Fellowship of the Scales
It will be a great injustice if I fail to write about one of the most profound experiences of my life as an entrepreneur. As a justice entrepreneur, I cannot let that happen.
Now that you have cringed at my cheesy joke, let me tell you about 5 life-defining days I spent with 4 inspiring entrepreneurs, thanks to the ever-supportive HiiL team who brought us together.
When I got the invitation to attend the “Proven Innovations Summit” in Uganda organised by the Hague Institute for the Internationalization of Law (HiiL) Innovating Justice Accelerator team, I was not sure what to expect. I just knew it was going to involve interacting with 4 other HiiL Fellows whose innovations HiiL considered to be proven and well-positioned to create massive impact.
Our welcome dinner was at the beautiful Skyz Hotel in Kampala which had an amazing view of the city. As with all Welcome Dinners, we were all still relatively guarded. It also happened to be Ellen’s birthday. Ellen is the Director of HiiL’s Innovating Justice Accelerator. I was meeting Ellen for the first time as she recently moved into that position. I am not exaggerating when I say Ellen is an angel. Genuine support and interest oozes out of her and you know she’s just rooting for you to win.
Next day, which was the first official day of the Summit had all 5 innovators do a short presentation on their work and us listening to Dustyn of Akili VC, Angela of Open Capital Advisors, Stephen of TASLAF Advocates and Sally of Africa’s Talking. Rarely do you attend an event or a conference where every single speaker had valuable practical insight for each attendee. All sessions provided insights relevant to moving DIYlaw to the next level.
It was not your typical “listen to your speaker-ask a few abstract questions-clap at the end of it all sessions”, it was more of speakers, facilitators, audience sharing and learning. We were all better off for it.
Dinner that night was a far departure from the Welcome Dinner. Within 24 hours we had all gotten comfortable enough to share about our personal lives and it was almost no holds barred. For obvious reasons, I will not be sharing any part of our dinner conversation.
The second day of the Summit brought even more insight and direction. The morning session was peer learning. Each Fellow spoke on a topic and the topics were conveyed from an experiential perspective. I guess this is a good time to tell you about the magic these amazing entrepreneurs are creating.
Gerald through Barefoot Law has touched so many lives in Uganda. Barefoot law provides free legal consultation to Ugandan citizens through multiple channels (both traditional and technology channels). Gerald spoke on leadership. He spoke about transitioning from a founder to a CEO.
Julia, through Sauti is empowering East African cross-border traders trade legally, safely and profitably. Sauti started in Kenya and it recently scaled its operations to Uganda and will be scaling its operations to Rwanda soon. Julia spoke on Human Centred Design and shared some tips on how Sauti repositioned their products using Human Centred Design.
Robert is demystifying agreements to the simplest form possible through comic contracts. He is the founder of Creative Contracts and they turn contracts to comics. Written agreements still lead to disputes for many reasons including the fact that words can be interpreted subjectively but with pictures and visualization, we all see what we mean with little or no grey areas. Robert spoke on Systems Thinking, he helped us focus on the journey we’ve embarked on and put things in perspective. We (the Fellows) are changing paradigms and mindsets and need to have long-term thinking. It’s a marathon, not a sprint race.
Suzanna runs Legal Advice Middle East (LAME), LAME connects lawyers with those who need legal advice and vice-versa. LAME has lawyers from 13 countries listed on its platform and is a beehive of information for legal information in the Middle East. She shared on how she’s using Artificial Intelligence to achieve her goals.
I spoke on Content marketing and how DIYlaw has been able to grow organically through content marketing. I spoke about our animations and Speed Lawyering videos and the highly engaged community we’ve built on Instagram. It was rather surprising to everyone that in Nigeria, Instagram is an active and lucrative marketplace.
The afternoon session had the HiiL Team facilitating conversations on our needs at the current stage of our innovations and how HiiL can continue to support us to achieve our goals. The sessions were facilitated by Ellen, Nathalie and Brian.
Ellen you have met. Nathalie is a Justice Sector Advisor with HiiL and Brian is the HiiL Innovating Justice Agent for Uganda. Nathalie also happens to be the founder of SEMA through which she aims to increase public service transparency and accountability by gathering real-time citizen feedback in Uganda.
At the end of the sessions, we became clearer on what our innovations needed and why.
Dinner was a networking dinner with HiiL partners in Uganda. It was at the beautiful Kabira Country Club and Richard, HiiL’s programme manager in Uganda, had us networking like we were speed dating. Each Fellow sat on separate tables and a group of 4–5 HiiL partners changed tables every 15 minutes to interact with each Fellow.
During the networking dinner, I met the amazing Edgar of JLOS (The Justice, Law & Order Sector Secretariat) of Uganda and I wished I could literally transport him to the Ministry of Justice in Nigeria. I kept reminding myself that he is a government worker. As we Nigerians will say “ I say it with my chest” that there is no Nigerian civil servant like Edgar (argue with yourself). Edgar is completely invested in seeing innovation improve justice and service delivery of government agencies. He is the ICT Officer of JLOS and he is working with various innovators to improve the delivery of justice in Uganda.
Daily breakfast and Lunch were at Kawha2Go and I tell you it was really really good food. Brian also happens to own Kawha2Go. If you are ever in Kampala, you should stop by. They are at the Ntinda Shopping complex, same building as the Innovation Village where the HiiL office is located which is where the Summit took place.
On the last day, ever-helpful Rachel who is the office manager at HiiL’s Uganda office and the chief organizer of this entire trip took us to Jinja. Jinja is a town in Southern Uganda and it is where the source of the River Nile is located. We went on a boat ride through the River Nile all the way to the source and it was all very surreal and calming. Our tour guide made it even more fun. He was so knowledgeable, not just about the River but also about the birds, vegetation and animals along the River.
Night time had Nathalie showing us what Kampala Nightlife looks like. Let’s just say what happens in Kampala at night stays in Kampala, lol.
I cannot end this without giving a special shout out to Elliot, HiiL’s resident driver. Elliot is a top-notch guy. Super helpful and friendly.
My response to everyone who asked me about my trip was, “It was amazing, almost spiritual, we were all so connected, it’s like I joined an exclusive secret fellowship”. A fellowship of people walking similar walks in different places, people to trade war stories with, people I can comfortably share my high and low points of this crazy journey called entrepreneurship.
Sadly, I see I am unable to convey in words the how and what of that connectedness, but I know I have found support, I have found inspiration and I have found camaraderie.
