catalyzing impact

Elevator Pitch: In graduate school I studied the science of making decisions under uncertainty. Decision making is the irrevocable allocation of scarce resources. I use this background in the real world to support cross functional collaboration between teams at Krikey, an Augmented Reality technology company in the Entertainment Industry. As a Product Manager on the Operations Team, my niche is documenting processes, and working with all the stakeholders to continuously optimize the processes and ensure compliance with established protocols. Furthermore, I minimize uncertainty in our product decisions through Mixpanel analytics and conducting user experiments. Providing clear processes and robust data affirms my decision to devote my professional life towards helping people and organizations make better decisions. I am excited to be a part of the Web 3.0 revolution with Krikey. When I am not helping bring joy to others with AR, I enjoy cooking, journaling, and spending time with loved ones. I also claim to like hiking!

Through my affiliations with the United World Colleges, Stanford University, and the MasterCard Foundation, I have been fed the cool-aid of impact. Collectively, over half a million US dollars has been invested in my education by the institutions with the hope that I will use it to make a difference in the communities I call home. At first I was arrogant to think these opportunities grant me the power and responsibility to change the world - make impact as they say - but I have since realized that everyone has the power and responsibility to change the world. With that in mind, I think my value proposition, as a result of these opportunities, is to use my access to catalyze the impact of others. I think of myself as a multiplier.

When Osego Kgaodi recruited me to co-found a fundraising initiative for the late Batho Madigele's kidney transplant, I hesitated. At the time, I was the Student Council President at Seepapitso Senior Secondary School, having a successful debate season, and trying to pass my General Certificate of Secondary Education examinations with flying colors so I could secure the Top Achievers Scholarship.

I did not have the time. It was not that I did not care about their cause; after all, Batho was my friend and Deputy President on the Council. But Osego, with her persistence and unbounded belief in my abilities to lead the group, won me over. I convinced her to chair the committee - which I named The Halidon, after reading one of Robert Ludlum's books - with me as her assistant chair because I still needed to run the Student Council.

With most of the members of The Halidon being Student Council members, by the end, the lines between the two blurred and this committee became my life. We gave up entire school days to solicit the support of all types of stakeholders: from the former president, the late Sir Ketumile Masire, to the Paramount Chief of the Bangwaketse tribe, Kgosi Malope II. We poured our hearts and souls into the difficult logistics of putting together beauty pageants and fun family days.

Through my leadership with Osego, supported by the mentorship of Mrs. Kutoro and the late Seba Ditshane, we were able to enable the passionate Halidon members - including Batho Madigele himself - to add on to the greater fundraising efforts for our friend's life saving medical procedure. Working with Batho for Batho has taught me that stakeholder involvement is instrumental in serving others. But above all, The Halidon - and our adult mentors - taught me that with the right team, you could overcome any challenge.

Following my graduation from Seepapitso, I spent ten months working for UCMAS Botswana. UCMAS Botswana was an educational consulting company that taught students in Junior and Senior Secondary Schools creative ways to study. I had joined their program the previous year out of skepticism but was converted after discovering the power of using mnemonic techniques in my personal study.

It helped solidify my understanding of concepts and develop my creative muscle. I accepted the offer to work for UCMAS because I was convinced that more students could benefit from the program. Especially students for whom the traditional way of learning was ineffective. I did not have an official title, but I was essential to the company's expansion to towns and urban villages outside of Gaborone.

By leveraging my fluency of the local language and understanding of cultural norms, I liaised between the foreign directors of the company and the parents of the children we served. Additionally, I used my extensive knowledge of the local curriculum at both the Junior and Senior Secondary levels to create prototypes that exemplified how students could harness their creativity in their studies. I had a fun time exploring some of my untapped artistic talents like rapping, sketching, and storytelling. I learned a thing or two about customer service as I was the official contact person for the parents in the public schools and villages. I look back on my time at UCMAS with a smile because I found the work to be meaningful and exciting, the team to be fun to work with, and the compensation to be generous.

UWC Costa Rica has six competencies that it seeks to develop in its students: leadership, social responsibility, conflict transformation, sustainability, healthy lifestyle, and respect for diversity. Of these, I devoted the most time to social responsibility. It is perhaps for this reason that one of my teachers, Nat Taylor, approached me at the beginning of my second year to co-organize a clothing drive for the homeless with her for that year's Service Day.

She had heard of The Street Store in South Africa and wanted to create something similar for the homeless in San Jose, Costa Rica. On the previous year's Service Day, I had been a part of a team that volunteered to do trail maintenance work at one of Costa Rica's National Parks. Important work as that was, it had not felt as fulfilling to me as my work on The Halidon had. Being from an underprivileged background, I have found service-oriented activities that empower the underprivileged members of our society to be the most fulfilling.

I helped recruit a team of equally passionate students and worked with Nat to build partnerships with local churches to use as collection points for our clothing drive. The event was more than a success, and our clients were able to pick more items than we initially thought. Their smiles and words of gratitude affirmed to me the importance of little steps. We did not solve their homelessness challenge, but we provided them with a shopping experience that hopefully gave them clothes to preserve their dignity and express their style.

I learned from this experience that sometimes catalyzing impact is as simple as leveraging one's connections to take a friend's idea from just a conversation to a multi-day success story. I am grateful for my team and the institutional partners that made this possible.

I applied to the Bing Overseas Studies Program on Community, Health, and Learning Through Service in Sri Lanka during my first quarter at Stanford because I wanted to continue engaging with service even beyond UWC. After being honored with the Social Responsibility Award at my graduation ceremony for UWC Costa Rica, I had felt conflicted about documenting works of service.

Using my involvement in service to get into Stanford and secure the MasterCard Foundation Scholarship felt unethical and fraudulent. I would reconsider my position after hearing some words of wisdom from the founder of our partner organization - Sarvodaya - Dr. A. T. Ariyaratne. He said, "As we build the road, the road builds us." To deny that how I serve the world would also serve me, is foolishness. As a Cardinal Course, we had to learn the Principles of Ethical and Effective Service: Humility, Respect and Inclusion, Reciprocity, Preparation, Safety and Well-being, Evaluation, Learning and Reflection, and Accountability.

As we traveled all over Sri Lanka in a packed 3-week in-country experience, I witnessed something magical. In Sri Lanka, more generally, and with Sarvodaya's work, in particular, there was a culture of leveraging local resources to advance development objectives. Being at an Ayurvedic Hospital and learning about the institutional structure that has been built around it was inspiring - especially since back home, our traditional medicine is dying out thanks to the emphasis on western medicine and science as the true way.

Witnessing the Sri Lankan healthcare system instilled in me the hope that western knowledge systems and indigenous knowledge systems have synergies that can be harnessed to advance humanity. I catalyzed impact here merely by opening my mind and learning.

The highlight of that first visit to Sri Lanka was participating in a Shramadana. Shramadana means the sharing of labor. One of Sarvodaya's signature programs, a Shramadana allows communities to pool together their resources to address their priority-weighted development needs. During our time in Sri Lanka, we were fortunate to contribute our labor towards a temple renovation project in the village of Pahalagama in the historic Anuradhapura District. It was the least we could do after the village took us in for a multi-day homestay, as part of a Participatory Photo Mapping (PPM) project we were doing.

My team and I were so moved by this grassroots approach to development that after our return to the United States we raised funds and sent them to the community for them to tackle the problem of littering - especially by foreign visitors - around their sacred tank and main source water in the village. It was a problem that had been identified as part of the PPM project as the most pressing. More than moved, I was intrigued by Sarvodaya's work establishing over 3,000 Shramadana Societies all over the country and working on one-off projects in close to 15,000 villages in its 50+ year history.

I went back the following summer on a Cardinal Quarter Fellowship - through the generosity of the Haas Center for Public Service at Stanford. In exchange for learning more about this grassroots approach to community development, I was to help set up a database of the 3,000 Sarvodaya Shramadana Societies and work on miscellaneous projects with the Executive Director.

Although not to the quality and standard I would have liked, in part due to resource constraints, the database - if maintained - would catalyze their impact by reducing the time it took to find pertinent information on their Shramadana Societies. My work at Sarvodaya does not stack up in comparison to all I learned. I am especially grateful to the Executive Director aiya Chamindha Rajakaruna, who taught me so much and provided priceless mentorship.

As a MasterCard Foundation Scholar, we had to participate in an annual Day of Service. In my first year, we prepared and served breakfast to the homeless at the Palo Alto Opportunity Center. The experience was fulfilling. As I served scrambled eggs with my ever-radiant smile, I enjoyed hearing the stories of those I served. I was inspired to seek ways through which the MasterCard Scholars at Stanford could be more involved with public service.

I contested the MCF Scholars Representative Elections for each of the next three years (winning the first and third time). In that role, I had three constituents: MCF scholars at Stanford, Stanford University, and the MasterCard Foundation. Since I first took office, MCF Scholars at Stanford have not participated in the annual MCF Scholars Day of Service. By some metrics, this is a failure. This happened even though that first year, I was part of the MCF Scholars Council subcommittee organizing the Day of Service in all the partner institutions around the world. The main reason behind this was my failure to successfully negotiate the often conflicting needs and objectives of each of those three constituents. My problem, as someone with a considerable capacity for empathy, was in trying to advance the interests of all three at the same time. I learned from the experience that I could prioritize one constituent and still be a win-win-win leader.

Stanford did not want MCF Scholars to be treated any differently from any other students, so there was no way to require scholars to participate. The MasterCard Foundation saw the Day of Service as a way of instilling the Give-Back spirit into the scholars. As scholars, we could not agree on what to do for the service day. So, in the end, I devoted my energies to cultivating community amongst the scholars and ensuring they were supported in their quest to make a difference in the world. So I catalyzed impact by organizing dinners, movie outings, and securing tickets to conferences such as the Stanford Africa Business Forum. I am confident that we will all make a difference in the world - and the bonds we have built at these events will be instrumental on that journey.

Even with a scholarship as generous as the one I had from the MasterCard Foundation, I had to find a campus job to be able to meet my financial obligations. The MCF Scholarship was enough to cover my education and living expenses. However, being from a low-income background, I had familial obligations.

My first campus job was as a Course Development Assistant for a Thinking Matters course. It was a great job with generous compensation, but it did not have that many hours. So I did not extend my contract to the second quarter. My next job after that was as a studio operator for the Stanford Center for Professional Development. Despite my lack of experience with AV production and academic technology, I felt confident on the job because I had excellent training and mentorship. It also helped that I was a fast learner. It was easy to pick more hours and work hard at the job since I liked my co-workers and enjoyed learning random things from the classes I recorded.

Following a restructuring exercise that resulted in SCPD moving from the School of Engineering to the Vice Provost for Teaching and Learning, our student team grew. Our supervisor promoted a few of us to become Lead Operators. We were responsible for assisting the core staff with training student ops and other quality improvement projects. Through my diligent work ethic, I emerged as the unofficial leader of our Leads group. My favorite aspect of this job was in mentoring student operators and other leads. There is no better satisfaction than watching your team grow continuously and maintaining a near-professional standard of quality.

I also enjoyed lobbying on behalf of my team to ensure a work environment that enabled the team to perform at their best. While I was able to help increase the impact of our work by being in a leadership role, I learned there is no substitute for being on the front lines. I made sure to spend time doing regular operator tasks because that kept me grounded, but also more aware of the needs of my team.

I have also had opportunities to catalyze or learn about catalyzing impact through my coursework at Stanford. One of the best classes I have taken at Stanford was with Professors Pamela Hinds and Tim Weiss. Through case studies, reflections, and a project with a partner organization, we explored different ways of organizing for good.

My team worked with a Kenyan coffee startup that was thinking through their social impact strategy to ensure that there was an equitable distribution of value throughout their supply chain. As part of the ecosystem mapping we did during the project, we got to interview various stakeholders along their supply chain: from the farmers to the consumer. Most of our recommendations came from understanding the needs of each stakeholder, as well as their value proposition.

I was fortunate to fly to Kenya for a field visit after the class had concluded, and was pleased to witness the great work our partner company was doing. Their journey was not without challenges, but they were determined to stay true to their north star. I was inspired.

The second project I want to highlight is from my senior capstone class. My team and I worked with a local nonprofit organization to optimize its Grant Application Process. As one of the only two projects - out of 24 - that worked with a nonprofit organization, we went above and beyond. We addressed the issue they had communicated and even provided recommendations for a more serious organizational challenge we uncovered during the project.

The best part about our solutions was that they helped the organization improve its productivity and eliminate the threat of losing their institutional knowledge, all without spending more than $100 per year. While I do not intend to work in the nonprofit space, I hope to volunteer my time and talents towards helping high-impact nonprofit organizations now and then.

One nonprofit entity that I have volunteered my time and talent to since 2016 is the United World Colleges National Committee of Botswana. How could I not? After all, they believed in me when some entities thought I was not what they were looking for. (They are entitled to think that, although they did not need to make me feel like I was not smart enough in the process). Like most UWC National Committees, Botswana NC is entirely run by volunteer power.

I started by helping the committee review applications and shortlist candidates. The first year I was even able to help with the candidate selection weekend since it coincided with my Spring Break visit to Botswana. After experiencing the frustrations of their then multi-step online application system, I consolidated the application into a single Google Form. While I take credit for the initiative, the option to upload documents as part of Google Forms was a relatively new feature.

Once more, I was lucky to be in the right place at the right time. This experience taught me the value of staying current with the evolution of the simple tools we use in our daily life. In 2017/18, I oversaw the upgrade and transition of our NC website to the UWC International website. Through my work driving the social media strategy from 2016 until 2018, the National Committee was able to expand its reach to new populations.

One of our goals as a national committee is to attract a diverse pool of applicants, therefore reaching new populations advances this objective. I continue to serve as I can from overseas, and most recently, I represented the committee at the UWC Africa Regional Meeting in Arusha, Tanzania. One of my goals for 2020/21 on the committee is to improve our alumni engagement.

Of all the ways I believe to have catalyzed impact in this world, my favorite has been mentoring others. We provide mentorship not because we are the most experienced, successful, or even better. We offer it because we have lived individual experiences that can be helpful to someone else on their journey. I think of mentorship as an intentional friendship.

Most of the mentorship I have given over the years has been to students from Kanye who - because of the myth of Tumisang Ramarea - reached out to me to help them in various ways along their educational journey. I have shared my wisdom on exam preparation, the pursuit of higher education, and how to tell one's story. Many of my mentees have gone on to pursue a university education, a prospect that is often improbable for students from Seepapitso Senior. Some have gone on to study at UWC and other universities abroad. My hope is some of us will take our talents back home, and others will help build a strong network of Batswana in the diaspora.

I have also drawn on my academic training and experience as a young mafia boss to provide mentorship and funding for some entrepreneurial projects run by some youth in Kanye. Of the three projects I have funded in the past three years, two have failed, but 1 - Organic Naturals - continues to grow. I am especially proud to have invested my time, talent, and treasure into Organic Naturals because it is a company founded on empowering women. Their distribution strategy prioritizes women-owned businesses. I hope that this is the beginning of a lifetime of impact investing.

During graduate school I helped catalyze impact by giving my time and talent towards modeling efforts on the coronavirus pandemic in Botswana. My team and I used data modeling and simulation to evaluate the impact of different interventions on the cost to the country of the coronavirus pandemic. I am not sure how helpful we were, but at least we tried.

Catalyzing impact is a lifestyle. It is one way through which I can express love to my fellow humans. It comes with fulfillment and sometimes with lessons. It is not by any means easy, but it is worth it. Even now in the working world, I seek to help my employer maximize their positive impact. That is my north star.