Thoughts from Oxford: Being Special vs Being Valuable

Thomas Lawrence asked the class: “Do you think everyone is special?”

Almost all of us put up our hands and said yes. Then he made a simple but powerful statement: “Although everyone may be special, not everyone is valuable”.

In the past few weeks since my arrival in this city, I have established that there are several truly special people at Oxford. Let me share an incidence of meeting one such person.

One evening, the MBA class gathered for wine at the Oxford Museum of Natural History, where I struck up a conversation with Joel and Caryn Davies. Joel was telling me that he planned to try his hand at rowing. Caryn also said she intended to row, not just for her college, but also for the University team. Since rowing is big at Oxford, making it to the University team is extremely competitive. So I stopped and said to Caryn, “Rowing for the University can be extremely competitive I hear. Have you rowed before, and do you have any experience in competitive rowing?” That’s when she said that she has been part of the US Olympic rowing team for the last three times, at London, Bejing and Athens! My jaw dropped. I was bursting with questions:  what was it like to be at the Olympics? How does it feel to represent the country? Did you win? And why in this world would you need an MBA?

Unfortunately I was unable to pick up my dropped-jaw and ask her these questions at the time, but I hope to do so in the course of the year. I at least found an answer to one of the questions through her Wikipedia page: yes she won – a gold at London and Beijing, and a silver at Athens. Caryn to me is a special person. And although my other classmates may not be Olympians, I have realized if you listen, each of them are special through their stories and life experiences.

But do I only want such special people and special experiences? Thomas’ theory in class is helping me differentiate between being special and being valuable. To make the most of this year, I will also need to engage with people and events that are not just special, but extremely valuable to my personal and professional life.

How do I find out what is valuable to me? If I had Aladdin’s magic lamp, I would ask the genie to create for me a list of all the valuable people and events that I could ever experience. But when I think again, perhaps it’s better that this genie doesn’t exist, as the experience of engaging and deciding whether things are special or valuable or both, is the true joy of this one year at Oxford.

Interesting events are happening all the time, such as: a talk by Eric Schmidt from Google, an event by the Smith school on GDP & Businesses, Harry Potter enthusiasts playing Quidditch (yes, this is an actual sport at Oxford), or the former Prime Minister of Pakistan Mr. Gillani speaking about leadership in his country.

While juggling between readings for Strategy class, OBN meetings and late-night BOP parties, I continue to look for events/people that are special and valuable. So that when people ask me about my experience at SBS, I will be able to use the same phrase I have heard from several alumni: “It was the best year of my life!”

(This was an article I wrote for the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship. Link to the Blog)

The World of M-Pesa.

As I walked into the Nairobi airport, the sign board read: Welcome to the land of M-Pesa. I had only hear about mobile money, but never experienced it.

Mobile money was pioneered by Vodafone in partnership with Safaricom (local tel company), and their product is now called M-Pesa. I needed to learn about mobile money, as my company worked closely with M-Pesa.

Simply put, mobile money allows your phone to act like your debit card. You can carry money on the phone and send or receive any amounts.

I went to get my local sim and M-pesa account. At the Safaricom store, the lady before me came to top up her m-pesa account. I was shocked when she said: for 50,000shillings! (~35,000Rs.)

Process of getting a sim and m-pesa is very simple: 100shillings and your original passport. No document to sign, no photo, no nothing. In less than 5 minutes i had my sim and m-pesa working. I then asked a lot of dumb questions to the assistant, but finally walked away amazed at the idea of m-pesa.

Now if I get off a taxi, I could ask him for his mobile number and transfer the amount to his m-pesa. I could shop, and pay from my mobile. Almost every food join in town accepts m-pesa. Basically, I could get my way around most parts of kenya with an m-pesa a/c and no cash in my pocket. This is not only a safer option, but also eliminates the hassel of wondering how much to withdraw and carry each time. Here area few mind bogling numbers: there are 17 millions active users of m-pesa in kenya, which is more than a third of their total population. 1/3th of kenya's GDP is transacted on m-pesa!

And the story does not end. In conversation with my colleague Lesley-Ann, who worked at m-pesa before, I asked her: how did someone think of this idea of mobile money? Must have been a complex program to integrate mobile tech with the banking system? Growing adoption and running operations must be a nightmare at m-pesa?

Thats when Lislean casually said, "oh you should ask Nick about how he came up with this idea, he is here next month. Pauline can tell you about operations, as she was head of operations who rolled out m-pesa. And I wrote the program codes at m-pesa." The entire founding team at m-pesa are now my colleagues at M-Kopa Solar.

I have the privilege of working with a management team that does not have a loose dream of changing the world, but a team who have done it once and believe they can do it all over again!

As I continue to remain amazed at mobile money, I paid my taxi guy on m-pesa and got off at a local bar. Had a wonderful evening with colleagues, drinking the local beer and dancing to african music. Unlike bangalore, people start to come in to the bars at 12 and go home at 6am! Excepting the crime scare that people infuse, Nairobi is a city I am starting to like. With 9 more weeks to go, I am looking forward to my time, Nairobi!