Brian Afande — transcript

BlackRhino VR

This transcript is generated automatically by YouTube and has not been checked by a person. It misspells names and mishears words, particularly around Kenyan English and company names, so read it as a guide to the conversation rather than a quotable record. Each timestamp opens the video at that moment.

0:01 [Music] good morning ladies and gentlemen and welcome to episode 10 uh of African do podcast we're very excited that we have made it this far and are now recording our 10th episode uh today we have a very interesting guest in a very interesting space emerging space and uh it's Brian afandi of black rhino VR don't worry I'm with you we're going to learn today what this whole Space of a r VR and the other acronyms that follow are about maybe Brian you can introduce yourself to the party yeah thanks first thank you and congratulations on 10 episodes thank you very much it's building momentum and I feel like you know these conversations are needed they are yeah for the sake of context uh my name is brand yes um a lot of people call me Mr French from back in the day because I used to DJ okay I used to uh DJ on Capital FM and a crew called codre yes started with Styles and the

1:02 rest of the guys and then we transitioned into blacker entertainment so my background is in marketing retail and also I graduated from the prestigious School of YouTube premium okay I taught myself and my team on what extended reality Technologies are and how they can be applied okay yeah excellent yeah yeah before we get into the extended reality space which I think will be the backbone maybe let me just take a step back when I was doing my reading on you yeah I saw that you're a graduate of University of Nairobi yeah I think you're the only is it epistemologist I don't I don't think I know I was trying to think when I read that you your your first degree is in Psychology and epistemology yes so maybe just start us there and this guy who was in university of Nairobi who studied epistemology and now is in the VR space maybe you can just give us a quick summary of where you started and how you

2:00 find yourself where you are today so interestingly enough I never finished the course okay halfway through my uni um stint I just realized that the educational sector the way it's been designed hasn't been designed in such a way that we can be able to produce critical thinkers okay I felt like there were certain um let's say lack of a better word certain guards that were created for us especially for me as a creative uh person not to thrive in that environment okay so yes I studied epistemology which is a study of like thinking and knowledge it's a study of knowledge yes it is but I also doubled it up with philosophy MH um I feel like knowledge is static and knowledge is not static and it's Dynamic yeah and because knowledge is dynamic the way you can be able to access knowledge has to come from different places looking at the old philosophers the Socrates the THS of my

2:56 letters um you know Aristotle all these guys had time to think and a lot of us as individuals I borrow a lot of stuff from philosophy because a lot of individuals don't have time to think we are caught up in a rat race yes and each and every day as we are caught up in the rat R we don't critically sit down and say and reflect on your day and introspect and plan and strategize we don't do that so you constantly exist but if you look at what you've achieved personally not even I'm not talking about the symbols of successful people think I'm talking about personal growth when you look back 5 years you're like guys I haven't actually done much because I'm caught up in this LS philosophy teaches me to question a lot and I'm inquisitive and my team knows that so if someone comes with something I say why MH and where are we getting these references and how can we be able to innovate around these ideas and build

3:54 them further I thank God that my journey in life took me through Nairobi University MH because I've borrowed a lot from my my steam there and it's really allowed me to be one of the few individuals within the continent who looks at the application of Technology within the continent and not as consumers as producers of technology so this is also my the philosophy in my business okay yeah so now let's come into black rhino VR yeah um I must admit on a personal level I'm very Green in terms of of that whole virtual reality space so maybe you can give us a quick Layman summary of what is it that black Rino VR does what what do you do in the market what's your product what are you producing how is it used how have you managed to commercialize it how does it earn you money you know uh so over and above first of course what is it and then of course how do you use it to earn a

4:55 living and to innovate yeah also when a when when a man actually admit that they I respect that because you know there's no point of having this conversation if I believe communication is not just a language it's a frequency so we have to oscillate in that frequency so virtual reality is part of a spectrum of Technologies an Ellum of Technologies called the extended reality Technologies you have virtual reality as one sub sector which is could be computer generated images that you can be able to interact or not interact with um there's something called live action which uh a lot of people know them as 360 films yes where you wear the aid of a head-mounted display unit which is a VR headset and then you're able to interact or go through this environment using the aid of a VR headset so that's virtual reality computer generated um and then

5:48 you have augmented reality yes augmentation in English is just to extend yes it's the superimposition of digital images in the real world but in this case using an interface to create the projection okay so you could use a mobile phone you could use a tablet you could use variables like specs to project which takes me to the third element of the Spectrum which is mixed reality yes a lot of people know of Apple Vision Pro that came out which is a wearable that allows you to look at your environment but at the same time there's what you call special special in this case means space they specialized information that is projected within the space okay as black rhino we specialize in augmented reality virtual reality because looking at it from an African context the barriers to entry of the technology are lowered because mixed reality headsets if you think about some

6:41 of these headsets like the Apple Vision Pro you know there's all these other headsets that cost about $4,000 and also my biggest challenge is this Hardware wasn't built for Africa yes so the reason why we specialize in AR and VR leveraging on the mobile phone is because the mobile phone Africans have and most Kenyans have shown the world how we can innovate around the mobile mob phone and for us the mobile phone is just not a tool for creativity it's a tool for Liberation okay and we look at it like that so we develop our business model is very unique um 40% of the business model is what we call ecosystem building okay uh I do a lot of hackathons workshops discussions boot camps we do a lot of advisory work across the board from institutions of Higher Learning to also Brands MH but we also build content for individuals let's say for 360 films uh augmented reality uh for instance um there's a project

7:33 that we did for an organization that wanted to you go into the supermarket you scan a product and there's an augmentation that happens over the product the biggest challenge you have with marketing is you have below the line and above the line yes more often than not below the line and above the line never converge yes the convergence of BTL and ATL is so let me just slow down a bit we say the future of communication yes is what you call the fital era mhm where people are going to be able to access and are currently accessing both digital and physical elements in life in one unified simless experience okay so this is the fital era which is a mixed reality era so drawing back to the BTL the BTL is below the line so there is a lot of experiential work MH above the line is like your Billboards and your and and your digital yes so our technology merges digital and

8:30 physical into one unified seamless experience and I get a lot of clients for instance we just won an award in December with safaricom uh at the marketing Society of Kenya a um um events and we won an award for the best application of a marketing campaign using imagin technology for their campaign called s hook okay so University students would go in uni they would see like Billboards and all this stuff uh out of home advertising and they would scan it and those billboards will come to life okay so these are this is part of the 60% this is part of the 40% that runs the cogs of the business okay it's a lot of advisory work a lot of building content for clients and experiences just just to to flesh out a bit about that transition of how you actually applied for a company using that safaricom example which you have given us so when the University students

9:23 they scan out assume a QR code or something no no the scan it's visual so the platform itself we're using um um artificial intelligence but something called computer vision so where do they find this thing that they scan so they scan it could be a pictorial uh composition of something it's like a billboard not just a QR code it's a billboard so our AI engine picks up that billboard with all that content goes back in the reference and then now deploys deploys any asset based on that it could be a video it could be anything so this University student sees the BBT there's some instruction there to scan they scan and then once they Scan they come and have an extended experience and you guys have connected all those doors spot on got you okay but there's a catch yes how does it make sense to safaricom okay the biggest challenge you have in the creative industry is information is

10:14 highly fragmented there's what you call intermediaries intermediaries are like the the intersection and the people who put all these elements together so that you can build a value chain okay so our platform is an intermediary platform that allows also people like saf parom to have behavioral data yes on who scanning not where they are per se but how long have they scanned yes what is the duration of interaction after they scan how long they watched how long they watched it and this information we send it every month to safaricom as um as a document as a report so safaricom can be able to measure their return of investment excellent you see something like a billboard you can never measure the return of investment on a billboard you don't know how many eyeballs on it yes without estimate you can estimate with traffic and other things they can

11:03 tell you inbound outbound but now we need to leverage data in the creative economy and this is the value of the platform that we have which is the 70% that I'll explain okay now let's go to the now that I've shed that one let's go to the 70% yeah so the 70% is technology MH we transitioned from a studio where we used to build 360 content doing a lot of VFX and animation into building our own techn Tech ology okay so there was a grant that came out which was the ignite culture Grant uh was a grant for the Asian Caribbean and Pacific countries and what happened was about no 700 people applied for it MH highly competitive Grant was sponsored by the European Union and the British Council yes and the idea was how do you create innovative business models around the creative industry so we had applied before many I always say um Fortune belongs to the Bold yes but also you

12:05 have your mind has to be prepared yes so we had a design document that we had prepared many years ago and the design document was chilling we needed about 40 million Kenya shillings to bring it to life right so we decided that we're going to look for this money and I had to go through the typical pecking order of raising funds there's something called f family friends and fools so I had to bring in my guys and say um I want to build this Tech and is what this Tech does the people who supported me supported me but it wasn't enough yeah so when this grant came out uh my co just walked into my office and he said Yo God has brought us something yes this is the money that we are going to get to build our platform and the money was 100 maximum was €180,000 okay and this €180,000 we applied for it we had a design document already and we went through a series of

12:56 um different sort of uh reviews yeah and finally we got this money all of it all of it wow so we went out and built Africa's first augmented reality Cloud editor and Publishing platform wow that allows young people to rapidly build and publish AR without the need for code uhuh code is a huge barrier to entry because of knowledge and information it's not a lot of people who actually have the time and the patience to learn code so what we went out to do we built a platform that doesn't require code to BU build AR okay and then this platform is a very unique platform that has a revenue share model within the platform itself where the brands ourselves and the consumers get into a revenue share model based on a pay-per-view model so for instance you see that billboard when you scan the billboard the content creator who built it the content creator

13:50 who built it on our platform gets 20% of what let's say Safar comp pays okay and the idea behind it is how do you Empower these content creators to get into a revenue model they make money when they asleep because we are all used to making what we call Active money it requires me to be active but we don't look at the potential of passive income true so we wanted to change that sort of um um asymmetry that exists so these guys make passive income as long as anything that they've built using the platform other people are scanning and this is why we transition to a technology business so that's one of our platforms called media and then we have two other platforms that we are launching where do we find this platform go to the App Store go to the um and it's called what is it called it's called media with an AR at the end so we combined we we combined media and

14:40 augmented reality so if you go to media.com you can be able to access the platform MH um and then you can download the native app that allows you to superimpose images in the real world okay yeah interesting yes I'm telling you this is like a a master class in you know okay so but I'm I'm there I'm not I'm with it I'm not not I've not ped yet you haven't okay so now you have your 70% and you have your 30% of your business and you have this now you've won the you've won the the grant you've managed to develop the platform yeah so how's the journey now interesting mhm and what are your key learnings insights that that because you you have taken a very unique path you know um a lot of us on the continent I think one of the challenges that we have is we depend on on platforms that are uh created elsewhere and I I I say or my learning in my entrepreneurial journey is the the item that is given

15:48 least um what do I say the item that is given least Credence is local context yeah you have gone a different way you have said me I'm starting with context and as a result I'm not going to look for something else that someone has created and then plug into it yeah I'm going to look for something and I'm going to create something because I'm the one who understand the context here yeah so walk us through your insights and learnings as you walk that Journey perfect you know I love that question because it also allows me to introspect on that Journey yes it hasn't been easy um so one thing I've learned number one is there's something called technology anxiety which is a psychological challenge a lot of people fear digital technology yes because in essence the origin of digital technology is foreign yes so a lot of people when they see digital technology especially with arvr

16:45 they think it's foreign but they also ask very interesting questions critical questions around who's holding that data you understand where does it stay where does it stay that data when it comes to privacy what are the Privacy GS that have created so that even me when I'm consuming this sort of information or I'm building my data is also secured yes so what I came to realize is that technology anxiety is a good thing but can also be a stumbling block to adoption yes so because of this we decided to have what you call demystification sessions M where we do consumer Based training around the demystification of the value of the technology itself just to lower the psychological barrier to entry because if someone fears a te ology then by all means they they they cannot engage with the technology because of that fear we reduce that barrier of to entry and

17:38 speak to them about the different types of technologies that exist and demonstrate how they exist and also we talk about the architectural framework on how we've built our platforms you see that's number one there's a technology anxiety number two there's something called technology OBS silence yes yeah this technology is digital it's Dynamic and it's fast when you're building this stuff today I can build something that in the next two years artificial intelligent intelligence has rendered that particular item within my technology Stu n and void it's obsolete yes now because of that I came to realize you have to be on toes you have to look at your technology stuck yeah and look at this technology stuck how can we create it in such a way that it is rigid but at the same time malleable in a way that I can be able to build it further so we had to build a mod system okay that allows us

18:31 to see that the systems that are going and we have to project and we say the systems that we feel that are going to be obsolete we have to have some form of contingency plan okay based on that so I've learned throughout the journey that it's important to have a modular system that you can be able to change and not affect the basics Technologies development kit and the stack MH another thing that we've come to realize is um you have to speak to individuals in terms of demonstrating the value of the technology not just socially but economically okay okay a lot of people when you see you're making D yes then they're like okay what is this thing first I know there's color to be made color to be made s yeah so I'm interested in it yes so we also demonstrate how young people can be able to make money through it and because of that now just backtracking a bit my

19:26 sector is a creative industry but when you think about it critically a lot of challenges you have in the creative industry are actually psychological challenges and I'll tell you why I mean this and then I will show you relevance a lot of people I studied Fine Art in school yes one of the few people who decided to in my form four was like I want to do fine art you know I did Humanities and I think one or two Sciences you know I never did all sciences and a lot of people in the creative industry you can see the way they walk the way they talk the way they visually present themselves they're not your typical individuals you understand they a bit Divergent yeah now because these people were neurodiverse a lot of them went through stigma when they were growing up yes and your folks or your Rel he's not a smart guy this guy has been relegated and then you get into a class I don't know about

20:22 your school but me I went to a primary school public Primary School yes the the Choy guys were seated in the front a guy who The Gua so any visitor would come into the class and say that's the dumbest guy guy from rosi all the way all the back those guys are not sharp yeah but these guys were very talented now because these guys experien some form of stigma they got they got um it's very sad by the way yeah there there are some skills called executive function skills yes they're about arguably 10 skills yes social emotional regulation have you ever dealt with an artist a creative person when their pie off business stops they go yeah they go they they they come the guy has a client yeah that's social emotional regulation yes how to be organized you're not taught those things like in an institution of Higher Learning it's also something that has been relegated to the family context

21:20 but also school so a lot of these people don't have executive function skills in the creative economy yeah now because you want to teach them about money m then you have to introduce those executive function skills okay so that they can understand holistically once I even start making this door I need to have a plan yes you know I have to create my smart goals they have to be measurable attainable realistic time bound you have to educate these guys because the society relegated these individuals yes so the biggest challenge you have right now is the psychological challenge is these individuals they don't have these skills and which is an impediment for them to be very successful or contribute overwhelmingly to an ecosystem that they are part of so we've come to realize that not only do we um Empower them with this technology that they can access we also Empower

22:12 them with soft skills M that my platform has something called um um Learning Management toolkit that we're using something called human- centered design approach which is like a hcd philosophy of doing business yes so you go there we even teach you on the platform and we teach you on human centered design approach so when you're designing you're designing with empathy you're not just designing for someone because I'm designing for you Leonard yeah I have to I have to sit down with Leonard and understand his the psychographics the demographics I have to look at your culture there's a culture that you that runs leard as a person and then I start building for you as opposed to building something and how also sometimes the West does is they bring in a lot of westernized Technology but they haven't done research on their target audience here true so we built it

23:04 for Africans by Africans but full disclosure I want to be very honest with you because there was a certain skill that lacked when we looked at the technology stack that we were building there's a certain skill that lacked in the continent we had to hire Engineers from the Netherlands really yes and what skill was that engineering back endend for artificial intelligence and augmented reality it's at the Confluence of AI we're looking at computer vision which is a Confluence of artificial intelligence and augmented reality okay this stuff is New Age yes a lot of people within the continent don't have even me as someone who's worked extensively in the continent I don't have a I didn't have a team that could do this yeah so we had to Outsource this particular service to some engineers in the Netherlands MH so but then the IP framework had to be solid because you have some guys ding this thing and these

23:58 guys also looked at the design document and they said they wanted a piece of the pie so we had to create the IP in such a way that there's a there's um black rhino VR as a holding company owns the IP but then there's some funds that goes to these individuals because there's something that they have to um they have to update after some time so they are paid regularly to update this particular um component component within the platform itself but also with time goes by we're trying to understand how we can be able to build capacity for this and then start winning them off I would argue that you are building capacity right I am just by virtue of going into a space that is nonexistent yeah you are building capacity and the journey now continues a job that someone did not know I'm sure there are some young guys somewhere now reading and and and and

24:52 going through that Cod and understanding where those linkages are yeah especially my guys you know some of my guys had never traveled you're taking a young guy a talented Dev you're putting this guy in a plane flying this guy to the Netherlands to now work with those work with those guys yeah so there's also that sort of cultural and Technology exchange yes because when my guy talks they're like how does this Africa know this and there are no schools for XR in Africa yes we didn't graduate there's no schools we went to learn AR and VR yes we taught ourselves Sasa let's now move back I think we now have a good understanding of your business and and what it is we'll come back to that later on in the podcast but let's now back track and you're doing many things and those things are fast unique in the context of the continent yeah they're Innovative in the

25:44 context of the continent but that means that you're ahead of the policy definitely yeah yeah you're ahead of the education system so then how do you then connect those dots one with a policy you have you you you walked us through your your journey with IP yeah but you're Kenyan based you're a Kenyan based H company if the IP from a policy enhance legal perspective is not where you are or even I dare say where you're going yeah then how do you exist in that environment and how do you protect yourself and grow and develop in a space like that very interesting question actually this has been the B of my existence in the past couple of years yeah because trying to find out how we can be able to have policy that can support organically the growth of our industry but then policy that doesn't also stifle that growth yes policy that supports that growth has been a headache

26:47 to say the least so we decided to spread our risk and diversify our portfolio okay there is some component of our IP that we want to export yes and the reason why we want to export the component of our IP is number one we can value it more from abroad and number two the policies that exist abroad also support that we've had numerous conversations with Gava s down with them and said guys we're building this thing how can we be able to have um an inclusive approach to our business where we also show the government what we are trying to work on one of the few guys by the way whoever understood what we were doing was the former CS Jo musu mhm Joe would call me tell me Brian where are you like on a Sunday bro I remember he called me on a Sunday where are you Brian I said I'm in my house Joe he says come to your office I'm waiting for you in the parking lot and I go there and I

27:47 sit down with this guy and he tells me today I want to understand your business model because I'm working on something the first time that guy met us he never forgot about us either his PA would call us about a project that they wanted to or one of his guys would just call and say hey guys we working on this thing even though we only did one project together this guy understood and he wanted to help us grow and looking at the people that we in the in the sort of spaces that we are unfortunately we are not seeing representation you know Brian you've touched on what for me is a rather big topic and and and a frustrating one yeah at that because was one of the things that I see one of my frustrations I think even when I look at the appointment of CSS and PSS in a Kenyan context it is a big area of frustration for me in my space yeah and my

28:43 professional space which is Hospitality tourism retail yeah yeah because and the frustration comes from yeah it's very difficult we started this conversation and this is just a podcast yeah but in order for us to an informed conversation you had to bring me to some level to where I understand what it is you do yeah but because it's a podcast I don't need to understand it in depth you're not teaching me to become a a Trader in in VR and AR in in into the future just we're just understanding it for this one hour session that we're together yeah however when you talk about who holds this offices I think we take for granted the magnitude of importance that is required for people to engage with a sector yeah musher is a IT guy so no surprise that when he me you met you he connected I mean his background if you know Mushu he was in Google you know so when he gets

29:46 what you're saying but when you start with a guy who doesn't get yeah yeah and sad to say I've seen some memes doing the round you know about who is ictcs and all that Rwanda versus Kenya and I think that's the conversation yes no no no bashing someone but I think this is a worthy conversation in this country that has this depth of talent why are we fighting with it I mean but that's a that's a lamentation for for me because I I I see it in tourism you know if we're going to start a conversation around tourism around where I'm teaching you basic terms yes yeah because you're totally new to the industry yes um Chief who we both know he he says he he he he he captured it very well he said that the challenge we have is we always start from zero and when you're always starting from zero it's a problem it is if one's years can't come out and get from 0 to 1

30:46 and then the next year starts from 1 to 4 and then the next one starts from 4 to 10 you know we seem to start with every uh reappointment cycle or election cycle start from zero you know and that's very frustrating bro just to add on what you're talking about the government doesn't have institutional memory MH it lacks institutional memory so how do you even create a strategy for a for a nation when first all the dockets that majority of these huge dockets that these guys are getting they're not subject matter experts these are political appointments yes it's not that this guy on Merit he deserves to be there because he understands the nuances of this particular vertical they don't know those nuances of the vertical so what happens is you're going to speak Tech to an individual who doesn't have this background to an individual who also the people around him don't even

31:42 understand it yes and my biggest challenge is not them yes I mean they've decided that they are going to be dealers and not leaders which is fine it's clear that they decided that my issue is us as individuals we don't want to take up this position mhm how do you expect a pencil Pusher in Parliament in the Senate to talk about the plight of a creative technologist how these guys are there to make money yeah they're entrepreneurs they're entrepreneurs so we in the creative industry or in our different verticals in the private sector we don't want to we don't want to look at it from a point of I want to be a cancer in the system mhm I to bring my knowledge into the system the only way to beat them is to be in that system yes but we want to exclude ourselves from that we want to say you know what bro if policy doesn't support growth it will stifle it period

32:38 yes you know it's interesting that um when I think about your technology and the reason why I brought in the whole policy discussion yeah is I see it being very very relevant on a national platform yeah for example Kenya tourism is a key component of what we do in terms of our economy um and tourism has a lot of trickle down effect but we also are are living in a storytelling age and where experiences have become a a big thing yeah can you imagine having someone in London or in Sri Lanka or in India or whatever new markets or even on the African continent scan a Kenyan experience you know or scan something off the net and then immerse them elves in uh what's a good what's a good example K Forest yes you know and have a a virtual Z lining experience of cre or somewhere in shimoni KES or you know or the caves in Mount Elon or on rusinga

33:47 island you know and I see the application of that technology now you have as you have so eloquently show us today you have cracked the tech but if we don't have have one realization that this stick is available that's an option yeah we're going to spend our time being very old school you know in terms yet we're ready to do you are a company in Kenya doing the things that you're doing so what has your experience been with that and do you have any engagement on a national level at the moment or are there any conversations going I mean I feel like this is therapy thanks Leonard I needed this conversation bro my frustrations my brother yeah have been based on this and which is not ideal and I'm putting myself out there yes my frustrations have been based on this a lot of accolades yes a lot of opportunities we've had m not just to for representation but opportunity

34:55 demonstrate what we're doing has in abroad bro as we speak I sit on a very prestigious board it's an invite only board it's a global future Council of the future of the metaverse with the world economic Forum a board that I have served now for two and a half years and before that I was in a global future Council of the augmented reality and virtual reality board with the world economic Forum so you say let's start there so I've been I'm I've been sitting on these boards now for four years yes we advising presidents we're advising countries on adoption on looking at literacy looking at privac for the metaverse and VR for the past four years we won an award in Spain for best Innovation Global best Innovation globally in the creative industry for the application of of technology in the creative industry this is one of the many awards that we've had

36:03 but I want to be honest with you no Kenyan seated in a place in a significant position where we can be able to have conversations around you exist knows that I exist me I'm from bro marketing is not in my blood yeah I move in silence you understand my biggest challenge is that even the individuals who Google and they find this information yes and we presented to speak to how am iy out of this I've had several conversations with government yes how are we making money out of this I'm like yes we can make money out of this through a b and c but the truth is the way we've structured this thing it's it's a holistic approach to creating value that can circulate in the economy it's not based on certain um sort of um economical mechanics of um what is not socialism capitalism yeah it's not based on that it's based on a philosophy of everyone has a piece of the pie and we

37:09 are going to create value to circulate so as a challenge we haven't had some form of constructive conversations with government now my only problem is that the guys who invite us in Europe in Spain in all these places by they also have their own challenges yes uhuh the new that exist there also on another level because number one they want to siphon information that you know there's an agenda there's an agenda this gu Nots class to Munich nothing not for nothing nothing bro I'm being picked up the latest BMW bro in Munich I'm going for this thing they're siphoning information of course they're collecting data they're collecting data so me there I'm like e this data that has taken us 10 years to learn yes I'm not going to give it just because you put me in a business class flight I'm hold back this data but who am I holding it back for mhm because

38:02 the guys I want to share it locally are not ready for this data they not ready to hear it they're not ready to hear it nor do they want to create a framework to support it yes so now the challenge is the guys who are abroad they're giving us all these accolades and all these opportunities to speak also the I want to talk about there's um what you call a digital a colonial digital a colonial approach to digital technology MH and this colonial approach is the people who are coming to colonize you right now are not going to come with ships and guns mhm bro they're coming with contracts they're coming with technology and they're coming with money you know it's good you've brought that thing up because I had a I had a personal frustration in our in in our business cakes and cakes yeah with u ER Facebook yeah so we're a cake company and we uh we advertise on Facebook yes

38:56 and then something happened till today we don't know what yeah we don't know what happened but we were locked out you know how Facebook decides that you guy I don't know come back in 90 days if you want to advertise now we're like I what have we done so we're trying to get a guy to find out can we talk to a guy you know or what can we do now here we are we are a local business yeah and we can't advertise on that particular platform where a lot of our customers are yes because Instagram and Facebook is where we have our largest base of customers but for 90 days we can't advertise we don't know why and because it's an American and that's when you begin to understand the power of context and that's why at the beginning I was saying I can see why you went to develop your own thing yes because we're not in the conversation of who owns these platforms yeah ways and and and and I'm not I don't want to

39:56 sound like an anti-foreign platform guy I'm not yes but I'm very cognizant of the important of a seat at the table yes and we are not taking our seat at the table because we are not supporting you know the people we're not supporting the the our people who have the capacity to develop these uh things to get a sit on the table and I hope conversations like this can hopefully play a small role in changing that kind of thinking not just a small role I think they will play a significant role yeah because things are evolving and I see that there's opportunities for individuals like you to give people like us a um a platform to speak about this and as you see when uh a lot of people are accessing this information bro it's important for us to think about the role we want to play in technology as Africans critically in the scale scope and complexity Africans need

40:55 to critically think about our role okay number one by virtue of evolution and Revolution yes let me paint a small picture with you information back in the day um back in the day I'm talking about traditional was being passed orally yes but information was also being passed through um music yes it was being passed through drums smoke different things and then we transition from that into written word right we went to written word we went to after written word we went to printed mhm right and now we in digital yes when you see something simple as that this shows you that there's certain migration standards and evolution happening yeah and now we in what you call the fourth Industrial Revolution that will fundamentally change the way we relate to each other the way we work yes the way we live like I said in SC scope complexity and everything else in between now because

41:51 we understand that this is a matter of evolution and Revolution there's individuals who are are looking at it from the role of Africans are we going to be consumers of this technology only only yes or are we going to be manufacturers and producers of Technology yes remember the guy who's coming to handc you or create mental shuckles these guys is going to come with AI there's this large language models that are being built do you think Africans are also building these large language models MH that AI who's owning that the the when you're having this conversation with chat GPT as much you think you're giving it's giving you information it's taking also bro it's taking yeah so that conversation you're having with this chat GPT is not um at it's not same it's a symmetrical so Africans need to sit down and say and I believe the United States of Africa I Believe in Us coming

42:46 together and saying we are technologist bro that's why I work extensively in the continent yes I work with my brothers in aay in Z and I don't know where I go I travel and I see these guys and I say guys first we have to start building together and when we come as a block even today there's no fund that is designated towards an extended reality fund bro I got some money and I said you know what I'm going to do with this money I'm going to create a lab I have a lab and I'm launching It In A month's time and that lab I've had that lab for three years because a guy said by the on a personal level bigi kangana very good friend of mine he comes and he says I'm training artists I was doing a project with the got Institute and bigi sees the numerous and the composition of individuals coming to the mall he pulls me on the side he says Brian are these

43:36 guys from your community I said yes these are young kids who want to leverage creativity and Technology it's at the Apex of everything that you're talking about the Confluence of change is here and these young guys come he's like 2,000 guys 4,000 guys I'm doing like an exhibition I've trained artists and theyve done an exhibition about 4,000 guys come in two weeks he's never seen this audience before bik kangana calls me after the exhibition is over he says I'm going to give you space at the mall continue doing your work bro he gave me space at no cost I'm telling you the the retail value of that space is maybe 300 400 g a month a month MH Tomy keep on doing what you're doing so me had this space and I've been putting kidogo fans there boom boom boom and now I went back to B and said B I'm making a bit of money just charge me kidogo rent sour let's grow like that b is like sour and now we are

44:35 launching this officially I've had that space for three years and the lab does what the lab does the biggest challenge you have is access to technology access to information access to hardware and software young guys want to be part of this value chain but they can't afford it yes one of a rendering system cost you almost a million Shillings just to R rer animation to render specialized information because of the sheer metadata and point Cloud information that you're holding yes you require graphics processor units that are on steroids so I built this place for guys to access it at no cost okay so now I have a bunch of guys I told them guys come it's an it's an XR lab you come and access technology at no cost we're doing master classes at no cost based on all our link linkages through the world and we are teaching guys how to build stuff

45:26 so you have young guys coming to build prototypes around AR it's like for lack of a better word it's like an ihab from back in the day but just specializing and there for me I'm giving it back to the society at no cost because the best innovators haven't been born yet or the best innovators haven't had access to our technology I'm not the best innovator MH our our our mission and vision is Galvanized by the fact that we want to empower the future youth to be the exr innov and inventor so when you give this guy stuff and you help him build and you reduce that psychological barrier to entry bro these guys are building some very dope stuff very cool things and of course it'll be local con contextual it's local contextual they're building for their people they understand these nuances that exist in the market but if you don't give them that opportunity and me I say I'm going

46:21 to be making money out of this lab then how am I helping this ecosystem they you're playing the role of Gava imagine yeah but anyway that's um so I want us to delve a bit into the future but before we get to the future I just want to make an overarching comment about the past you know all this that we discussing is possible because fiber optic cables landed yes yeah yeah and I think about that a lot when I see what's happening in the technological space and how even you talk about Evolution and Revolution if those cables don't land if the cost of Internet doesn't drop yeah and maybe we should just keep that collectively at the back of our minds because you know sometimes when you have good policy yeah and policy mares with good action then you have 20 40 years you of of of doing things that that happen but let's talk about the Future Let's assume and I'm

47:25 going to pose an interesting question to you let's assume capital is not a constraint yeah Le let's assume you can access whatever money you need H we won't even talk about access from where but let's just assume whatever money you need and this Vision that you have for black rhino VR and for the space and the sector yeah what do you do what do we see from you okay first if first if I I can access that money I'll need to go for some form of counseling because I know myself I know myself I can be like pay yeah yeah but yeah that's on a lighter note but critically thinking about it and also in line with our strategy you have to decentralize information for individuals building platforms that allow open- Source platforms yes that allow other individuals to build you know what Chief said people start from zero yes we don't want to start from zero there's an open

48:25 source platform that allows you to start at 50% yes it's a toolkit that exists now we're working on a cool project just to digress then answer your question we're documenting material it's called very interesting music is known as music instruments are known as material culture and now the biggest challenge with material culture when you look at back in in in the past there's information that has been lost on this material culture let's say the wandis the utus how to play them there are very few people in this community that can do that yes and there's no Central repository of archiving all this stuff so we are archiving all this stuff we're doing like 3D renders of this instruments instruments and we are putting it in a platform that can allow anyone to access see how these instruments were made so we are documenting the past we are seeing who's currently using these instruments we are

49:17 mapping and you're also giving an opportunity for people to be able to access these models but it's open source and it has a toolkit so a guy in Malawi who sees a our project it's called echo of the ancestors if a guy in Malawi wants to build the same he just goes to this platform and he sees boss this gu even have a curriculum on how in Malawi can do that so you decentralize access to information information for many years has been held within people some Gatekeepers but technology is also opening up access to this so if you ask me where the future is decentralization okay money is going to be decentralized information is going to be decentralized platforms are going to be open sales where even if you're looking at shared IP the same way guys are making money from cryptocurrency and stuff everyone has a piece of the cake of the pie yeah

50:07 yeah everyone's a piece of the pie so you just decentralize and this is where I feel like a lot of change will come from so that's the heel You' have chosen to die that's a heel bner yeah decentralization nice so let now come specifically to Black Rin of year yeah we have understood the business and H but where is it going that business in the context of where our market is when you think about I think I am beginning to see based on this conversation application in my sector yeah so what would you like to see out of the market I would like to see first from a family context individuals telling their parents I'm a creative technologist okay you know their doctors are doctors Architects are Architects yes I would be happy to see and now I'm seeing that if you go on LinkedIn you see more Creative Technologies mhm from a family context I would to see

51:00 young people going to tell their folks I'm a creative technologist and this is what I can be able to do yeah from an ecosystem perspective I'd like to see people and we're empowering that generation of people to demonstrate use cases of the technology itself what the the way Black Rhino has been structured is we've removed them we've removed the sort of powers let's call them powers in this case that black rhino should have and relegated all this stuff to the ecosystem and the community where we're building together I'm an Ena and not a disabler of Technology okay so I'm enabling a conducive environment for young people to grow from a social Dimension physical Financial Dimension Etc so black rhino is an enabler at the bottoms pyramid and correspondingly we'll Thrive with them yes when they Thrive you thrive when they Thrive I thrive and I don't want to have 90% of

51:55 something I'd rather have I I'd rather have 1% of something solid hug something huge yeah so the ethos behind what we're doing right now is to really give back to these individuals and knowledge bro we have a school where we're teaching guys now I have I'm training 50 artists and Creative Technologies on how to use this platform M I convinced a SW Switzerland company and I a Swiss company and they said you know what Brian we like that but also when you're trying to convince them you're trying to say this information also we are building for Africa it's ours it's ours so are you down for the plan they say in fact because of that we down for the plan so even out there there are individuals and institutions that want Africa to thrive and grow it's not that all these guys are bad guys so I got a fund and I'm training 50 guys now on AI on AR in the conference of AI and seeing

52:50 what these guys will create and bro furthermore we are paying to train them so you're coming to be trained but you're also being given a stipended oh really yes the guys who who study with you you you give them something not just something it's significant bro okay yes okay because we said we're not going to train people like get a guy who has a Jobo who's going to Skype or Jos do something Moonlight and then me I take that I have to respect his hours and his hours are equals to a certain amount of money so we did a calculation and we like these guys if they're going to spend a week with us we're going to pay them EX amount of money nice yeah and how's how's how's the outcome of that Journey so far I put out a call about I was looking for about 50 people the call was in about 10 days I got 73 applications strong applications and you

53:43 you're selecting 50 from and I'm only selecting 50 but also this validates what we are trying to do MH because there is need if there was an under subscription I'd have thought maybe there's no need for this and if I extended it for another 2 weeks I know I'd have gotten almost 200 people so tell us a bit more about where where can the guys find you not just the Kenyan guys yeah cuz you have talked about physical locations in Nairobi the mall but maybe you can just give us a walk through of where can we find you online that you and you're wearing many hearts so just systematically tell us Heart By Heart okay you know this training school that you're talking about those that kids that hear or parents that he and say this I he I see my son in what brand is saying where do we find you and where do we get this information that can help us walk this journey with you thank you

54:33 so much for this opportunity first I just want to say something um I haven't been the best in terms of marketing black rhino and myself yes um simply because also biblically I believe in building in silence there is value in building in silence but now I'm starting to talk about the work that we're doing yes and I've we've been building in obscurity for almost 10 years now yes but now I se to talk about this information if you go on my LinkedIn there's some posts I make about how Africans need to not just react but respond to this fourth Industrial Revolution I put out some information there if you Google black rhino VR we are very active on uh Instagram we always black R is also a convergence of information of other opportunities that exist so if they follow black rhino VR they see opportunities from other organizations and we can find black rhino on Insta on

55:27 Instagram t no we are not on Tik Tok we should be on TiK ToK by the way we are on Instagram we're on Twitter we're on Facebook we are on LinkedIn okay yeah you can still say our target audience I really feel that we need to be on Tik Tok yes but also I have my challenges with some of these platforms because of information it's a long story short yes yes uh but yes and also we do a lot of trainings physical trainings so if you go to our Instagram for instance um you see our open calls you see what are training you know you come to the lab we located at the mall on the basement so you come to the mall it's actually a very nice environment because you have other companies and organizations but you got to come so we at the mall for now um and yeah um to be honest with you I don't even mind people having my number when you go to the black Rino

56:18 website it's my personal number on the website bro I get weird calls man get calls from parents yes from kiddos yes I started a boot camp for young people my wife is a teacher so I started doing a pilot in her school and my wife came back and told me babe I think this thing is working how do you scale this thing in in primary schools so now we are trying to talk to schools for instance now we had a conversation with the multimedia University yes one of our courses is we kind of wanted to be a curriculum in school yes because you've already developed a robust course and also for primary schools we are trying to talk to small schools now for private schools because it's easier to work with the private schools to see if we can be able to get in there but now if we can have conversation with KICD and them for them to see the value of what we trying

57:09 to do bro the platform even teaches teachers on how to build AR and augment learning in their in their classrooms open source open source this is a secret so I'm going to improve in terms of our PR yes we are really this is a start this is a start and we privileged and I thank you for this opportunity yeah yeah so I mean you you've got my mind racing in terms of uh what it is you're on to and and and specifically now if I could selfishly just think about it from my perspective I think what is possible with what you do and what I do which is about creating experiences either dining experiences or or tourism experiences because we have to you have to come you have to feel something before you come and how do you get people to feel something before they physically come to experience if yours would be a great channel to do so I think you're you're a

58:07 lot more impactful than just a standard advert you know if I can come and experience the food and how it's created or the location and what happens there or the hotel room you know the that that the the sky is actually the limit in terms of of what is possible I want to invite you over like you know what I'll come just come to the lab yes play around with stuff you know what I have my business card after this I'll show you just my business card simple Yes you scan it yes and there's amazing augmentation that happens I'm in my business card I get data on my business card it's amazing how much when I look at the back end of my card yes people are there's places that I haven't been that my card has been there's places where I see I'm like since when did I go to Costa Rica is someone who's gone there with a card and is like yo you got to see this even in the west yes let me

58:59 give you a small joke yeah a lot of my friends laugh at me they say my guy you're such a panafrican guy you're such a panafrican guy but you married a white chick I'm like yes I imported goods I'm sorry but also I'm not sorry yes because what I've been able to do I've been able to take advantage of my relationship with my in-laws in the Netherlands okay and if a lot of people don't know about the Netherlands these guys are about maybe 15 million people a lot of Innovations we see in the world are based there true and these guys when it comes to doing bash they are very they're Straight Shooters when I'm having a conversation with the engineers there about IP it's neither here no there I'm like guys this is my IP we're not going to have a problem with this it's black RH IP it's clear and it's clear to them it's clear you're not fighting we are not fighting there's

59:50 no nuances based on that oh we have to no no no it's this guys's IP even though they've helped us build something it's this gu is IP so I take advantage of testing our technology in the west and God has my witness a lot of people that I've met in the west have gone through our technology it's the first for them and they live in the west wow wow it's the first for them African technology to the world and it's the first for them as well well ladies and gentlemen Brian aand black rhino VR as he has said they are on Twitter they on LinkedIn they're on Instagram I'm going to follow them immediately after this because there's so much more that and I'm going to that lab to see what they're doing but what a fabulous fabulous story when I set out to start the podcast I think um I've had nine guests before Brian but you capture the essence of what I'm trying to

1:00:47 Showcase to showcase the the the depth of talent we have and to to overarchingly communicate that we are enough as we are and we can learn that we have gaps and we can grow and develop so I give you a chance to in your new found marketing to pitch your pitch to to the masses so that they can take it from there um leard thank you so much first for the opportunity you're welcome I mean you're doing the Lord's work and you're doing G's work also so this is a double edge sword and where I can be able to support in my own unique ways I will support you um for anyone seated out there I just want to tell you that don't look at the circumstances of where you are right now because for those of you who know my family know that we've gone through a lot of stuff to be here losing our folks when you are 16 years old Leonard you don't know I survived a terrorist attack I do know almost at

1:01:50 Westgate I was stuck there for 6 hours and they say in the Bible that God uses the foolish things of the world to shame the wise by the way you don't have to subscribe to anyone out there God qualifies the disqualified in the society no matter how you look no matter what if you see me talking to Leonard mchi here I me I'm a guy who's walked on sleepers there's nothing I've never done one of the gifts that we have and I believe is a gift of creativity coupled with technology it's a potent Force and it's for you to take and understand there are no schools for this teach yourself how to do this stuff and you can be able to achieve this and there's a community of practitioners a community of practice that is there doing this come to the mall ground floor look at go on the website you'll see my phone number there hit me up let's just make

1:02:47 magic because Africa really is the next Frontier excellent yes thank you very much ladies and gentlemen that brings us to the end of episode 10 and what an episode it has been um you can follow us on YouTube African do and Spotify and uh look forward to episode 11 and many other episodes where we can find the likes of Brian and many others that I know are out out there so thank you very much uh for joining us and we look forward to having you on the next episode