaller companies, people don't do that here, we don't have that understanding of business and partnership and building something. Through partnership, everybody tends to do their own thing. And don't get me wrong, things are changing a little bit. But I like markets that have the right mindset. Regardless of the challenges, don't get me wrong, there's a lot of challenges. But when you want to do business, and you do business, in an economy, where people understand business, understand the value of a product that you can bring that has an opportunity to generate money, and we can work together. And they understand, long term vision, compared to short term vision, it's a whole different ball game. It's a different conversation. So yeah, each market will react differently to your product, some markets will be highly successful, some of the market will be medium and some other market might not, might not be successful at all, but you always have to push the envelope and go, and try luck, you know, we are not sure that's why I spend most my time on travelling, looking for partners and looking for new markets to enter.

 

Claire  21:47

So you talk about mindset as a key component. What other needs or gaps do you see? Maybe generalising or in specific areas on the continent that need to be addressed to foster innovation?

 

Henri  22:02

The biggest issue as in, first of all, we need to separate local, when I mean local, innovation, run by Africans and innovation that are run by foreign companies doing business in Africa. What's happening today, and that's been one of my fights, is that we as Africans are not participating enough in innovation in our own continent, for several reasons. Because our governments, and I'm talking about African governments, everywhere, we tend to facilitate access to foreign investors, or foreign companies that bring innovation in Africa, instead of trying to support local innovation. You know, and that's fundamentally, that's the biggest issue. If you look at a lot of the contracts that are given from governments, they always give into foreign companies. And the argument is always this, those companies come with resources to achieve what the government is trying to achieve. But when you look at that deeply, you realise that at the end, we lose. Because if somebody comes and brings $30 million into a country for XYZ, that $30 million is an investment, well guess what, in 1020 years, the money they're going to make in that country is going to leave the country, it's not going to stay. I mean, because most of those companies, even though they have subsidiaries, in those countries, their group structure is always outside Africa. So when they bring back the money, they bring it back outside Africa. But when you empower a local innovator, he's not going to go anywhere, that's his country or her country. You know, you're empowering that person, the jobs, the IP. You know, less than 3% of the IP are African for a reason. You know, so there's a lot of issues. But my biggest one is governments across Africa, have not put structure to support local, innovative properly, normally support them locally, but support them to expand outside. If you look carefully, at all the countries that dominate technology wise, innovation wise,  one of the countries I look up to when it comes to innovation, specifically, innovation and their policies and their strategy is Israel. You're looking at a country that has 6 million people. And they innovate in all sectors. Any technology. Why? Because they have a department solely to help the local companies expand outside Israel. That's their job. That's the job of their company. We have no such structure here that I know of, if you're an innovator, you want to expand, guess what? Yeah, you can join some sector Federation and all, but they don't have a vehicle or real vehicle. If you tell them I want to go to Nigeria, I should be able to have contacts and a structure in Nigeria to help me manoeuvre within Nigeria. No, I have to go there and figure it out and build my network and all that. That's why it takes so long. And you see that all across Africa, if you look at all the conferences, we have mostly conferences between the West and Africa. But you rarely see conferences between East Africa and West Africa, or North Africa and West Africa, so on and so forth. So until we change this attitude, we'll just be spectators, we're gonna miss out on this revolution, you know, and that's just the reality. And you see it on the news. If you look carefully at all the innovations you see on the news, that are labelled African innovators, you know, they're not African innovation, they're foreign, but they have a strong PR, they're able to label themselves African innovation. For me, an African innovation is either the owners are Africans, or the IP and a group level stays in Africa. Those are the we need to define that very clearly. And today, it's not, it's not clear.

 

Claire  26:28

But are you optimistic, though, that this will come? Because I mean, if you're able to speak about that, and recognise that and show the gap where it is, and I believe you're not the only one, because there are certainly some other entrepreneurs on the continent as well, who certainly think the same thing. Are you optimistic that this is going to change?

 

Henri  26:47

Yeah, very poor countries, like Ethiopia, for example, are doing a very good job of protecting their market. You know, when you do business in Ethiopia, you have to have an Ethiopian partner. And they're using what China did. That's why China is what it is today. If China did not do what they did, by forcing foreigners to work with locals and share their IP, China will not be who they are today. China understood that. Am I optimistic? Absolutely. Am I optimistic on a continental level, of course not, but I know, some countries will get it faster than others. But overall, there's a lot of things that are changing in the right direction. Am I gonna experience that in my lifetime? I don't think so. But well, my kid will? I think so. We just need a new generation. I think there'll be a new generation of leaders that will understand that and hopefully, we'll catch up, because right now we're playing catch up.

 

Claire  27:48

No, I agree with you, I think the next generation of leaders is definitely going to influence this in the right direction and provide more ownership and more, I would say more presence on the stage, on the global stage for African countries. But coming back on something that you just said, you mentioned that you're planting the seeds for the next generation. And I'd like to make a link to the book that you authored. I think it was a couple of years back in 2019. The title of the book is My African dream. And it seems that it's kind of a biography, right. But you're talking about your journey as an entrepreneur living in the US and then coming back on the continent. So how did you start this venture? Why did you write a book basically?

 

Henri  28:33

Yeah, the book is an interesting story. I was horrible in school and writing and all those things. But the initial book idea was going to be a biography of my successes and failures in entrepreneurship. But when I came back, and I started talking to a lot of young men and women, in high schools and universities, in the region, I realised how our perception of the West is still ingrained like it was in my generation. When I was growing up, as a teenager, our dream, me and my friends, was to get out of Africa, and be in America, Canada and all that. And then when I came back, most of the questions I was getting from those kids was, why did you come back? Did you get kicked out? Or did you run away and why are you coming back here when we are trying to go there? So I wanted to share on top my business experience, I wanted to share my journey in America, which was a tough journey. I was homeless at one point, I went through some tough, tough times. And the perception we have about the West is a perfect perception, where you learn and you in a few months you can become rich, and I realise one of the great things that America has, and don't get me wrong, I learned so much from the US, so I can't, I'm not trying to knock that country down because it gave me so much. But one of the things I learned is that regardless of how tough that country is, one of the things they instil in the people is the dream, the potential dream that you can be somebody. And that's what we need to bring to Africa. And that's why I called it my African dream. You know, so I wanted to show that there is a dream in Africa? Which yes, it's tough to achieve. It's tough to get it. But it's tough everywhere. It's not easy in the West, it's getting harder, especially for black people, you'll see on the news. So there's a dream everywhere. And there's a dream in Africa, we need to instil that in our young generation, in our kids, there is a dream that can be achieved, can be anybody, you can achieve anything. You just gotta put your mind into it and focus and work hard. And that really was the big idea behind this book.

 

Claire  31:02

And how was the book Welcome? Did you get some feedback from readers? The reviews and things like that? Did you get to know about how people welcome that book?

 

Henri  31:15

It's interesting when you write a book, because people look at you a little bit differently. That was not my intention. But overall, it was well received. I mean, there's a lot of things in the book that people didn't know about me, there's a lot of things in a book that I will share people know, especially the young generation who know me now from the blogs and all that, they have this perception of this guy came and achieved and all that, but they don't see the failure. They don't see all the mistakes I've made. All the troubles I got into when I was a kid. That's very important, because a lot of time we've talked about successes, and this and that, but I love talking about failure, because I think that's when you can relate to somebody because everybody goes through trials and tribulations. Everyone, no matter who you are.

 

Claire  32:02

Absolutely, I fully agree with you. I mean, it's always very important also, to share the whole story to be transparent, and to say, you know, maybe I'm successful, but this is how I got there, people need to know that. They're all this stuff. But as you say, if you have your eyes on your vision, you can make it and more accounts like these are always  very important for the younger generation to understand what it takes as well, to get to your dream, as you say.

 

Henri  32:30

My mother in law told me I was way too transparent when she read the book. There's a lot that she didn't know about me, and was like wow you're very transparent. Everybody had a different reaction, by my interesting reaction, because my mom knows me. Because I speak a lot about my mother there. You know, she's my biggest inspiration. And yeah, it's interesting. It's interesting, it's good when your parents say you did good, you did good. So that was another thing that was important for the book to make sure that she recognised all the sacrifices she made.

 

Claire  33:13

You also talked about the vlog, so the video blog, and I noticed because I'm following you a lot on LinkedIn, you post these short videos, and you kind of instil, every now and then some tips and tricks again, thinking about the next generation. So why did you choose to use this medium I would say? You had your book out there, why don't you need to have another way of connecting with people?

 

Henri  33:41

Yeah, because social media is the best way to reach as many people as you can, number one, number two, I couldn't find a vlog from an African perspective, from an African talking about the ins and outs of businesses. That's why it kind of motivated me to get into that. And again, when I started my journey as an entrepreneur, before even the YouTubes and all that I used to buy motivational DVDs and videos to stay focused. Like I said, it's a lonely road. So when you hear from a third party, it always use to help me when I heard somebody sharing a tip and something I never thought about so I felt like wow, I can do the same but add a little bit more substance to it, meaning adding my real experience and adding some insight that maybe somebody else will not really share so my favourite feedback I get from people is "Thanks man, I needed that today." or "Thanks man, it really allowed me to, you know, look at things a little bit differently." And funnily enough, when I'm down and I'm feeling a certain way, that's when I most of the time do those vlogs. Because, I always say there are four levels to Motivation, you know, there's unmotivated, motivated, self motivated and motivated when you start motivating others, so I feel like now I have the opportunity to try to motivate others, but also motivate yourself. Because even if you can motivate others, you should be able to motivate yourself. Because tough times are always gonna be there, regardless how successful you think you are, and all that. So I also use those times to make this blog to push back my energy, because a lot of people don't know that.

 

Claire  35:32

That's good to know that you can basically motivate yourself by motivating others,

 

Henri  35:37

It's very easy to get in a dark space. So every time I get into a bad space, boom, think about a topic I want to talk about. That helps me get to a better space so I can keep on doing what I'm doing. So yeah, I always started looking for tools also. Because you have to stay motivated, the day you stop motivating yourself, that's the day you either retire, or you quit your business, and look for a job and I'm not there yet.

 

Claire  36:04

So that was actually one of my next questions. I mean, I fully understand that you're nowhere near retirement. But you were already looking ahead, you know, by mentoring and supporting the younger generation. What is in the future for you and for your company at this point for ARED, so you said before you're in five markets, what is your ambition? And what do you want to achieve in the future?

 

Henri  36:30

Yeah, so now we are the scaling level, as far as ARED, we are at the scaling level now. So our target is to add two countries every year. To get to a point to exit the company, my goal is to sell the company at some point. And to you know, work on some of the projects that I have in mind. Same into the social enterprise, but more than agribusiness. I'm very passionate about this green journey we're going through. I see how the world  is being destroyed by humans at a rate that we've never seen before. And I see that agriculture is going to play a really big role, as a matter of fact, agriculture and water. And I believe that there's a need, a huge need of new technology into space to overcome global warming. I mean desalination technology, growing food with 90% less water and with no soil. Those are the types of technology I'm really, really excited about. This time, I don't want to develop anything anymore. I've marked that on my bucket list. I'm good. I just want to see how to improve, especially in refugee camps. You know, one of the biggest things, because we operate in refugee camps, one of the problems on refugee camps is they're still dependent on food from donors, where they could grow their own food in those camps, they can not only grow their own food, turn some of that waste of the food into energy for cooking. So there are solutions already out there to solve most of our problems. It's just that they're not solutions at scale yet. And my job is really to bring those solutions at scale, at least on the continent. But ARED, like I said, we are in a growth stage. Now it's just a matter of we are actually in the middle of fundraising right now to enter the Nigerian market. But now I'm planning my exit for ARED.

 

Claire  38:44

I can see where your passion is. So Henri, for me, it has been really a great pleasure to talk with you today to get to know more about what you're doing and with your company with ARED and also to know about your journey as well. Because I have been following you from afar, but never had direct contact. So thank you so much for joining me today and for sharing your journey with me.

 

Henri  39:11

Thanks very much clearer, and I love what you're doing also. Keep up the good work, man, I truly believe this is all of us are planting seeds for the next generation, in our own ways, and that's the key. We need to start thinking about others, especially the young generations because as everybody knows they're the future, and if we just turn our back and think about ourselves all the time, we're not gonna make it so congrats on you also.

 

Claire  39:39

Thank you. Thank you so much. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. It is all about the next generation. We're just passing here and we've had our time but the ones coming up to us have even been longer.

 

Claire  39:57

That was episode 13. A Conversation with Henri Nyakarundi. Henry is definitely a Pan African at heart, dedicated to mentor and to be a role model for the next generation. His book titled, 'My African dream, one man's journey back home' is available in online bookstores. Do check it out if you want to learn more about Henry's personal experience living in the US and his journey back home to Rwanda. You'll also find in the shownotes, the link to Henry's video blog, where he shares nuggets from his journey as a social entrepreneur. Thank you so much for tuning in today and listening to this new episode. I appreciate you taking the time. Make sure you sign up for our newsletter, or stay updated through our social media handles. We are on LinkedIn, Instagram, and now also on Facebook. We look forward to continuing engaging with you on all our platforms. Tune in again in two weeks for the next episode. Next month, we will dive into a new theme, namely 'Tech for Good'. I will be speaking with several founders, some from education, technology, startups, and a couple more, transforming the use of personal healthcare data or supporting women in tech. So mark your calendars because there will be weekly releases of our episodes throughout August. Until then, take care of yourself, stay well and stay inspired.