Breakin World – AFG Edition

Working on BreakinWorld.com revamps this week, scope out the site and check the upgraded design! Adding a live portfolio viewer on the portfolio page and changing the Pix page with a live gallery viewer as well. Hoping to finish it all by end of week.

Also, just purchased Rhythm.ly – I’ve been working on a side web application that I’m hoping will catch some traction. It isn’t uploaded yet, but hope to wrap up a lot of the work by end of month. If this and JOMO Market start getting some attention after both of their full launches, I’ll be one happy person

I remember towards the end of high school and beginning of college I would frequently ask the folks around me, “What do you think is the meaning of life?”

Typical hippy college kid, right?

The answer I received 9 times out of 10?

“To have fun”

It never really sat with me well.  While hiking one foot after another pressed against a steep ledge in northern Thailand, closer to Burma than Bangkok, I had a lot of time to think.  Particularly about where I am halfway through my twenties (as scary as that sounds).

I guess the way I see time is as a stream that we all float down at our own pace, some quicker than others.  Everyone encounters “blips” which are those anecdotal pieces of time – the rapids, rushes, and the clear waters which we remember; the events during an entire year which are memorable while the rest of the year simply fades away into the pages of our history.  Our lives have a funny way of passing us by without saying hello, and we tend to only remember the moments which had some sort of significant empirical/emotional impact.

As I walked through the forest, passing through waterfalls and crossing rivers, it really got me thinking, is life really about having fun?  Fun comes and goes, it’s a blip that provides solace in reminiscence.  It’s necessary.  But is that what everything really revolves around?  It’s just a moment.  It passes.

If that’s the case, what doesn’t pass?  What stays with us forever?  Memories are forever – sure.  But I constantly find myself seeking more than just memories of good times.  They’re necessary, but they’re not perfection.  They’re a temporary escape before the plunge back to the current state.

And it hit me as I walked through the rice fields of the neighboring villages (did I mention Thailand is amazing?) with my local guide.

Have you ever seen impoverished children warm their feet against a running car’s exhaust pipe during winter?  Have you seen a malnourished child smile?  What about young children with bullet wounds?  Or children that can’t run and play like you did as a kid due to lack of energy from malnutrition and lack of warm clothing?

What have you done to help them?

Any difference you’ve made in the life of an impoverished individual is eternal solace.  It’s knowing that in this moment, in the present (as you read this and as I type this), your actions have changed someones life.  It’s more than a memory to reflect on, it’s a recurring satisfaction that your existence has caused an unquestionable greater good.  It’s more valuable than fun.  It’s purpose.  It’s finding yourself in the alleviation of the hurting of others.  It’s beyond the suits in executive rooms discussing strategies on things that don’t really matter.  It’s beyond hoarding money, adapting to your wealth, and thinking about how to get more.

“Perhaps like you I spend an extraordinary amount of time immersed in a world of consumerism, superficial encounters, and work that feels worthwhile yet I know I could easily be replaced by someone else who could do the same thing. This single incident seemed to redefine my whole life and send me in a whole new direction. Ten years and 126 girls later, saving at-risk children has now become my priority. It has also become my life’s greatest joy.” – Read the article here

After seeing 8 countries, war, relief work, nature, desert, corruption, poverty, and good times in the last 4 months, I’m truly understanding the purpose of meaningful work.  Belief behind your actions.  Everyone’s trying to make it.  No one is as wealthy as they want to be.  Many are suffering due to the whims of circumstance.  We can either sit behind cubicle walls and develop strategies for improvement, or we can take it upon ourselves and use our hands to create the difference.  I’m not saying join an NGO – as a matter of fact, I am increasingly getting the feeling NGO’s are unsustainable and incredibly inefficient in their operations (totally different story).

I’m saying find a cause, make it your purpose.

What better time to find your focus in life than the time where responsibilities are relatively minimal?  If you’re blessed to be in your twenties, you still have the time to find your cause without too much sacrifice in responsibility.  Get a job, lose a job, move to a new place, make new friends, have your heart broken, join new groups, do new things, be spontaneous.  Before it’s too late.  Learn about yourself to learn about your purpose.  Youth is stamina.  When you find your purpose, seemingly the puzzles in life slowly begin to piece themselves together.  I’ve always known I wanted to work in poverty relief.  I’m not quite there yet, but with every year I’m feeling the pieces slowly begin to join together.

Listen to your own self, life is too short to weather jobs, tasks, and other indefinite circumstances which are not focused on the development of your own specific purpose.

“Everyone has been made for some particular work, and the desire for that work has been put in every heart.”
- Jalaluddin Rumi

I’ve written three frustrating posts about what I’ve learned while in Afghanistan and relief efforts here.

Each time before publishing, I’ve cancelled. It’s rare when reality hits me in the face so hard I lose the ability to determine some semblance of a path forward or what I should do. Then I found this article, and it literally took the words right out of my mouth and put them better than I ever could.

You can read it here

More and more I’m learning the standard NGO/relief model in Afghanistan is doing nothing more than building a house of cards. According to the Economist article above, “That’s because foreign aid amounted to 97% of the economy in 2010, and will largely disappear by 2018.”

Shocking, isn’t it?

My entire reality has turned upside down this last week. With our gas powered campaign of advertising, meeting businesses, and talking with experienced colleagues, I’m learning more and more the frail architecture we’re building. And now, more than ever, I’m noticing the high appeal of international funds and how they’re handled locally.

More and more I’m learning many organizations have no conception of long-term sustainability; and seemingly go donor to donor acquiring international funds and running them until it is time to renew.

Since 2001, 57 billion in funds has been channeled into Afghanistan from the international community. 2011 has seen the worse violence towards international forces and civilians since the 2001 US intervention. Corruption is rampant. Sustainability is no where to be seen. NGO’s and relief programs come and go. Short-term successes are claimed, but the long-term vision always seems to be missing.

Where are we going wrong?

One lesson I’ve learned is development in this country can only be achieved by those who know it. Living in Afghanistan for three months by no means indicates you know anything about this country. The individuals that have been here for at minimum a year are just beginning to understand it. If you leave inexperienced people at the top of the chain controlling funds allocation and NGO strategies then they are destined for failure.

“The global community has failed to create a politically stable and economically viable Afghanistan despite pouring billions of dollars into the South Asian nation during a decade-long war against the Taliban, says the International Crisis Group.” – you can read this article from Reuters, here

This week I have been strongly been questioning my work here. What is really being achieved? Of course, I’m looking at a very short-term vision… but historical statistics unfortunately are not on my side here.

I’ve spent the last week thinking about what I can do to help change the tides here, really this has left me at a loss.

“Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.”
Jalal Ad-Din Rumi

is the source of your biggest inspiration, the same thing that keeps you awake until 3am working on weekends. It’s also sometimes the largest source of stress you can have. The same stress that makes you wonder, “what is it all really worth?”

Paradox, eh?

My three month anniversary has recently come to pass; to many abroad this may seem like a long duration in Afghanistan, although to most foreign aid/military in country I am still a new arrival.  Seemingly, it is more common to meet individuals that have been here for the long-term vs the short-term.  It seems people get used to being out here after a while, and it increasingly becomes the norm.  To be clear though,  I don’t think anyone wants to be here forever.  Personally speaking, homesickness subsided at approximately the two month point.  Since then, there’s been a direct focus on personal and professional development (without the distractions of DC social life).

There’s an age-old problem in the evolution of an enterprise: keeping your human resources up-to-speed with shifts and changes of the market, new technologies, resources, opportunities, etc.  Change is difficult but necessary to maintain a competitive edge in any market.  Old habits die hard, ingrained methodologies take time and labor to breakdown, analyze, and rebuild.  Any enterprise you will ever work for in your life, you will always notice (and probably complain) about archaic practices that are not in harmony with the “the way things are” – or how the market and practices have changed.  I noticed this at Reuters, I noticed this at IBM, and I’m seeing it in the Business Incubator.

Take the challenge of bringing a change in business practice (as enormous as it is) and compound a language barrier, a resource (monetary, or otherwise) barrier, a cultural compromise, and a less than ideal environment.  Let me clarify; cultural compromise meaning learning a new culture, understanding their norms and morés and adjusting your usual way of doing business to compliment the cultural standards – not work against them.  Less than ideal environment meaning conducting business training, seminars, and consulting services to both your Government clients and your business clients in an office building the size of an IBM suite in downtown DC.  With the same staff and business clientele, six days a week, many times 10-12 hours/day.

It is difficult, many times frustrating.  It’s an incredible opportunity for growth and an incredible test of patience.  It’s a fulfilling experience to see your assistance making a difference and but it’s a very powerful demotivating force to watch your efforts blatantly thrown aside and disregarded by the individual who you want to help.  It’s difficult to relate to human beings which exists in a completely different culture from your own, at the same time it’s incredible to see relationships develop across cultural barriers, sometimes so easily.  It’s difficult to consult for 7 companies, spanning a breadth of service offerings in an emerging industry within a struggling economy.

Noticing the overlaps and oxymorons?  That pretty much encapsulates the experience in a nutshell.  It’s a firework display of impatience, trial and error, hard work, and a challenge in creativity.

I sat across a meeting table from a COO, negotiating a multi-million dollar partnership between international organizations for a very large contract.  I’ve taught a handful of seminars to young entrepreneurs ranging from IT to Business Development.  I’ve watched highly demanded requests get thrown away after I’ve invested time in them, and I’ve seen minor actions on my part make a large difference.  I’ve networked with tens of NGO’s and local businesses desperately seeking opportunities for collaboration and a pipeline of entrepreneurs and opportunity for the Incubator.  I’ve negotiated with multi-nationals in attempts to appeal to their ‘Corporate Social Responsibility’ side.  I’ve developed tons of business documents – for the sake of developing business documents (anyone in the corporate world knows what I’m talking about here).  I’ve had drastic growth from a number of angles due to trial by fire.  But I’ve also failed in innumerable ways due to lack of experience, lack of creativity, lack of motivation – whatever you want to call it.   I’m spattering experiences across a canvas in contrasting colors to give you a peek within this microcosm which is a Business Incubator in the middle of, technically, a war zone.

So what does it take to overcome the obstacles and implement long-standing change with the young entrepreneurs of Afghanistan?  Well, if I knew the answer – I’d be doing it.  To elaborate, I think it’s important to learn the lessons from NGO’s past instead of rebuilding the wheel each time a new NGO has a bright new concept for their development efforts.  I’ve seen first-hand ambitious newcomers fall victim to the reality of idea generation vs implementation.  As an example, I thought it may be a great idea to develop an A+ and Network+ training facility, however the Cisco Networking Academy which started in 2002, was at its’ peak around 2004, and has since been quite under the radar – I honestly cannot figure out if it has tanked or not… if so – perhaps it’s ominous for a program like the one I suggested.

I also think a wise strategy for any Afghan NGO or development oriented organization would be to begin a diesel fueled networking and collaboration campaign, in order to meet the organizations, network with the people, find opportunities for collaboration – and most importantly – learn lessons from failed attempts at whatever endeavor.  Too many times I feel organizations rebuild the wheel when we need to take a lesson from Computer Science… Create Open Source software, let others help you build it, make it modular, create an initial release and obtain feedback in order to build it moving forward.  etc.

I’m afraid as foreign funding begins to dwindle, many of the efforts, organizations, and endeavors which may have once been highly ambitious will crumble under a foundation which wasn’t built solid and had too many ill-thought out plans built above.  A deconstruction is necessary to evaluate what has made a difference and what hasn’t – based on that, a reconstruction of things that had a solid impact.

Without being to cheesy with my sales pitch here, are you looking for a supa cool developer or designer? I do all of my work on time, my Ray Bans never come off.

I’ve miraculously evolved enormous biceps and the abiltiy to survive on 5-6 hours of sleep per night, thus I am looking for additional freelance web / graphic contracts. I charge what you give your kids for lunch money and produce products equivalent to the intricacy and sexiness of that Citizen on your wrist. I do…

* Web Programming
* Web Design
* Graphic Design (Flyers, Brochures, DVDs, etc)
* Custom Software (Including add-ons for Open source software)

Scope my portfolio here and send me a line at hsharif2@gmail.com if interested.

Cheesy enough? RUN N TELL DAT HOMEBOY.

to anyone, in any language? The word which warms the heart the moment it’s spoke.

Someone’s name.

Say it when you meet them a couple times. Say it when you compliment them. Say it instead of “he” or “she”. I guarantee you you’ll notice a warming effect of their attitude towards you.

Another night, another movie.

“Do not grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.” Jalaluddin Rumi