Hey, could somebody please pray with us together as a class and then we will Get started Be nice, would you like to pray? Yeah, it's your pastor. Yeah. Thank you. Let's pray Dear heavenly father, we thank you for this beautiful time and the morning and this new life Father God that you have given us Lord Jesus this morning Lord We choose to praise you master We choose to worship you God for everything that you are doing and you are going to do in our life Father God, thank you father go We submit this day and this time into your mighty and father God as we are Lord Jesus going to Going through the session father go We ask you more of your revelation and wisdom father God and we submit Pastor asses into your mighty and Lord Jesus and all the fellows that we are here Lord Jesus We give you all the praise and honor Lord Jesus and we ask this pray in Jesus mighty name. Amen Amen Thank you. Welcome everyone once again to this class This is our second lecture this week and In this course on holiness and we are Close to completing the second section which is on repentance recovery and restoration So I'm going to just speak up from where we left on the class on Monday I just quickly review a few of the points that we spoke about And then go forward and I hope we can finish this section in the lecture today Going to Share the PDF All right so we were talking about the process of repentance So what we said in our previous lecture or sometimes Repentance is just You know a very short simple Step that we take When we realize we've done something wrong out of alignment with God and we change our thinking and We change our action and we just turn back to God and say Lord. I'm sorry about that And forgive me cleanse me and I changed my thinking about that. I come into alignment with the word of God Sometimes it's as simple as that but sometimes The matter can be very serious in the sense that It's just not a momentary deviation or Deviation from what God wants, but it's a slow drift away From what God wants So a person a believer may have slowly drifted away All right, so it's not just one step out of alignment, but It's a journey that's taken them far away from, you know, what God wants for their lives and In such cases You know repentance can be a process I mean it's it's they need to repent and they need to make the journey of recovery and see restoration in their lives so We must give room for that in our Understanding and also in our journey spiritual journey. That is There may be times in our personal lives or when we are serving other people ministering to other people That we may need to lead them Through this whole journey this whole process of repentance and they made mention of the prodigal son You know, he was fine at home. Everything was going good Then he just decided one day he wants to make a journey And he took all the things all his possessions and he made his journey and he went far far far away from his father's house And until he his whole life was in a mess And when he hit, you know, like we say rock bottom He came to a census And that's when his thinking changed And even though his thinking changed which is which is the first step in repentance He had to make the journey of recovery. That means he had to journey back home and then You know acknowledge his wrong and Then there was restoration And he saw this example also in second Corinthians 7 when paul is dealing with the church in Corinth They know how he corrects them and We kind of broke down this passage just to outline You know these three important stages in this process of repentance He said that During repentance and a person is repenting, you know, we would see these kinds of Things that there has to be diligence them. It's it's got to be a serious thing There's got to be a clearing of ourselves And the eagerness to do what's right This got to be rough or displeasure against sin And there's got to be a degree of shock about in hey, what has happened where I am This is not what I'm supposed to be this should not have happened Something is wrong, right? So they this should be that sense of fear And also a vehement desire Are longing for the holiness of God and seriousness of purpose And then in the in the process of recovery, there's got to be passion for God that's rekindled and revived and renewed And there's also a vindication that is look, I need whatever's wrong. I need to deal with it I need to punish wrongdoing. I need to bring things out In a place where I write what is wrong and then uh Place of restoration and I prove myself clear. That means I there has to be a time when I show that You know, my repentance is genuine I prove myself to be clear and that's when restoration takes place in a person's life So we went up to that and I just want to go forward here now. I've mentioned this earlier under holiness Towards the end of that first section of holiness, but I want to put it here again which is you know, practically What would a repentant and restored lifestyle look like? Now, you know, these are practical matters right so if a person has truly gone to the process of repentance recovery and restoration What should we see in his life and what what what should be taking place in such a person's life? It could be us our our own selves as well as other people that you're ministering to well There has to be a commitment to live with reverence toward God always right so When when we've made this journey Of repentance recovery and restoration. There's got to be a commitment I'm going to live with reverence toward God now all that I'm saying all that we see here Of course applies to even those, you know, who may not have drift drifted away right This is something we all have to practice but I'm putting this in the context of Let's say a person has gone through this whole journey of repentance recovery and restoration What should we emphasize? What should we look for? One is that there's a commitment to live With reverence toward God, you know A holy fear of God so that has to be there Secondly, there has to be vigilance on all sides. That means The person is watchful, you know What were the things that caused him to drift away in the first place? You know, what were the things that he was slack about? That he was not careful about the first time So that that just allowed him to drift away from the will of God in his life He's got to live with vigilance. He's got to be careful of those areas now You know, if it has to do with certain addictive addictions or certain kinds of relationships or Certain areas of weaknesses that has to be vigilance That means he's got to be vigilant alert in those areas And not unnecessarily expose himself To those areas So there's got to be that and and and that practically We live by putting boundaries in all matters The apostle Paul said in 1st Corinthians 9 27 he said, you know, I keep my body in subjection Less when I have preached to others You know, I discipline myself and I keep myself in subjection less when I preach to others I myself should be disqualified so there's that sense of self-discipline and um Keeping those boundaries So, you know, you you put legitimate boundaries in For how you live life Uh In some practical ways, you know, for example Especially in the in the area of Christian ministry, uh, you say, okay, you know, uh, I'm not going to Get too involved in counseling someone Of the opposite gender Right, so of course, you'll have conversations you can talk and all of that but when you're getting into a counseling situation Uh, you don't get too involved, you know, for example, even for me as a pastor If a lady wants to come and meet me. Okay. Yeah, I might meet them once or twice But if that person if that lady needs a lot, you know, a serious help a lot of counseling book I would immediately after my first or two You know meetings and discussion to understand what the situation is I would say, okay, you know, you need to go meet One of our women counselors You know, I don't get into a personal counseling situation With somebody of the opposite gender. So that's a legitimate boundary, you know, so or You never travel alone With somebody of the opposite gender So even if you're going on ministry work anything, you never travel alone. That's a boundary You never do it.  You know, the other other people will handle it Sure. Um, I may be give approvals. I may approve things But finances are being handled by others not by me Um Things like that. You know, they are legitimate boundaries in all matters So that We make sure that we don't make we don't fall. You don't make mistakes that we don't drift away In these things, right? So I've just given you some examples of uh living with boundaries in all matters um for example um Yeah, so when you're traveling when you're traveling you try to travel as a team Or if it necessitates that you travel alone and sometimes I do travel alone because it's not You know worth Uh, you know taking a team is just maybe a small engagement. Okay Then again over there. I'm very careful. Okay, if I'm staying in a hotel Uh, I don't let anybody come into my room if I have to meet people I will meet them separately if If somebody wants to meet me a room.  So, uh, these are all boundaries practical boundaries you put uh, so that You don't want to let things happen wrong things happen Right, so there has to be those things in the life of a person Especially, you know once there has been repentance recovery restoration got to live with these boundaries in all matters Um, also you live with transparency before others who matter to you the example with your own spouse with the ministry team with your pastors and so on that means they need to Uh be able to you know see your life at any time I'm not saying, you know, everybody's going to check everything obviously people are not going to be checking your phone or your Laptop or your you know, what you're doing everything, but there is that openness Uh, there's that sense of transparency That anyone could possibly check. It's not that they are going to keep coming and checking But it is open for anyone to do it Example uh on my phone, you know, I don't have any security lock. It's always open because Anyone can take up my phone. So in the office Um, ma some of our team people may use my phone You know for some work related matters. So I just give my phone. So, you know, so it's open So they will come and pick up my phone and they will use especially the accounting people They come they'll use my phone So there's no lock on my phone They can see if they want to they can read any of my messages at any time Or my phone at home. There's no lock on it. My wife can You know, take my phone anytime see it. Not that she does it But there's no need to do it. It's it's completely open Same thing for my laptop Everyone in my family my wife and my children know my password. There's nothing hidden, you know If they want to they can log in and they can see anything on my laptop. There's there's nothing that I need to hide So It's not that they do it. It's not that they would log in and actually check They know they don't need to there is that trust of course But the point is they can if they want to And there is nothing hidden anywhere. So there's that level of transparency you know that anyone There's nothing being covered up or hidden anywhere And people can see they can check if they want to There's openness Of course, I'm not going to sit down and talk everything to everybody. We don't have time for that But There is that trust and there is that openness And so you live with transparency with people who matter In your life, right um and then of course There has to be living with humility And humility is expressed by your willingness to be accountable, right? The moment I say I am above the law That's a sign of arrogance That's a sign of pride. In other words, if I have the attitude Well, you have to you have to obey the rules. I don't There's a problem Humility says we all obey the same rules, you know, so For example in our in our workplace as a christian as a church organization We all follow the same rules um, you know, we have about I don't know the exact numbers, but it's something like we have about 30 staff and maybe about 35 consultants who are working And then plus we have uh another group of You know 10 translators or some or something like that, you know, I forget. I don't know the exact numbers But all our staff and all our consultants all fill up time sheets including me Right, so we all report our weekly work hours so starting from the senior pastor To every person in the organization all the full-time staff all the consultants We all report our daily work hours in the same hr portal in our timesheet And we all follow the same process, you know to apply for leaves You know, you know, whatever vacation I mean, uh consultants won't have that but staff You know, uh, if you have want to apply for a vacation or whatever, you know, you all follow the same process So the rules apply to everybody including the senior pastor So that means we all live with humility before each other. We all follow the same rules Um, it's it's an accountability starting from the top on we're on the way down So we have to live with humility now some some people may not like that, you know, hey, I'm senior pastor Why should I follow the rules?  It's Keeping you accountable because if you're part of the organization, the rules apply to every person, right? so these are some guidance here for Of course, these are things we follow at all times But I have put this down, especially as a post recovery situation that is Once there has been repentance recovery restoration It's so important to make sure that these things are followed by somebody Otherwise, they're going to fall back Into their old ways if they don't have these safeguards, you know, if they don't are not committed to a life of reverence if they're not being vigilant If they're not living with boundaries Um, if they're not living with the transparency And if they're not living with humility It's highly likely They're going to go back To their old ways. They're going to fall again and they're going to drift away Uh, from the purpose of God from the will of God for their lives So it's so important to put these things in their lives if you're ministering to somebody Or in your own life If you've gone through this process of repentance recovery and restoration Or better still to put these things in your in your life to prevent you from drifting away from The will and purpose of God for your life And so I just wanted to highlight these things here now What about the you know, just trying to understand the importance of repentance um What if a believer Uh does not Uh repent, you know, so um, suppose A believer He is walking with God He does wrong things But he doesn't feel the need It doesn't feel The need to repent or if his repentance is taken very lightly doesn't, you know, think it's important What will happen Hebrews chapter six has a very interesting passage, which I would just like to us to look at in this context Uh, could somebody read this for us, please? Hebrews chapter six versus one through six. It's on your screen I second I read Go ahead, please Hebrews six one to six Therefore leaving the discussion of elementary principles of Christ Let us go on to perfection Not late again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith towards God Of doctrine of baptism of laying of hands of resurrection of the dead and of eternal judgment And this we will do if God permits For it is impossible for those who are once Enlightened and have tasted the heavenly gift And have become partakers of the holy spirit And have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come If they fall away to renew them again to repentance Since they crucify again for themselves the son of God and put him to open shame Um, thank you Now think about What the writer is saying in this passage He's talking about somebody who's well established in the elementary principles of Christ. I mean they've got it Right all the basics. They have it they have The foundation of repentance They've they've built they've started right You know, they've laid the foundation of repentance From dead works. They have the faith toward God. They've understood all these things, you know baptism laying of hands resurrection So They've got the basics right.  So these people Have had a wonderful Christian experience journey They've got the elementary principles They've got the foundation right They've got everything else. They've got everything and yet Something happens in their lives. We don't know it could be one of many things They fall away right, so Think about this It is very likely That this falling away from This wonderful Christian journey, which they have, of course Doesn't happen In one step very rarely very rarely But usually the falling away happens as a slow drifting away from The Christian journey they have they have everything going But slowly they begin to drift And they don't even realize it And many times it happens because of a lack of repentance, you know So one thing they do something wrong That there is, you know, there's no genuine repentance. They just ignore it to keep going Oh, there is goodness. There is grace. I just keep going And then again and again and so it's going to be a slow drifting away until They just become callous or indifferent to all that they actually once experienced and The right of Hebrews is saying it is You know, he's using a very strong word. It is impossible It is impossible to renew them again To repentance. That's very strong. They've become so indifferent to these things that They are crucifying again the Son of God and putting him to open shame It doesn't mean that the Jesus is dying for their sins again. It's just that this time they're putting him to shame It's as good as, you know Bringing that same inflicting that same pain to Jesus Putting him to open shame and they they're not bothered about it That means the heart has become so cold or so hard They don't care that they're actually inflicting pain and shame on the Son of God so what I am saying is If We are not if a believer is not living this Being in it's being watchful To repent and keep short accounts and and stay in this place of continued fellowship with God There's a high possibility of something like this happening Of them just drifting away Until they reach this place where they're totally indifferent To everything they have once experienced and enjoyed and it leads us into this place of you know self-deception and be we just become hard and That's it. He says it's impossible to renew them So I just kind of wrap this section up by saying it's so important for us to Be quick to repent to be quick to repent The moment we know something is wrong immediately God, I'm sorry and if we remain quick to repent We enjoy the positive outcomes. Well, what did we see? We can stay in a place of faith because you said repent and believe so It puts us back in a place where we can believe He said repent and See the kingdom of God or receive the kingdom of God. So It puts us in a place where we can experience the kingdom of God It it it it you know the work of transformation into Christ likeness continues on in our life And we stay in continual fellowship with God And it you know will restore us to where we ought to be and what we ought to enjoy So we need to be in this place of repentance one last thought Is sorry, I think the two things more. Yeah We must also keep in mind collective repentance. So while personal repentance is important It's also important to look at the church body as a whole And there are times when as a church body we need to repent collectively or as a community We see examples of that In the Corinthian church for instance the entire church was was was was you know in division strength and competition The entire Corinthian church was taking sides with people, you know, so they had cliques groups groupisms among them One would say I'm of Paul another word say I'm of Apollos and one would say I'm of Peter And so they needed to repent of that The Corinthian church was No, they were puffed up on behalf of one man against another. So they were finding their identity and individuals and you know You know putting Basically competing sort of, you know against each other So here all these problems we see collectively collective problems that need to be repented of Or the church in Ephesians, they forgot their first love Pergamus and Thyatira They tolerated wrong doctrine Church and sadists, they were engaged in perfect works The church in Laodicea was in self-deception So these are just examples where There could be a need for collective repentance the community together needs to repent God we have fallen And of course the pastor or the leader In charge should lead that community in repentance when he sees that something is amiss Something is wrong, you know, we collectively have missed the mark Then we collectively need to repent Get ourselves in an improper place before God. So anytime you see that especially if you're pasting a church Or leading a group of people and you see like look collectively we've missed something Then bring the church collectively to a place of repentance. It could be as simple as just praying together and saying God We are sorry for the for this thing, you know But that's important because repentance Not only is for at a personal level, but also applies to a collective level So as the leader you watch careful What is going on as everything okay collectively and if we are amiss then pray together And bring things back the last thought that I will share here and then we will Take questions is and look 13 and Jesus speaking to his disciples and I understand this is you know before the cross and before Being born again and all of that but he you know he Okay, let's read this passage because it may not be very familiar could somebody read this for us please Look 13 one two five Look chapter 13 was one to five They were present at that season some who told him about the Galileans Whose blood Pilate had been with their sacrifices And jesus answered and said to them Do you suppose that these Galileans were worse sinners than all other Galileans? Because they suffered such things I tell you no, but unless you repent you will all likewise perish Or those 18 on whom the tavern slow arm fell and killed them Do you think that there were worse sinners and all other men who dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you no, but unless you repent you will all likewise perish Thank you.  Just those those men who suffered Were they worse than the other men? No It's just not because of that he says What what what he wanted them to what the people this audience to understand is Unless you repent You might have the same end in other words He's standing press upon them.  What they've worse than other men? No They didn't have a chance, but you have a chance you're alive And unless you repent You might end up in that same place So another which is saying you're alive. You have the opportunity to repent to turn to god turn to god otherwise You could end up in that same place So it's not that people are bad or worse When you're alive, we need to look at the fact that we have life As an opportunity To repent and get right with god. So look at it that way, you know, uh, so the fact that you're alive You look at it as It's not that i'm alive because i'm better than other people But i'm alive Because now god has given me opportunity to repent and you know be in the right place before him So He closed the section off just by emphasizing the importance of Staying in this place of repentance before god Keeping a heart and mind right before god Which is very important In our journey towards holiness We're gonna take a use the rest of the time we have today for question answers And next week we start the third section, which is overcoming How do you overcome the flesh? the world And the devil right so here these are three things that that are working against the believer Time to keep the believer From journeying into holiness in everyday life The flesh the world The influences of the world And the devil So how do we battle against that successfully so that we can you know perfect holiness? Practically in our lives. We start that out next week. Okay So let's use this time now for questions and question answers And pick up the questions in the chat Okay China Uh, practically, how should we handle repeated offenses? If a person continues doing wrong Arrogant but the arrogance pride that doesn't change we pray for them They repent but the person is still the same. How should we help and deal with the situation? um How should we help them deal with this and then Explain look 17 3 and 4. That's how many times should I forgive my brother? I think Look 17 3 and 4 Yeah, all right, so um if So there are two sides to it One is Your heart towards that person. So if that person is sinning against you Right against us. Let's look 17 3 and 4 of that person is sinning against me Then jesus said I have to forgive 70 times 7 In other words I just keep on forgiving And it is my responsibility To keep my heart clean towards that person No matter how many times they They sin against me or offend me But so that's that's my responsibility now At the same time of course Practically if their offense is harming me Then I need to remove myself from harm's way You know so example If that person is speaking against me or very abusive or Maybe physically abusive or the most hurtful whatever I need to keep my heart clean towards a person. I need to love that person But I need to get myself out of that place I don't need to stay under harm. You know, I don't need to keep receiving hurt From that person. So I remove myself from harm's way. So you don't need to be in that place But at the same time I keep my heart clean towards that person. I don't hold any grudge offense God you give me the capacity to forgive and to love But I've moved myself from harm's way because I don't need to Keep accepting hurt or harm now Whether that person changes that's between That person and God We can pray for them If they give us opportunity we can speak into their lives or if somebody gives it or somebody else Whoever somebody could speak into their lives But their willingness to change is not in our control The only thing that's in our control is Our extending forgiveness and love That's something in our control. So look 1734 says just keep forgiving just love But it doesn't mean I need to I need to tolerate their Unrepentance or their the evil they keep doing right? We don't need to live under that We can move ourselves out of that I hope I answered your question to have if you want to ask anything else you can Yes, thank you so much faster and faster how we will keep away Like I didn't understand how we are going to keep us away from those things because we are continuously getting affected with those things even though we are Just forgiving them and tolerating but we don't see any change and it is affecting us back So how we are going to deal with that situation how we will keep us away from that kind of situation So we have to you know, there's no one answer for every situation, but We have to find something that's practical, right? So typical situation that we would encounter is in a in a marriage relationship. Maybe one of the you know, one of the Partners one of the spouse husband or the wife is very abusive And the other person is on the receiving end of that abuse now As a believer It's okay. You forgive keep your heart clean Just love the person because God still loves the person But you don't have to keep receiving the harm that comes through that abuse whatever form it is Physical or verbal or whatever So then we would say, you know, practically what is possible? Maybe you can go and live in a different home in a different place And maybe maybe with another family member or move out to another place Until this situation changes, you know So we have to find what is practical or is doable in that situation just to protect the person You know, otherwise this individual is going to be hurt in the long run because of the constant abuse So we say you go and live with you know, go live separately live in a place where You're safe You know, whatever's possible, you know And then let this other person who is abusive receive help So that he or she is able to change their ways You know change their behavior and realize that they just can't keep hurting somebody else and expect everything No, they've got to change their ways. They've got to receive help and until that they show Fruits of repentance. They show that, you know, they've come clear Only then can that relationship be restored, right? So marriage is you're not getting married to be abused.  Thank you so much, pastor Next one is Elisha Repentance and faith in Jesus Christ Is the foremost precondition for salvation. Yeah, so Repent and believe so repent and have faith in Jesus Christ is what, you know, will lead us into salvation. That's That's the call to salvation, right? So we're saved by grace through faith But that coming to faith is preceded by repentance us turning towards God Okay, I saw Sri Kumar's hand and That's maybe somebody else also put up the hand. Please ask you questions. Thank you, pastor. No I had a follow-up question What you discussed with Shaya? So anyway, you clarified it. I just wanted to know that how it work work out In a married couple, especially when the husband is more abusive and And and the wife is just waiting and waiting and waiting continuously for the man to change so in that condition or in the vice versa In that condition how how it can be practical? Like you know Like as you said every day you have to you have to forgive and it will not how it can be practical But you clear that thing. Thank you pastor Thank you Say please Yes pastor, just a clarification. So the verse that was brought up about Jesus saying we should forgive seven times 70 times Can you also be explained in the light of? Jesus wasn't really speaking literally That you have to count how many times we'll basically say Have an open heart to forgive as many times as possible But I also get your own part of The situation depending on the situation we need to take ourselves out if it's going to cost us But as much as possible what Jesus was busy says Forgive as many times as you can Am I right to say that sir? Yes. Yes, you're right You're right. So we just have to keep our heart clean that some that is something in our control And that's what we can do And the other person's change in behavior repentance is something they have to work with God. Yeah Okay Good any other questions? all right, so This concludes the second section on repentance recovery and restoration And so keep this focus very clear There's the in a goddess called us to holiness He wants his holiness to be formed in us established in us And part of that holiness being worked in our lives involves us Knowing and understanding the importance of repentance before God and You know being quicker to repent and get right with God So next week as we mentioned we will start off on the third section which is overcoming so practically How do we live an overcoming life so we can walk in holiness? How do we you know deal with temptation? And and the flesh and the world and the devil What are the things God has given to us? I'm to deal with these things. Okay. All right. Did you have a question? Oh Yes, yes. Thank you. I was just thinking about repentance It should be a daily discipline right in a is it like it should be a daily discipline in a person's life and a believer's life and also How can we help young children? to you know Understand this or come to this point of the need for repentance. How to make them understand Hmm So in the believer's life, yeah, it's a daily thing But when I spend we say daily It doesn't mean that we just do it as a ritual But every day we're conscious that If I do something that's out of alignment with God, I need to get back right now there may be Days where there's nothing wrong. I mean, you know, you've walked right to sleep before God and Yeah, so there's nothing to really repent of but so you you're not necessarily repenting of anything but There may be days when Something goes wrong and then you just say God. I'm sorry Right. That was wrong and you get yourself back into God. So keeping short account. So The answer is yes every day. We're conscious that if something goes wrong under quickly get back into The right place for God for little children We can one is we can speak to them Right, we can explain to them. All right, you see That's right This is wrong. You did what was wrong So what you need to do is say sorry like you need to Either say sorry to whoever you're wronged or sorry to God And you need to so we teach them that way And sometimes we Let them also experience I mean, this is a you know, depending on the situation experience the And the effect of See this is the right way. You didn't do it, right? So here's a consequence. You know something happened Which is not what you want And so they understand that The best way is not get back in line. Yeah, so we teach them through simple life lessons You know, um, and especially in teachable moments And something happens. That's the time to teach them, you know and Show them that okay. Here's how you say sorry And here's how you get back, you know, and once you say sorry It's all good. So even as parents When they say sorry, we need to show what restoration looks like That means we don't keep repeating that, you know, the mistake they made for the next two hours. No The moment they say sorry, that means they've shown repentance. We need to let them experience restoration Right, so they understand the whole process repentance recovery restoration They understand it in the simple life lessons and teachable moments So they and as parents we need to show them what it looks like And then they will understand that they value repentance whether it's in towards the parents or that same thing then applies in the relationship with god Mm-hmm. Thank you. Thank you best Yeah All right Times up 9 50 already quickly somebody could pray and we'll dismiss please Anyone could pray Yeah, go ahead Thank you father. Thank you god for this Uh, a wonderful opportunity lord that you're teaching us father all these things that we might have Lord known but never have perceived it well never have understood it well father lord. We thank you for teaching us about this Need for repentance father lord and how it leads to our recovery and restoration father lord help us father be People who keep short accounts lord in our life as well as who are quick to repent lord who are who said boundaries lord who are vigilant lord who Keep things transparent father lord Help us to keep ourselves humble lord before you. We thank you and praise you father for what We have learned we pray that you help us practice it in our lives father We bless past rations and all the students here father lord guide us lord and Teach us lord to walk in a deeper relationship with you all these things We pray in the name of our lord and savior juices Okay, everyone enjoy the rest of your day. Enjoy your classes Thank you. See you again. Thank you. See you again next week. God bless you all Thank you. Thank you Thank you Thank you pastor. Thank you. Thank you. God bless


Thank you, thank you very, very much everyone for joining us. This is the future that was mentioned in the previous session. I am so happy to see all of your faces and thank you so much for joining us today. So hello everyone and welcome to the final session of the African Regional Innovation Forum. We started the day today with a high level session which was then followed by regional good practices that are supporting innovation ecosystems. I hope that you could all attend it because it was a very interesting session indeed that we could learn a lot from about innovation ecosystems and what is actually going right in them. And so today or in this session, in this final session we are going to be zooming in on those who are hopefully enabled by these innovation ecosystems. They are the entrepreneurs themselves. So our speakers today are going to be including ITU innovation challenge winners, ITU telecom young innovation competition winners and African telecommunications union challenge winners who are going to be sharing their stories from the region. And so the goal of this session is not only to share success stories of entrepreneurs whom we see as role models in their respective ecosystems but also to better understand the local, regional and global innovation ecosystems through their stories. What we aim to do today is highlight which parts of these innovation ecosystems have actually acted as enablers for these people and also what might have hindered them in their entrepreneurial endeavors. This letter, what actually hindered them might in my opinion be seen as especially relevant for decision makers because we need to first understand the gaps in innovation ecosystems and we then need to fill these in order to help ecosystems move forward and improve. I would like to take a second to remind the audience to submit their questions in Swapcard so that we can pull these in during the Q&A session in the second half of our discussion today. So please don't forget to upload your questions over there. So today we have seven innovators who will be presenting their projects and this will happen in a very democratic way in an alphabetic order.  So our first speaker today is going to be Abdu Noor who is the founder of the Emloukha app. The solution won the African Telecommunication Union Challenge and is indeed an offline app that helps young learners access basic literacy and numeracy. What it does is it uses the language that they understand which I think is extremely important when we want to create access. The second speaker is going to be Brenda, Brenda Katvesige who is a winner of the ITU Telecom Young Innovators Competition and she comes from Uganda. Today she will be presenting Waze Vision which is a project that solves critical healthcare challenges. Our third speaker is going to be Becara who is a telecommunications engineer specialized in radio communication and will be presenting her solution Farm Guard which won the African Telecommunication Union Challenge. The fourth presenter today is going to be Hajra Kasim from South Africa and she will be presenting Hajra Entertainment, a film and electronic media company that trained film graduates through a mentorship program that also provides hands-on entrepreneurial skills for the film industry. The fifth presentation is going to be coming from Henry who is an ITU innovation challenge winner, pretty recent. He has also actually been recognized as one of the brightest young minds in Africa and will be presenting his project, Save the Chicken AI. I hope that he has arrived. I know that he has been having some issues with electricity speaking of infrastructures and access to energy, but I hope he will pop up soon. The sixth presenter is going to be James, James Kiruri from Kenya, who is an ITU innovation challenge winner. And today he will be telling us about TELISA, which is a mobile contract aggregation and advertising platform for a post-pandemic world. We can of course not forget that we are living in a pandemic right now. So I will be very interested in hearing what kinds of problems you have encountered in this situation and what the solutions are that you have found. And our final presenter is going to be Mai Najee, who is a winner of the African Telecommunication Union Challenge and also the CEO and co-founder of DeltaSoft, which is a company that focuses on e-learning and education technologies. So we're going to have three minutes each for our seven speakers and we asked them to present their companies, but preferably to focus on introducing their solution, why they developed these solutions and also to kind of zoom out and take a look at the bigger picture that it fits into. Once again, if the audience has any questions to our entrepreneurs today, please submit these in the swap card. And so now I'm going to start the screen sharing. Abdu-Nor, can you let me know if you're ready to present? I'm ready. You're ready. I will have to ask you to speak a little bit louder. And... Mic test. Mic test a little bit louder, if possible. Mic test. That's better. Thank you very much. If all goes well, everyone can see your presentation now. Oh, no. I can see it. Yes, very, very good. All right. Okay, stop. Thank you so much and hello everyone and thank you for this opportunity. My name is Abdu-Nor Alib Mahdi from Anomadi Community Living in Northern part of Kenya. I'm a Education Technologist, MSc with Education Technology and Instruction Design. And those are my children, as you can see in Ojiya, we're piloting M Luga app. These children are in Madrasa. It's a kind of Islamic studies where it's kind of cultural norm. You have to go through the Duxi, it's called Duxi for you to go to the circle education. So you might find these children might finish that Duxi at the age of 15 and go back to class one, the circle education with zero literacy. So that's why we introduce M Luga app so that at least by the time they go to school, they are equipped with basic literacy and numeracy in the language that they understand. And I think this language problem is an African problem and that's what my judges were telling me at Africa Tech Summit in Rwanda. They were like, this is an African problem. Every African child is struggling with the language. Imagine walking to a classroom for the first time but the only language you understand is your mother tongue. But the curriculum is in English or Swahili or French or Portuguese or other language, imagine. So how are you going to learn? It's a situation from unknown to unknown. It's like, this is my head, this is my head, not translation. But with M Luga, it's going to teach you the syllabus with the language that you understand, M Luga language. It currently covers around 20 indigenous languages in Kenya and we are coming to Rwanda and Tanzania and Ethiopia and other parts of Africa very soon. Please go ahead. Next slide. Yeah, sorry. You have one more minute to go, huh? Yeah, and if you don't, this is the battle of M Luga up. If you don't understand, how can you learn? That's why the M Luga came up. Please go ahead. And for your information, I'm also a certified telecommunication engineer and four years back, I was doing very well in the telecom industry. I was doing fiber to the home, FTTH. And then the struggles that our region is going through the education crisis had left me with no choice but to abandon the telecommunication industry and ventured into education. Go ahead, please. So why is M Luga relevant? According to these tweets by United Nations and UNESCO, M Luga is relevant because 40% of the learners in this world don't access the education in the language that they understand their first language. So I think these are some of the tweets that when we're celebrating the mother's day, mother's language day, go ahead, please. So M Luga is basically solving language barrier problem where the teacher cannot understand your language, you cannot understand the curriculum, but this M Luga will going to play an intermediate role between the teachers. Shortage of schools where we have nomadic lifestyle, people are just moving around with their camels and cows. So they move away from school. Lack of teachers, in our region we had security reasons where non-local teachers were targeted by Al-Shawab and the security, you know, other security threats. So they ran away, some schools were closed. And then COVID disruption. Now that you're at home, how can you learn when you don't understand the syllabus?  Please go ahead. So what is the solution? Solution is a mother tongue-based offline multilingual app. In Kenya here, the language policy covers app to grade three. Now we are done with PP1, PP2, and we are going to grade one, two, and three. So the app also bring the aspect of culture.  This for Somali community, so you have to go through the traditional tools and stuff like that before you go to the app. Please go ahead. So this is the demo, that's a dog and a cat. So below we have two buttons, an English button and the Somali button. So you just have to click. It gives you dog, dog, dog, and then A, A, A, A, A, and then cat, cat, cat, and then it gives you. So it's an offline, you can just do it all over. All day long. Go ahead, please. So here are some of the awards by the M Luga. It was based 100 startups in Istanbul last year, 2019. Out of 160,000 applications, M Luga was best 100. And also it was based 11 startups selected to pitch at Africa Tech Summit early this year. And then the mother of all awards, ATU Africa Innovation Challenge runner up. That was, I think, two weeks ago. Go ahead, please. And the noise I've been making throughout the media from BBC to VOA to our local, what do you call, stations. And this is what I'm going to tell my fellow innovators. Please make noise. Make noise, be relevant. Go ahead, please. And still, I think the next is still on the page on the, on the dailys of the Kenyan dailys where I've been also been making noise. Okay, go ahead. Thank you. I think the app is available on App Store and Play Store. Thank you so much. Thank you very, very much. This was a really, really nice presentation. And the next presentation is going to be coming from Brenda from Moisi Vision. Let me just open it up for you. And here we go. Hi, hi. It's really exciting to, to join all of you. And I'm very, very excited to speak about Moisi Vision. I am Brenda and I'm the co-founder of Moisi Vision in Uganda. Moisi Vision turns wasting to value and we make beautiful, affordable, durable, stylish eyewear from Plastic Waste. Go ahead, Regina. Yes. If you walk into any kind of eye care center in Kabala today, probably the minimum amount of money that you pay for a pair of eye glasses will be around $100 on average, $150 with the lenses. So this is the biggest challenge that we're trying to solve. The challenge of affordability of eyewear and eye care generally in Uganda and in Africa at large. And on the other hand, we have a problem with so much plastic waste. Typically collectors in Uganda will export, will collect plastic waste, cut it into small pieces and export it to China and India. But recently China is not taking up that plastic waste anymore. So what we are doing is upcycling it, adding value to it locally and making something as impactful as affordable eyewear that is now 80% more affordable than what is on the market right now. Next slide. So we are located in Uganda in Kabala and we have a facility where we make these. These eye glasses are made with love by African artisans. They are designed here, created here and put everything that is put in here. So locally sourced material with local women that are collecting and also participating within the chain of manufacturing for these eye glasses. Then these are distributed to different people that then buy them at affordable, affordable prices. Yeah, so we collect plastic and some of the plastic waste we use is PET which is any bottle that we use to drink water. That is our raw material for us. We get this from multiple sources, individual collectors, local businesses, corporates. And then we use plastic injection molding technology to make affordable eye glasses that then we distribute. We used to distribute directly B2C which is business to customer from us directly to the customer but now we have strategic partnerships that are helping us distribute this and scale. We're currently in Uganda but also in Rwanda and we're looking to scale across of Africa. So the dream is to be the biggest eyewear brand out of Africa, so from Africa to the world. Next slide, Regina. So yeah, we are focused heavily on the sustainable goals being goal number three, which is good health and wellbeing, decent work and economic growth and of course climate action. So if you would like to get in touch, Regina, next slide please. This is our contact information. Check out our website on Wasing Vision. You can reach us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Yeah, so thank you so much. I'm really excited to be part of today's partner session. Perfect, thank you very, very much. And I just want to point out how I appreciate that there are so many different layers to this solution to how many different problems are actually being addressed at the same time. So I want to ask into the round whether Henry has arrived, Henry from Save the Chicken. Unfortunately, I can't see him even though he did message me on, or he did email me that he was joining. All right, I believe that this access to electricity might be hindering his access to the session today. Which is something that we might need to, we might need to address in our discussion. All right, in that case, I would like to jump back to Becquerel, who I hope she can hear me. I know that there's a little bit of delay with the interpretation. Becquerel, are you here? Are you ready to present? We, hello. Hello Becquerel.  And Madame Save the Chicken, well, and there will be some questions for you. I would like to kindly ask you to start your three-minute presentation about your solution, Farm Guard. Can you hear me better, please? Yes, I can hear you. Hello, Madame. I won the third prize, I won the third prize of the African Telecommunications Union organized by the African Union. I prepared a presentation that I couldn't share because I used my phone to be able to assist the farm guards. My machine has no more autonomy, no more energy. I would like to share with you the vision of the project that I am carrying, the Farm Guard project. Today, we can no longer doubt the importance of the agricultural sector for our different countries. It is a sector that is already in the past. The means of the necessary existence to feed us and also contributes greatly to the economic development of our countries. But what we see is that this sector faces several problems, the difficulties that prevent it from playing its role. And in the context of our Farm Guard project, we have decided to attack the problems of the destruction of agricultural culture by animals. Animals are often called devastating animals. So these animals usually destroy our culture in the different phase of production. For example, in the semi, we often expect that when we put the grains in the soil, the animals, the birds, the deer, the release of the soil of the young animals. We have animals that cut the leaves, which prevents them from having a good development, a good growth. And even during the maturation of the produce, we often see that the animals attack the fruits of these that are already matured. And this is the cause of many losses for the farmers. If, for example, they had expected to have 8 tons of corn, they would have approximately 5 tons of corn. And also, the farmers are led to deploy time and additional resources to compensate for the losses caused by the animals. So our solution, Farm Guard, is an electronic kit that removes the animals from your agricultural plantations. So when you deploy your kit in your plantation, it will emit a lot of nutrients that will stimulate the nervous system of the animal. And these animals will feel uncomfortable, which will make them far away from the perimeter of these kits. So by inviting us to another solution, of course, to augment the productivity of agricultural experts and also what will help boost the economy of our different countries. And thank you very, very much. Thank you very, very much for this short and very, very informative summary of your project. Really, really appreciate it. And we are going to now continue with Hajra, Hajra Kasim, who will also be presenting verbally. Please don't forget to unmute yourself. Hi, can you hear me? Yes. OK. Hi, my name is Hajra Kasim, and I'm from South Africa. Hello, everybody. And thank you, Regina, for this topic. I work in the film industry in South Africa. So we do a massive international series like Origin, Mad Max 4, Raised by Wolves, which was the last job that we did. And our company aligns itself to gear rentals. So we work very closely with Penelog's for big massive cameras, gear and lights. And our niche is also to empower young students to come through university or film school and give them training and skills development opportunity on film sets. Because of COVID, from January, we have lost all our contracts. It has been difficult for the film industry. It has decimated the film industry basically because of international travel, most of our clients are international. So the innovative solutions have had to be of what we're doing on set. And one of the things that has happened very quickly is that little pockets and hubs and collaborations have occurred online using green screen or blue screen techniques. And videos and commercials are now being edited remotely rather than having people on set. South Africa has had very strict, one of the strictest lockdowns in the world. For five weeks, people were in total lockdown where you couldn't leave your front door basically unless you needed to go for medical help or to go to the shops. So that meant that there were medical challenges. You couldn't be on a film set until two months ago. People couldn't make movies the way you used to make movies. It's social distancing. It's masks. It's sanitizing. Two beautiful things came out of that. And the one was the recycling project started by the South African Film Academy, which is a not-for-profit, where young innovators and young solutions driven graduates based in the school could come out and do environmental studies and looking at where we can film and can't film. And also, they began doing recycling projects. So they would recycle 10 times more than we did pre-COVID because it became very important to realize an impact assessment on what the film industry has in the environment. So that was the first thing. So heightened awareness in terms of marine biology, ecology, where you're filming, how you're filming, health protocols in place. Local communities began to get affected because work was outsourced to local people rather than internationals. So it sustained the South African economy to a degree. And also, most of our learning has moved to master classes online. So that has been a huge uptick. It used to be very traditional. We want to be in a classroom. We want to be with a lecturer. We want to be taught. And in a space of six months, everything's moved offline. Classes have removed remotely. Collaborations have happened. And movies are being created entirely online. And because cinemas were shut down and there was no access to traditional forms, another innovation that came about was what was known as cottage or garage industries where a group of only 10 people could go and watch a movie. But innovation existed around how they watched the movie with social distancing. So that was really wonderful. So COVID has had positive impact in terms of solutions driven, obviously negative in terms of economic impact because of the big industries from overseas. But it's made us more focused on South Africa as a continent, I mean, as a country and also that young graduates are leading through technology in how they see filmmaking and how they approach the new COVID protocols on a film set. Thank you. Thank you very, very much for these very interesting and just very up-to-date insights that you've had about the industry and how society has been trying to navigate around the new normal, as they say, which I think is very far from normal. So very interesting. Thank you very much, Sandra. Thank you. Keeping an eye on the time, I'm just going to ask into the round again whether Henry has arrived. And if not, then we hope that he will maybe pop up as the last speaker. In that case, James, I hope that you're ready to share your story with us. James Kiruri, are you here? Yes, I am. Very nice. I will be sharing your presentation. OK. Go ahead, James. Excellent. Thank you. Thank you, Regina. And thank you, everyone, for joining this webinar this afternoon. As has been said, my name is James Kiruri. I'm based in Nairobi, Kenya. And today I'm going to talk about TELESA, a revolutionary mobile content aggregation and advertising platform that we have developed since February 2018 and now it's actively in the market, having gone through an MVP. Next slide, please, Regina. Sorry. Yeah. So basically, if I could give you a bit of a background on the media landscape in Kenya. Pre-2015, radio was the main companion. TV sets were few and far between. And internet wasn't that readily available. Then the digital migration happened between 2012 and 2015. And media consumption moved from appointments. An appointment is where you made a date with a radio or a TV set to either watch news or get content that was of interest. What then happened after that, it became the world west. As the internet is now, lots of digital channels, numerous blogs, and this is on top of what was already existing as traditional media. So the internet became a place that was very congested and not very easy to find content. And then came the mobile phone, and in particular, the smartphone. And the medium has since changed and it became mobile first. So most or majority of people now access in content via mobile first before they go to any other device. As Telesa Africa, we've got a founding team with diverse skills, but very strong media experience. And then, of course, come March for us. COVID-19 happened, and certain behavior changes happened. For instance, what would happen before? If you look at traditional media, newspapers, and magazines, this would be shared among many people. In fact, they say for every newspaper to be read by between 10 and 20 people. And that, of course, has changed. And a lot of the content now is consumed digitally and online. Next slide, please, Regina. And that's why we came up with Telesa and why Telesa. With all these mobile devices available with internet access, we asked ourselves, how can we use that to then deliver content? And not just deliver content, but deliver it in an innovative, simple, and convenient way to our users. And we are using what we call the lock screen, which is basically the fast screen on your phone when you unlock the phone. You get content that is of interest. We curate it based on your interests. We use machine learning and artificial intelligence to learn what is relevant content for you. And that's what you get served with. The plan is to start in Kenya, which we've already done. Telesa is already in the market and getting great traction. And then we'll build it to the rest of the region and into Africa and hopefully to the rest of the world. Next slide, please. And our copy, we've got four key stakeholders. We've got the user, we've got the advertiser. We've got publishers. We have over 50 of them already on the platform, local, regional, and international. And of course, the element of choice. The users can now find content fairly easily and based on choice. Next slide, please. Yeah, and that's about Telesa. And those are my details. And thank you very much for this opportunity to talk about Telesa. Thank you very, very much for sharing this with us. And so now we have arrived at the last presentation before we go into our discussion round. Mai, if you're ready. Yes, welcome Regina.  I'm so happy to be here today. I am Mai Nagy, CEO of Deltasoft and Co-Finder. This is an Egyptian company. Works in e-learning. And nowadays, education faces a lot of problems. And one of the most important of big problems is contagious diseases. Next, please, Regina. Cautious diseases like COVID-19 leads to closing the most schools in African country. Next, please, Regina. And crowded school also created weakness in traditional education itself. Next, also lack of resources because not every school has developed science labs. Science virtual lab is so important because a lot of reasons. Next, please, Regina. Thank you. Visual science lab consists of chemistry, physics, and biology 3D lab. It helps students to perform the experiment by himself in safe environment. It solves the issues of capacity availability and dangerous materials, gases, et cetera. And also, visual science lab provide instructions, information, and videos for how to perform the experiment in the right way. Next, please, Regina, two slides. Another one, thank you. Sorry, this one? Yes, this one. Also, visual science lab provide 3D modeling of human body when any students need to know more about any organ. He just choose it and separates it from the body. And he can rotate it to see from all sides. And if he want to know more about it, just click on this organ. With you appears to explain how this organ works and its functionality. Next, please. Now we have a visual science lab in Arabic language. And we are working on localizing it to English. And we have planned to provide French and Swahili version to make sure that all students have the same chance in education. Thank you. Beautiful. Thank you very, very much for sharing this with us. And I think that all of these different solutions are just mirroring a lot of important questions that are out there right now. And this is actually why I am so passionate about grassroots innovation and solutions coming from, you know, sometimes the most surprising places, because it is the entrepreneurs who can answer to societal questions really, really fast. Now I just got the news that Henry has arrived. So if we can move him to the panelists group, then he can also present his solution, save the chicken AI before we have a quick wrap up. ITU colleagues, could you please help me? ITU colleagues, could you please move Henry into the round of panelists? Excuse me? Henry, save the chicken, has arrived as an audience member. And I would need him to be moved to the group of panelists. OK, perfect. Thank you. Perfect. Hello, Henry. I'm happy that you're here. Did you have some electricity issues or what happened? I hear. Thank you. That's all right. Some challenges, but then I'm OK. I'm good to go. I'm very happy to hear that and so happy that you have managed to arrive. I'm going to be sharing my screen now with your presentation. And please feel free to get started. OK. So five minutes, three minutes. It's good to go. So yes, my name is Henry Gallup for it here. And I am the CEO of Forty Farmers Management System. Next slide, please. Now, in Cameroon and in so many developing countries and even developed countries, so many livelihoods of Forty Farmers are being constrained because of critical mortalities. Farmers, because of diseases, critical mortalities because of diseases. So these farmers, they don't have the access to, because they are small in scale. So they don't have the access to quality veterinarian services or to have the veterinarian on farm, like being on the farm. And 80% of the market is not yet serviced by traditional red services. And there is high risk of disease from farm to farm disease spread. When a veterinarian moved from one farm to the other, there is this high risk of disease spread from one farm to the other. And so currently in Cameroon, one in every seven chicken dies before maturity. That's about 15%, which is really, really enormous. Likewise in other countries in sub-Saharan Africa, in Asia, even in Baguio farms in the Europe, the US, it's still just the same thing. And so most of these farmers, they lack access to market for their ready products when their products are really like their chickens or their eggs. Next slide, please. And so I cannot do this alone. So this is the powerful team behind. And it's a family, like stakeholders coming together. But the exporter is like Dr. Bertha with worldwide networks of over 500 rates in Africa and 60,000 farmers, like Chochimambi, one of the techies rated by Forbes or more are like the best techies in Africa. Roast pelagic, the brain behind the tumor it commends Cameroon penetration. And my home boost of exporter is in animal feed production and also the senior advisor of Salva's Life to Farmers Union. So we came together and have to solve this problem. Next slide, please. We decided to solve this problem in a simultaneous way. We know there is a farmers need to identify these diseases early enough and take adequate measures so that they should not get escalating. So farmers can instantly use the smartphone to do early disease diagnosis by taking the photo of the chicken faces or the chicken itself. And our software is able to tell you if the chicken is sick or not in an early stage. So you can prepare well on what to do. That's for farmers. And then for veterinarians, you can connect, you can, you can scale your practices to farmers worldwide. You know, you can be in Cameroon and you're servicing a farmer down in some region or in some village in Kenya or in Nigeria and you have more income, like income stream for yourself. It's just a small token. Yes, because we're trying to make sure that all farmers have the access to veterinary services. You can consult, you can buy products and so on. So for farmers as well, you can sell your products to a rating market still on the platform. So people like hotels, restaurants and middlemen, they can just, you can sell your products directly to them, which when your products are ready for sale, you just go and see what you are selling and it gets directly to the buyer through an SMS. So we're trying to make sure this becomes very inclusive for everybody. And so livelihood for smallholder farmers becomes, it's what we want because these people, they contribute so much in our country GDP and still remain poor even being in farming for decades. You know, so that is what we have been able to do and I welcome any questions. And next slide, please. Thank you. You can get in touch with us at any time. We are ready to serve because we want a food sustainable food systems. Thank you. Very good. Thank you very, very much for this, Henry. And so we have about 10 minutes left for a really brief discussion. And so I would like to maybe start with there are two things I would like to focus on. When you look at your own ecosystem, so these have been presentations about the projects, the problems that you're trying to solve. But of course, entrepreneurs cannot succeed without a healthy supportive ecosystem that can help them become sustainable. So in the next 10 minutes, I would like to focus on two key points. What has been, what kind of support have you been receiving from your ecosystem? And what was it that you would have wished for? So the first question focuses on kind of informal interactions and exchanges that are there. I know that Henry hasn't mentioned this, but his seed funding, the first mover investor was actually his mother who put her savings into the project. And so I think mothers often don't actually think of themselves as early stage investors, so to say, but there are a lot of such informal interactions that play crucial roles, especially when there is a gap in the ecosystem. And of course, an entrepreneur or a person will always find a way to bootstrap and solve issues that they encounter. But can you think of examples of how, from your entrepreneurial journey, how there was maybe a gap in the innovation ecosystem that you would have wished that it had been addressed earlier or a gap that maybe you had to bridge or overcome with the help of your immediate environment that normally you wish that it would have been addressed by the innovation ecosystem delivering the way that it should and excuse these blue things that I have on my body. Anyone can start. Okay, so let me say something. I think one of the greatest challenges I've ever had is not thinking straight about collaboration in the other stage, but thinking that you want to just develop some kind of groundbreaking project or a product where everybody will just get into it. And I find out that there was this disconnect between the farmers, like the farmers, and the people who have to create these solutions. So many of times we just think we can do it or not knowing that the best thing so far is to be on the field and to see exactly what you can change while doing it right down the field. And for issues we have faced, like the greatest challenges we have faced is connectivity. Like we try to partner with B-Bound, augmented connectivity in France to make sure that we can have these people in the rural areas can be able to access connectivity while using our solution. So I think as a personal challenge or a company challenge who have faced problems of connectivity in rural areas. Thank you. Thank you very much. Connectivity and infrastructure in general, and especially in rural areas, has also been a major topic in the previous session. I think that that is really an excellent point. And especially ensuring that people who would like to do something new, they don't have to move into a big city, but they can work on their solutions wherever they are empowering rural communities through infrastructure. Brenda? Yeah. So I'll speak about this from both country perspective, Africa-wide perspective, but also global perspective. I'm just very glad that the innovation ecosystem is global in a way because I can connect with all of you amazing entrepreneurs via Zoom, via this platform. And I met Regina at the ITU Young Innovators competition which was a long time ago, but we connected, I'm from Uganda and I connected with so many people out of my country. And I got so much support in terms of mentorship and actually the funding, all the funding that I have got as a business has come from outside of my country. Now that's a great thing, but it's also a big, it highlights a problem for the Ugandan ecosystem. A typical Ugandan investor will invest in land, a piece of land or a building and they will not invest in a startup, right? So it's taking people from outside of my country to actually support this. It's funny because two weeks ago, Paystack was bought by Stripe for $200 million and I read a story that the Paystack guys asked the government to invest in them a long time ago and they refused. So this here comes Stripe and Visa and bigger companies from outside of our ecosystems that are seeing the opportunities that we're not seeing. So I think in a way, the challenge is how can we, people within our ecosystems also create the value and the change that we want to see within our continents as of course external people in other countries are also seeing the opportunities here. So I think it's a win and a loss on one side and the other. I really appreciate what you said about an innovation ecosystem that doesn't necessarily have to be, it can be a village, it can be a region, it can be sub-Saharan Africa, but it can also be global, right? And as long as you have the access to that global innovation ecosystem that is probably a good solution to, I really hope that people who are sitting on this panel today are actually going to be the ones who are going to be creating the future and just bringing in all the good practices and altering them to ensure that the local innovation ecosystem can work in a happy and healthy way. Abdinore, would you like to say something? Yeah, I kind of like their suggestion by Brenda. Actually, it's true that most of the African startups are never funded by African people. Most of them are not even bought or funded by African, what do you call, they're once with the money. And that's a very, what do you call a very, very discouraging point. And actually, if you tell an African guy, hey, let's build a hundred million story building, they go look for money, bring it, but when it comes to startups, actually no one's really like to invest in startups. But in Kenya, I think Africa is also waking up. In Kenya right now, we have a startup bill by the Senate, which I hope is going to play a very important role in supporting Cubation and the startups. We are joining the likes of Tunisia and Senegal, which already adopted the startup bill. And I hope that startup bill is going to be a blessing to us because as we speak right now, we in Kenya especially, we have a hard time as a startup because of the bureaucratic nature of the institutions. Like for example, my app has to go through the Ministry of Education. For you to get the approval from the Ministry of Education, you have to maybe pay a lot of money as a startup to get approved. Maybe your startup is in the health sector, you have to go through the health ministry for you to get approved. So you see going through the government offices is really, really trouble. So sometimes you might even take two years to go through the approval by the relevant ministries for you even to go to market. So I think if we have maybe a very nice startup bill where your startup gets tax relief maybe or maybe funding by the government, by your government, instead of looking for an outside investor, it will be, I think all those things has been captured by the startup bill. So let's see if it goes through. Thank you. Brilliant, thank you very much. Financing and just kind of making the bureaucratic processes somewhat easier and legislative measures to help people make their dreams happen as it is obviously so important for every single society. That, yeah, that entrepreneurs can thrive. We have a question from Swapcard and we need to wrap up in two minutes. So I'm going to have to ask everyone to maybe just answer in one word or half a sentence. So it's a quarter of a tweet, let's say it that way. What kind of support from your local, regional or international even ecosystems, let's say, have you received? And so, yeah, if you had a wish for a government and other ecosystem actors, what would that be? So if you had one wish, what would you wish for? Just one, two, three words, please. But I would like to hear from everyone and let's do this in alphabetical order once again. So let's start with Abdinur. I wish that we had fully equipped incubation and startup support hubs in our regions where everyone with a crazy idea can just walk in and then get supported financially and in terms of information and also networking. All right, thank you very much. Crazy ideas to be supported. Brenda? My wish is for us to build an ecosystem that chants out paystacks every now and then. My wish is that we grow and develop our local South African economy because the borders are closed. So to use cross-collaboration with other support systems and besides the film industry to find common denominators with other systems, ecosystems and collaborate with them. Exchange of best practices, so to say. Thank you very much, Henry. Yes, my own wish is we as entrepreneurs, we should start thinking about investing in various and fellow entrepreneurs like being an investor. We shouldn't wait for these other people out there to come to invest in our own ecosystems. We can do it. So I think a $10 will help a small young entrepreneur to start something or maybe a computer laptop will help an entrepreneur to start something. So I see innovations in the U.S. where they invest in training you how to code and you will pay only when you have started working. So that's a long-term investment but we don't see that. I think we should start like trying to invest in young entrepreneurs ourselves because we can spend some 10, 50, 20 or a $100 bill. So we can start doing that. Thank you. Thank you very much. This could happen in Abdu Noor's innovation hub where crazy ideas are shared and then co-founded. James? The legislation that is geared towards startups and small businesses and stronger and better enforcement of intellectual property. All right. Thank you. And finally, May, what would be your wish? I wish to work with ministries of communication and education all over the African countries because most investors don't like to invest in education. All right. Thank you very, very much for all your insights. I wish we had another hour because I know that we would have a lot more to share but now I have to pass the word onto the regional director so that we can wrap up the final session and the regional forum. Thank you very much for participating in this. It was really lovely to see you all.


If you are studying a subject like quantum mechanics, it's always best to read through a good book so that you can understand the subject in a systematic manner with the right perspective. A good book is like a guide who can hold your hand and take you in a wonderful journey step by step through an unknown terrain. So if you want to be familiar with an unknown terrain, it's always best to speak to somebody who knows that terrain and can communicate to you the information in a smooth, organized manner. Now, the market is kind of saturated with a large number of books, especially in quantum mechanics.  But if you are a beginner, then you can get easily overwhelmed by all the information that is out there and therefore get distracted by so many books and so much information that you end up losing interest in the subject.  Now my list of books mainly depends upon my own experience of reading through these books over the years and it is not the end all be all. So there are many, many excellent books out there. So if I'm not able to mention one of the books that you are going through, it's perfectly fine. At the end of the day, it is more important that you read through one good book instead of getting distracted by multiple books out there. So based on my own experience, the very first recommendation is a book called Concepts of Modern Physics by Arthur Beiser. Now please ignore the state of this book. Some of these books I have had for decades. So the pages may be yellow and a little bit torn. It happens with time, you know. Now this is a book that is not really a book on quantum mechanics per se, but it contains multiple branches. But this is an excellent book, especially for beginner students. Students who have completely no idea what quantum mechanics is. So for somebody who is an absolute beginner, let's suppose somebody who is right out of high school and they are not really familiar with anything about quantum mechanics. They don't know what photoelectric effect is. They don't know what wave particle duality is for those kinds of students or for students who are non-physics students, let's suppose a student in college who is not really studying physics, but studying maybe chemistry or mathematics or computer science and they have in their first year or first semester a paper on physics which might contain a couple of topics from the introduction of quantum mechanics. For those students, this book is an excellent choice because it contains the introductory part of quantum mechanics in a very beautiful manner. If you look at the content of the book, it contains a broad range of topics in modern physics, including special relativity, quantum mechanics, atomic physics, solid state physics, nuclear physics, and particle physics. And because it contains so many branches in physics, it shows you how everything is interconnected and therefore a very good introduction to modern physics in general. Now I like this book because the writing style is very, very simple, crisp, clear, and the mathematics is very minimal. It is a good reference for those students who do not really want to dive deep into the theory of quantum mechanics, but simply wants to be introduced to the introductory ideas of quantum mechanics like wave particle duality, atomic structure, Schrodinger's equation, hydrogen atom, etc. What I love about this book is that it contains small biographies about scientists in the middle of each chapter that makes reading the topic so much more interesting. The best quality about this book is, however, the organization of the topics. It contains the relevant theory, the formula, the diagrams, the tables, etc. in a very smooth and sufficient manner. The concepts are not too text heavy. The mathematics is not too detailed, but it is more or less sufficient for introductory introduction to the subject for absolute beginners or non-physics students. This is a good reference to have. Now, if you want to dive deep into the theory of quantum mechanics, then the next book is Introduction to Quantum Mechanics by David Griffiths. This I would say is a gold standard in quantum mechanics and it is a must have, especially for those students who really want to study the subject properly. Keep in mind that this is not for absolute beginners at all, as it doesn't contain anything about the origins of quantum mechanics and jumps straight into the quantum mechanical theory. In fact, the very first chapter, the very first paragraph, introduces to you the Schrodinger's equation without wasting any time. What I love about this book is that reading this book feels like reading a novel where the author is speaking to you. It is not just a collection of text and mathematical formula. The author is actually engaging in a conversation which feels very much enjoyable. Another thing is that the author doesn't really shy away from discussing some deeply philosophical questions about the nature of the subject. In fact, in the very first chapter itself, when discussing the concepts of the wave function, it gives us the various schools of thought that exist within the scientific community regarding the various interpretations of what it means to make a measurement. Many college level books do not do this. You see, when studying a subject like quantum mechanics, it's not just enough to know the theory and the mathematical formula. You also have questions regarding its broader physical implications. This book really goes into those questions sometimes in the middle of reading, which makes it a very enjoyable thing to do so, especially for me, because I don't really find that kind of a conversation happening in many other books. Now, this is a very concise, yet a very comprehensive book, and it is suitable for both college level students and university students, as it contains not only the basics of quantum mechanics like Schrodinger's equation, probabilistic interpretation, hydrogen atom, et cetera, but goes into advanced topics like perturbation theories, scattering, et cetera. Now, if you have read this book and you want to do a little bit of a more in-depth study of the subject, the third recommendation I have is quantum mechanics concepts and applications by Zetley. This is a very, very good book for intermediate to advanced students who are probably already familiar with quantum mechanical theories, Schrodinger's equation, et cetera. It is a very comprehensive book and covers almost all the fundamentals of quantum mechanics and its applications. It's very well written and very detailed. Now, unlike Griffith's, the first chapter of this book is devoted to origins of quantum mechanics, but from the second chapter, it goes straight into the mathematical methods and matrix formulation of quantum mechanics. Compared to Griffith's, this is more detailed and quite heavy in mathematics. Where this book shines is it provides a large number of problem solving. Now, many times when studying a subject like quantum mechanics, we get too involved in the theory, but forget to do sufficient amount of problem solving. And if you are a college or a university student and you appear in a paper on quantum mechanics, they are not really going to ask you the definition or the mathematical formula of something. They are going to give you a system and then they are going to ask you to solve it. For example, for a certain potential, what is the nature of its probability distribution? What is the expectation value for a given system? Find out the energy eigenvalues, et cetera. So therefore, apart from understanding the theory of quantum mechanics, you should also be able to solve problems or systems in the kind of questions that usually come in college and university examinations. And for that, you need to spend time in problem solving. This book gives you a large number of solved problems as well as unsolved problems that you can go through to develop that kind of aptitude. So if you look at the end of chapter number two, which basically introduces the bracket notation as well as the matrix formulation of operators, it contains a large number of solved problems that you can go through, that you can practice, which will help you develop that skill of solving different kinds of problems, especially in the subject of quantum mechanics. Now, if you make a comparison between both these two books, Griffiths and Zettli, both these two books have slightly different flavors. Now, while Griffiths puts more emphasis on developing the physical intuition about the subject of quantum mechanics, Zettli, on the other hand, spends more time in the mathematical formulation of quantum mechanics. Griffiths chooses a more traditional approach to teaching the subject, like developing the understanding of the initial concepts, like probabilistic interpretation, Schrodinger's equation, wave function, et cetera, et cetera. Zettli takes a more modern approach. It jumps straight into the matrix formulation of quantum mechanics and just spends a lot of time looking at the subject from the mathematical perspective. So this book is very heavy in mathematics. And if you want to go for this book, you should be good, especially with differential equations and linear algebra. Now, I don't really want to recommend too many books to you. There are some other excellent books out there in the market.  For somebody who wants to study the theory of quantum mechanics, Griffiths is a must-have, and somebody who wants a little bit more detailed study in terms of the mathematical formulation of the subject, Zettli is a very good choice. I think for 90% of my students, these books are going to be more than sufficient. But I'm going to give you some more additional recommendations, not as a main book, but as an additional reference. Let's suppose you have these books and you want some additional reference to look at, then the books that I'm going to talk about now, you can use as an additional reference. So in that context, I have this next book, which is Quantum Physics by Robert Eisberg and Robert Resnick. This book is written in the style of Bizer in the sense that it contains multiple branches of physics, like quantum mechanics, solid state physics, semiconductors, nuclear physics, elementary particles, et cetera. But unlike Bizer, it's a very detailed book. It's a very text-heavy book, and it requires a lot of reading to go through, but it is also good in the sense that it contains very less mathematics. So for those students who really get scared of mathematics, students who want to do a deep dive into quantum mechanics, but really are not comfortable with too much mathematics, for them, I think this book would be helpful. But keep in mind that this is very text heavy and requires a lot of reading through a lot of material for you to grasp the subject. Another two books that I have, especially for origins of quantum mechanics, six ideas that shape physics particles behave like waves thomas more. This is a book for absolute beginners, which gives you an idea about wave particle duality, wave function, atomic structure, nuclear physics, radioactivity, et cetera. Now this book has written a very different style.  You're interested in a different flavor. So if you're interested in a different flavor of reading the introductory topics of this particular subject, then you might give this book a shot because the presentation of this particular book is very different from other books. Maybe you will like it, maybe you won't like it, but if you're interested in a different flavor, you can give this book a shot. Another book, which is a book by an Indian author, H.C. Verma, you can go through. It's a very good book for both intermediate as well as advanced students. It has its own style, contains quite a bit of theory and mathematical examples. If you want an additional reference, this might be one of them. Another book whose hard copy I do not have a very popular book is Principles of Quantum Mechanics by R. Shankar. It's a very widely known textbook, especially for intermediate as well as advanced students, and quite popular for its clear and concise explanations. Again, this is for intermediate and advanced students. Now talking about advanced students, sometimes it may happen that you have gone through many of these books, and maybe you are looking forward to doing a dissertation or research in your future, and you want additional references. You see, sometimes it may happen that you want multiple books that you can refer to when studying a particular topic. In that context, I'm going to refer to two more authors. The first is Quantum Mechanics Volume 1 and 2 by Kohen Tanaji for advanced students who want additional reference and additional textbook, a good reference on various advanced topics. This is one of them. The next is Advanced Quantum Mechanics by J.J. Sakurai. Now, for the intermediate and the beginner students, don't even go there. You will waste time. You will not understand them much. It is only for students who are already familiar with everything that I've just now mentioned, and want some additional touch, additional reading. Only for them, they can go for these books. Before I end the video, it is important to know that you should not waste too much time in multiple books getting distracted by different writing styles, different approaches, and so much amount of content out there. It's always best if you have just one good textbook and you read it thoroughly. So if you are in the middle of reading a textbook right now, and I have not yet mentioned that book in this particular video, it's perfectly fine. This is just a recommendation based on my own experience, and this is only for those students who are looking to get into reading a particular textbook. Only in that situation, you can choose any one of these books. Anyways, Quantum Mechanics is a very fascinating subject. So therefore, different authors have written different books in their own style, in their own approach, in their own manner, and you will get a different flavor when you read a different author. But no matter the flavor, the content of the subject is still the same everywhere. So that is all for today. These are book recommendations on Quantum Mechanics. In the next video, I'm going to start with wave particle duality. And that is all for today. Thank you so much. Bye-bye.