Episode 17. Cynthia Wandia: Going the Extra Mile with Community Banking

Cynthia Wandia: [00:00:00]

I do really think of myself as an enabler. 

They are also encouraged just to create the operating and enabling environment for someone to be successful.

Tessa Wernink: [00:00:24]

Welcome to Episode 17 of What If We Get It Right? I'm Tessa Wernink and I've teamed up with Impossible home of planet centric design. Together, we bring you stories about how to build businesses that can move the world in a new direction.

Today I speak to Cynthia Wandia, CEO and co-founder of Kwara. Kwara is a Kenya based online and mobile banking platform for financial cooperatives, saving and credit unions and community banks. Cynthia and her team believe that if we can digitize these community banks, we can leverage technology for inclusive growth.

Cynthia Wandia: [00:01:00]

So acquires mission is to make building wealth together frictionless in order to enable communities to become financially independent.

And the context in which we operate, or the issue we're trying to solve is, there's 3 billion people who are not profitable for fair capitalism. And as a result, they're underbanked. Now we consider a fair capitalism as profit driven, but still employing responsible pricing, consumer protection, fair dispute resolution.

And in the absence of this, we enable the communities that don't have access to fair capitalism, to build wealth together by digitizing the existing member owned financial institutions that actually operate at the last mile.

At the last mile, mainly unfair capitalism thrives. Right? So predatory lenders, some digital, some still manual, lots of high-risk pricing under the guise of a thin file credit scores.

There's a lot of debt shaming ultimately can have quite tragic consequences. So the only fair institution that is the one people build for themselves, at the last mile, and they've been doing that for centuries. So we just help digitize them, help it also take on the benefits of technology that other sectors have been able to enjoy.

Tessa Wernink: [00:02:29]

Cynthia and her team are using technology to create an inclusive environment for everyone. Including people who are considered to be in the last mile. I find this last mile to be an interesting concept, as if traffic only goes one way. And some people live at the end of the road, never at the beginning.

It's strange how language can do that. Estrange from the dignity of people simply by describing them by their distance from you. So, what if we reversed the language and reframe the concept of the last mile? What if the road started there? And these people could metaphorically build their own car. The way I imagine what Cynthia is doing is reversing the direction of the road and the traffic on it to become the starting point of value, Not the end.

Rather than thinking we need to reach them. What if they had the materials to build a dignified life, dealing with their specific problems and coming up with their own solutions? This is what Cynthia and her team are doing. They are fortifying existing structures and leveraging technology for local value, for inclusion.

These community banks can offer safety nets to people because they are owned by their members and they have their members' interests at heart. Let's hear more from Cynthia about the context in which she operates and what she is trying to achieve.

So good morning Cynthia.

Cynthia Wandia: [00:03:50]

Good morning, Tessa.

Thanks for having me.

Tessa Wernink: [00:03:54]

So good to see you today. Where are you calling from?

Cynthia Wandia: [00:03:58]

Currently in Nairobi, I'm working from home today. So, I'm in my home office.

Tessa Wernink: [00:04:05]

Could you explain to me what a SACCO is? And for my listeners, an example of like, who would use a SACCO and like how it works?

Cynthia Wandia: [00:04:13]

So a SACCO is an acronym standing for a Savings and Credit Cooperative, and in different parts of the world it goes by different names.

It could be called a credit union, a community bank, a rural bank. But what it is, is individuals who are then known as members form an association and they start to pool together their capital through regular savings contributions. Could be as little as 50 cents a week or a day, but they start to pool their capital together and then lend it out back to the members of their community to allow those members to access leverage. So, if you save a certain amount, you can access up to three times or four times your savings at a go.

As long as you can get a couple of other members to sign off against you. So, it allows people who are asset poor to actually build up and leverage the social trust they have as collateral in order to access a fair amount of leverage that allows them to make the kind of economic moves that they normally would not have been able to.

And the type of person who would use a SACCO is actually pretty broad. It can be a farmer. It can also be used by civil servants or teachers, members of the public sector, but even at the other scale, professional workers may also register in a credit union.

Always just trying to leverage the common bond that they have as collateral in order to access more credit at extremely fair terms.

Tessa Wernink: [00:05:47]

You know, What If We Get It Right has a global audience and you're based in Kenya. And when you talk maybe about farmers there, if they think that credit unions are a very local solution, but it's actually quite international, like global case, right?

You were talking to me before about the fact that the Rabobank in the Netherlands is a cooperative that started like that. Can you give some examples of maybe global cases?

Cynthia Wandia: [00:06:09]

Yes, sure. I mean, if you look at markets like Canada and America, you'll recognize the credit union. Canada specifically has a very strong credit union sector.

In Germany, there's also a very strong cooperative or corporative bank sector. So, we've got the Sparkasse network, which is every major city and town will have a savings bank. Sparkasse translates to a savings bank and they serve the same purpose. So, in some economies, especially in developed economies, the credit union or the SACCO might look more like a bank in the sense that it's got the infrastructure for it. And so, from afar, it looks very similar. If you look a little closer, you'll tend to find most credit unions have much fair interest rates. They've got a more sustainable take on the investments they make. And all of this is because the member actually owns the cooperative.

So, a portion of the savings converts to a bit of share capital, and that makes the owner of the cooperative, the members. And that allows for the incentives of the institution and the incentives of the members to be on the same page.

Tessa Wernink: [00:07:26]

Thanks for that framework, I guess for me, it would also be interesting to understand, like why did we then go to commercial banking if this is such a good option for people to bank with their communities and to really create value?

Cynthia Wandia: [00:07:41]

You know, that's, that's actually a very well debated question. Because in a sense, the community bank is sort of banking in its original and purest form. Perhaps the shareholders of the bank stopped being the same as the depositors, then the incentives sort of diverged, it could have been just purely from a profit driven perspective.

It also this sort of line of where fair and unfair capitalism goes, like. Perhaps in the search for maximizing profits at any cost, it became an option to take away some of that ownership of the financial institution from the members and concentrated in third-party hands.

I don't have a good answer for why we left that behind. But what I do know is where it still operates. And for even the markets where they've sort of held onto it, you tend to have a stable, a more stable and just fair access to financial services. So, it is quite it's commonly, or rather it's often debated. You know, does our current banking or financial sector really work for everybody and what would be an alternative?

And I definitely posit that the original community style bank is one that actually encourages wealth to be built and for financial communities to actually become financially independent and not fall prey to unfair types of capitalism.

Tessa Wernink: [00:09:20]

I wanted to give you an insight into the impact of mobile payment.

What started in Kenya with the launch of M-Pesa is now a business that provides 42 million active customers in seven countries with a safe and secure way to send and receive money Prior to launch only a small percentage of Kenyans used traditional banking due to low levels of income, high bank fees or geographical reach to name a few reasons. But with mobile money and an account stored on your phone, it has paved the way for more entrepreneurs like Cynthia to build businesses that benefit more people.

But what Cynthia explains is that it is not enough to empower the people in this last mile, simply with mobile payments, they need a stronger infrastructure.

Listen as Cynthia talks about her entrepreneurial environment and how she has brought these two elements together in her business solution.

Cynthia Wandia: [00:10:16]

Yeah, so in Kenya as an example. But this also reflects quite often in different emerging markets. There is a commercial banking sector. There is a formal financial sector, but it tends to operate primarily in service of corporates or perhaps high net worth individuals and so on. And then you have a fair amount of the population, which you would consider underbanked, meaning they might have a bank account, but when it comes to accessing a full scope of financial services, like credit, like you know, securities in case you want to participate in some kind of venture and so on.

You're limited by the requirements that these institutions have. And then when you look at what we call the last mile, so the commercial banks with all the investment they have to make for regulation and what they can get back out of it, there's only so far they can reach or penetrate beyond the centers of economic activity.

And so, what happens is anyone operating outside those core centers. It's just not profitable to serve them anymore and to be able to serve them and where we see people, you know, or institutions going that last mile, it tends to be under relatively unfair terms. So, at the same time, we have still seen, you know, technology itself has gotten better.

Mobile penetration is much higher. Phones have gotten better and cheaper, data costs have gone down. So that has been like a perfect scenario for innovation to come up and in Kenya as an example, it's now going on 13 years that mobile money was invented. So, the ability to turn your mobile phone number into a wallet and text money, which helped, anyone at that last mile, at least be connected to some kind of you know, payment system.

But the even though there's a payment system, it's more about the financial infrastructure at that last mile that just hasn't gotten there. And so, in the absence of that, people self-organize, people have self-organized and they've started to create these financial institutions that they own and run and manage.

But those financial institutions just haven't been able to capture the same advantages of digitization that everyone else has. So, their cost of doing business is still higher. If you have to operate a physical location and just help people fill forms out in order to keep their records, have them walk 20 kilometers to come in and, and put in a request for a loan, or have those loans be processed over a couple of weeks instead of a couple of hours.

That still leads to you know, a bit of a stunting of the potential of the community, either to survive or withstand a shock or to even grow. So, if someone's trying to start a new business or pay their kids' school fees on time, and the only financial institution around them is mired in operational challenges, then there's a good chance you might not get the services you need at the time you meet them.

Tessa Wernink: [00:13:44]

How do you see the future? When you paint a picture of the future in combination with these people that the ultimate like end users of your product, like what would change, how do you see it developing?

Cynthia Wandia: [00:13:56]

We do envision a future where the communities at the last mile are financially independent.

And what that means is first there's the ability to circulate, you know, money and economic opportunity amongst themselves. It's also then possible to attract investment from the outside and make use of it as well. And if we take the someone specific in mind, if we're being born into a situation where there's not a lot of financial security, maybe there's not a welfare program or there's not a lot of safety nets, that you get built or you born into.

It means that you're starting off sometimes from scratch to try to build a stable life and pursue a stable life where your basic needs are met, but also you’re able to actualize on all your needs. And we're looking at someone who can be born into any such situation, maybe not inheriting any assets or maybe not having immediate opportunities, but can, first leverage the communal or social trust to be able to access some of the tools, including capital that can help them get on their race and they can go all the way from the, you know, the situation they're in when they're born into a much better situation without irrevocably sacrificing their dignity. So, if you see that the option or the alternative is getting very high-interest loans, which if you don't pay sort of compound and then they take your whatever little assets you have and shame you publicly. If that's the alternative, then the future we're building is one where, doesn't matter the situation you're born in. But you do actually have a chance to become financially independent.

Tessa Wernink: [00:15:53]

And do you work with I mean, your product that you're making is a digital platform. Does that mean that you can also measure whether you are making an impact so that you can like go forward and say, oh, we can see that it's actually, we're getting it right?

Cynthia Wandia: [00:16:09]

Yeah, absolutely. Like we're extremely motivated to measure the impact of what we're doing, and as well, how we're doing it. Right? So, when we speak about the impact we look at what does it look like when the community institution, the community financial institution is successful.

So, more people are able to join it much easier. So, just a fast and convenient member experience. So, we measure how many more people are able to register and join these community banks. How quickly can they start saving? How often are they saving? And then how many new fair loans are being generated and created and approved and, you know, dispersed and so on given out on time.

And we measure those because there's a number of situations, but very concrete ones, which people go to their community bank for. And so, we can actually measure the number of additional businesses that start through the financing, through SME credit, the number of kids going to school through the increase in school fees, loans, how many preventable deaths and medical emergencies that are taken care of on time.

So, we do measure those on a regular basis. Yeah.

Tessa Wernink: [00:17:33]

Was there a moment in your life that you thought, oh, this is what I want to do because I can actually feel that this is important?

Cynthia Wandia: [00:17:39]

You know, by the point at which I would say I properly discovered this particular institution and in the way that it works was quite eye opening.

So it was, it started off by looking at small holder farmers, especially coffee farmers who produce for export and just trying to investigate why they get so little of the value that's created by their product, while they do so much. And in looking at that problem and discovering and understanding how important the co-operative or community bank is. Basically the fact that it acts as a first line of defense for someone in this global supply chain, was the first I would say first eye-opener. And the realization that technology could provide a way to buttress that first line of defense.

That was the first eye-opener. Now we're in the position where either we've been able to measure, you know, year on year changes within the community banks and some of their members, but as well, Individual members' stories of what it means for them, for their community bank, to be able to serve them on time, faster and more efficiently. Like what the alternatives are now are so much more dangerous than they used to be before.

So, the loan sharks were always there, but the fact that they're now really digitized and they can just push SMS to you and kind of catch you in a very weak moment and snare you in a much bigger debt trap than before realizing and measuring that we are directly countering that and giving someone an alternative to that, I think is when it started to feel like, well, this is really a one-to-one impact.

Tessa Wernink: [00:19:34]

I read that you've worked around the world from Mexico to Germany, to Spain, you speak a multitude of language, even Mandarin I heard. I was curious, I speak a bit of Mandarin, but that's because I lived there. So, you've got like a good view of like the way the world works. And one of the sustainable development goals that I wanted to focus on here was Reduced Inequalities.

And when I was looking at up again yesterday, I thought Reduced inequalities, why didn't they just put equality or like equity? So, I was wondering, yeah what is it, how important is this a sustainable development goal or the sustainable development goals in general to you? And how do you work with them?

Cynthia Wandia: [00:20:17]

So I take them for what they are. So, first as a framework and as something to aim for. Tried to really work at them in a clear way. So speaking about the 10th, that's Reduced Inequalities alongside the 8th for us, because it does feel like if you give an opportunity for people to have decent work and grow, then it's going to encourage a sort of flow of resources and capital where they need to be. And that also does lead to Reduced Inequalities. At the same time when we're speaking about encouraging the flow of investment we look at things about, at that last mile and we see where it stops and we see that for the most part, the reason it stops, where it does is, there's little infrastructure to take it all the way. And so, at the last mile, then another ecosystem thrives, but not necessarily one that has all the opportunities needed. So we feel we are directly contributing to being able to first legitimize, the financial activity happening at the last mile.

And then that also helps governments and other, you know, regulators have a view of what's happening there and what the needs are and when we mentioned like that, we make community banks investible and auditable because they're more transparent and more efficient, tt does also encourage that any first economic seeking opportunities can flow in that direction.

But as well if there are any initiatives, whether non-governmental, or otherwise that want to actually uplift communities, there's a vehicle for that to happen.

Tessa Wernink: [00:22:08]

Now that we understand the context, the product and the future goals, what I want to know is why entrepreneurs, especially people who've worked globally and could have had an international career that raked in personal profits decided to start social impact enterprises

To find out, I like to go way back, maybe something about how my guests experienced the world when they were little, helps to explain where their passion and drive comes from.

Let's hear from Cynthia, as she talks about how she saw the world as a young girl.

Cynthia Wandia: [00:22:40]

I had a very active imagination. Every kid I would think is like this.

I also just loved to read, so I felt that because books were somehow windows into all these incredible worlds that I was able then to conjure in my mind. I always just thought the world was so infinite in its possibilities and its expressions. And I also thought it was possible for me and for everybody to be able to actually jump from one experience to another on one mini worlds to another.

And that sort of has actually materialized or I don't know which has come, whether that has influenced, you know, now, how if I look back and the life that I've lived, that I have been able to actually jump from one mini world to another and experience a lot of different realities. Some somehow now in my physical form, rather than in my mind.

But everything was possible. Everything was really magical. Yeah, I just really enjoyed envisioning how. Yeah, how the other people experienced the world and yeah, and I've been quite fortunate to be able to materialize that in my physical present life.

Tessa Wernink: [00:24:09]

What does it given you to be able to do that over the years to jump into different worlds?

If you think about where you are now.

Cynthia Wandia: [00:24:18]

There's a courage that comes with curiosity. It's little bit of let's find out because you kind of start to envision. No, the more you experience multiple realities, the common threads, become more apparent. And the common threads are actually that we're all motivated by very similar things. And so, it gives a kind of fearlessness or courage to try new things. Because I have a very strong belief that I will find a commonality and a common ground, and it's not going to be, I guess, dangerous is the word. So, I have been described as a mix of very curious that one, for sure.

Like, I'm very curious about everything and at the same time, it's coupled with a bit of courage or fearlessness to engage in new situations or things that are different or unfamiliar. Yeah. And, and so far, it's yielded just like a distilled view on like what is similar across the world and also very clear view on what's not, but all in all, I would say between being very curious and brave, it makes it easy if you want to actually experience a lot of different realities.

Tessa Wernink: [00:25:37]

In terms of opportunity being a woman in tech, I read a nice article about your leadership style, that you have a relentless dedication to your team, and that you're an inspirational leader. Can you tell me what it's like for you?

If it is different, being a woman in tech and as an entrepreneur.

Cynthia Wandia: [00:25:54]

You know it's always hard to see if it's different. If that's all you have. I think I just fundamentally believe that if I make it easier for people around me or people who I have convinced to join me on this journey, if I make it as easy as possible for them to be successful in what they do that we're all better off for it.

So, I do really think of myself as an enabler. I'm always looking for people who know more than I do on a given topic, and they're encouraged to find someone who knows more than they do, and then they're also encouraged as I do to just create the operating and enabling environment for someone to be successful.

It's I guess, it's one way to do it. I've been in environments which are different. It's just the one that I believe in. And so, I can really support it. So, when someone really needs something in order for them to be successful and especially when it's something that I, they can do much better than I can, then I'm doubly motivated to do what it takes to help them succeed.

Tessa Wernink: [00:27:09]

Who is your team? How did you collect? What kind of people do you work with and why?

Cynthia Wandia: [00:27:14]

Yeah, the team is pretty diverse, and also sort of reflects the both the opportunity and opportunities that I've had before to connect with people from different places in different backgrounds, as well as the ability to sort of pull everyone together.

Coming back to, you know, what I've experienced before. I just have a broad openness for different ways of life, different ways of thinking and opportunities. And so that is reflected in our team. My co-founder joined after the company was founded and it's been one of the best thing because it's, he has very complimentary qualities and so.

It just means that we can go twice as far and four times as fast. Generally, the team is quite different in where they come from their past experiences, whatever has brought them to this moment. But we have been able to get on the same page and move forward as one team towards the same goal.

And I think that’s quite, yeah, I'm very proud of that.

Tessa Wernink: [00:28:29]

So, we now know a lot about what Cynthia refers to as the last mile and in business terms, the end user, but her service doesn't directly sell to them. In fact, you could say that Kwara is a platform with multiple users and producers of value. I asked Cynthia to explain how her product works, who her customers are and what that means in terms of innovation.

Cynthia Wandia: [00:28:52]

Our customers are the community banks or credit unions or SACCOs as it were. They purchase a license to use one or all of our products, and we've got three products. We've got a core product, which is an admin platform that is utilized by staff who run the community bank. So, a community bank will be set up like a mini bank.

So, there are front office or customer care teams, there are tellers who sort of help you deposit, withdraw money. It really does run like a mini bank. And our first product serves the staff at the community bank and enables them to do their work better and faster. And actually from anywhere.

The other product we provide is basically web and mobile internet banking. And what that means at the last mile is anything from you know, as similar to your commercial bank apps. So an Android and iOS app, where you can have a look at your accounts, see your transactions all the way to channels, which are more utilized at the last mile. Those include USSD. USSD is a framework that is, makes it possible even while using a feature phones or non-smartphone, to be able to communicate with the institution through a centralized server.

There's SMS, banking, WhatsApp banking and so on. So, we provide channels for the members or the end clients of the community bank to transact with their institution, from wherever they are. So they don't have to spend a whole day. First going to the local branch, filling out forms, getting service, and so on, losing potentially a day of income.

They can do that from wherever they are. So, if it's at night and they have a hospital emergency, they can request an instant credit facility to pay for the hospital. And then that's given automatically against the savings that they already have and so on.

And then the third product is more of the bridge to the formal financial sector, which is just a set of APIs. APIs that allow on the one hand, the community bank to connect with other services they would like to. So, we keep them independent. They're in control of any additional services they would like to use.

At the same time we take on a bit of the work too, to do that integration ourselves. So we'll connect to payment gateways, ATM switches, or credit reference bureaus to bring some of the infrastructure built at the formal financial sector to the last mile. So those are our three products. They're typically licensed, as I mentioned by the community bank.

And that's how we also make our revenue.

Tessa Wernink: [00:31:37]

You have a whole ecosystem of players that are interested I imagine in this platform.

In different ways they can add or gain value from it? Who would you say really needs to see your product or your business for you to scale or to grow?

Cynthia Wandia: [00:31:50]

I would actually say to the members, the end client, and that's what we're trying to do is not only strengthen the institution, that's the core of it. But this is an institution that is owned by its members. So, for them to see it and realize and acknowledge that this is actually our way to have much more efficient, much fairer opportunities. This is our path to financial independence. Then that would change the game.

And I do. And that is what we're pursuing is to be a part of the member's life. And so that they can, acknowledge and see that by linking them with their institution, making their link with their institutions stronger. We give them more and more opportunities to become financially independent.

So, I would say it's the end client, it's the member who needs to see and acknowledge, our enterprise, what we're doing in order to multiply our impact.

Tessa Wernink: [00:33:01]

Which makes me come back to that question of like the digital promise of digital. There was something you said about the loan sharks also use digital means to approach these members.

Is there also a question of like digital literacy? Like how do I recognize what is a good digital surface and what isn't is that something that's part of your business too, or that you see as a, as a challenge?

Cynthia Wandia: [00:33:25]

No. Absolutely. And when I mentioned, the difference between fair and unfair capitalism, you could say this the fair and unfair digitizing.

And, when you put in or, or don't put in things like consumer protection, proper or adequate consumer information, adequate dispute resolution, then you're making it very difficult for someone to make an informed choice. And I think that's the point that we think is inherent. Like if someone is entering an obligation, they need to understand fundamentally and not in passing and not in language, they can understand what this is going to mean. And this is one of the things where, well, first it starts with like responsible pricing and things like that. But it also does come towards informed consent and we take that heavily into account. The inherent fairness of the community banks stems from the fact that, you know, the members themselves will set things like the interest rates or things like what happens if someone doesn't pay, what is the process?

And they'll never go for, yes, let's take this member's contact list and let's broadcast on SMS to everyone in their contacts that this person hasn't paid that never agreed to that. And that's, unfortunately, some of the behavior we see on the digital lending space. So, there is absolutely a difference between conditional bad digital. Digitization is just a tool.

And it's only as good as yeah who wields it and why they want to wield it. And we are trying to put this very powerful tool back into the community's hands.

Tessa Wernink: [00:35:13]

This quote, I think Eric Schmidt said, the digital domain is the last ungoverned domain.

It sounds like you, as a business is taking the responsibility to offer a good product while maybe regulations on the digital domain are like, you know, we need them.

Obviously, if we look at everything that's happening globally. Do you feel like there's any kind of sense of like, how can we govern this digital domain given that it's such an important infrastructure?

Cynthia Wandia: [00:35:40]

Yeah, I do believe where the digital domain has come to plug in the gaps or missing, you know, physical infrastructure I have seen in general, like there's an acknowledgement and acceptance that the positive impact is so much better than, you know, the negative impact.

And maybe that's true at the beginning, but we do see that if it's left really unchecked, it can also destroy value in a way that we'll take them even longer to rebuild. I generally see like both can work in tandem, like where you allow innovation to go ahead and plug some of the gaps that have stayed open because of lack of resources before. But it should be maybe a little bit more closely followed by oversight and some prudential guidelines, because if the equation is just maximize profit as an example, at any cost, then you can really encounter like a very heavy human or societal cost and it might not be worth it in the end. So I'm definitely pro like, oversight and some level of prudential guidelines after, or sometimes following very closely following the innovation.

So, such that it's not the other way round, where there's no opportunity to invent an opportunity to innovate but maybe the other way round, like let's innovate, work pretty closely with first within like what I would call like a sense of fairness. I think the ability to get, let's say X percent profit margin or double, can be moderated from a sense of fairness, even if capitalism itself just encourages the maximization of it.

I think we can impose a fair framework around it.

Tessa Wernink: [00:37:38]

What is the smallest thing that anyone can do to help your mission?

Cynthia Wandia: [00:37:42]

So maybe I can just think back into what are some of the things people have done before already that have really helped. And even if they were not connected or the first time they heard it, it's been made basically either linking us with potential partners we can work with, to achieve the mission.

That's I would say, so if any of this resonates and you are involved in either, it's the formal financial sector, and you are curious about how more of that resource can flow towards the last mile. And you have an idea around it, or you have a network, or contact who we can work with, or figure out how we can do this better and faster than just reaching out and sharing, that will be really helpful.

Because I think that's been the most helpful. People just sort of reaching out and saying, Hey, this sounds interesting. It gives us the benefit of the diversity of thought that's out there. And, and then we can make the connections, the right connections and leverage an opportunity or a path that we hadn't considered before.

So yeah, in a way it's like advice or ideas are always welcome. And I think everyone has ideas. So, it's in the sense, the smallest thing is like, give us a little bit of the computing processing power in your brain, right? Like, just think about what we're doing for a bit and think about whether there's anything in your current day to day or work or even private life that could help us further the mission.

And then drop me an email.  I'll be happy to hear it.

Tessa Wernink: [00:39:29]

I like this idea of computing power. Okay, my last question was asked. I asked each guest to ask a question to the next guest and my previous guest was Jona Christian. He's making a solar electric vehicle, it’s based in Germany. He said, if you were walking on the street and on the other side of the street, you saw your 16-year-old self who wouldn't recognize you of course. What would you ask or tell that 16-year-old self?

Cynthia Wandia: [00:40:00]

I'm now trying to remember 16-year-old Cynthia. Yeah, 16-year-old Cynthia was for sure. head in the clouds very much, still a dreamer and I would definitely tell her to keep doing that, to keep yeah, in a way to keep exploring all options.

And in her mind, like really keeping that open and honest curiosity about everything because it's practice for real life. Like it's really it for me, it has manifested as real life. So, I would very much tell her that even for the things you can't put your finger on or really see, or really materialize, keep thinking about them, keep exploring them.

Keep reading about them, keep asking about them because one day you will find yourself in the situation that you have thought about many times before, and you will find yourself ready. So, it's yeah. Keep having widely as possible in your mind because it's practice. It's practice for what's going to come.

Tessa Wernink: [00:41:34]

Thank you. I usually ask you now to have a question for my next guest, but because you're rounding off the series, I thought maybe you have a question for me.

Cynthia Wandia: [00:41:44]

Ok I know about what you've done and I'm also just great to ask what if things go right. I take it as a similarity from an optimist type of mindset and I share that.

Perhaps I would ask what drives you now compared to what drove you 10 years ago?

Tessa Wernink: [00:42:09]

Good question. I think I've always been driven by curiosity and that I've seen life as an exploration and journey of exploration. And in that sense, like this whole idea of what if we get it right. Is that journey. Is that it's, I don't know if there is a future that is going to be right for the actually is in the moment exploring what is out there.

And I remember when we started Fairphone that this whole question of what is fair, you know, for me was like, I was, I think I was driven by this kind of feeling of justice and that we should find a way that there's a right way. And that I realized that actually fair is a conversation and it always depends on who's talking.

And then it's about listening and understanding what the different perspectives are and the different kinds of intelligence I think that we put in. So yeah, I think that 10 years ago I was just a young mother, so and now I have three boys. So, I think that that's definitely changed is that I think well, I think everybody's been like focused on what do I want to become?

Like, what are you already, and how do we develop that kind of in the moment now, so that when we go into the future, we'll have that future that is here now. So, I think that's kind of, I think, was I was thinking I was more driven by the future in the fast, and I think I'm more driven about the now and talking about things and listening and understanding what's in the moment.

Thank you. Nice question.

Cynthia Wandia: [00:43:36]

No, thank you. Thank you too for answering it.

Tessa Wernink: [00:43:40]

I want to thank you for this conversation. It was really a pleasure to be able to understand more about what you do and also what drives you.

Cynthia Wandia: [00:43:50]

That's my pleasure. Thank you for the opportunity and for the conversation. I also very much enjoyed it yeah, very, very much.

Tessa Wernink: [00:44:00]

Great. And I wish you and your team like the best and this is an inspired call for anybody who in the audience was inspired by this, or has any idea or even association we'll be able to put you in touch with Cynthia in the show notes

Cynthia Wandia: [00:44:18]

Super, thank you so much, Tessa. And thanks everyone.

Tessa Wernink: [00:44:23]

This podcast is one of 17 interviews in which I traveled past the 17 sustainable development goals with 17 entrepreneurs who are putting the health of the planet at the center of their business.

You can scroll through these interviews and give them a listen on whatifwegetitright.com or any of your preferred podcast players.

Stay tuned to this space as What If We Get It Right moves on to Season 2. We are creating an audio series that goes deeper into projects to understand the benefits and impact of planet centric design and social entrepreneurship around the globe. If you are ready to move forward with your own idea, business or innovation project, and you want to put these values first, you can download a planet centric, design toolkit at impossible.com.