Navy Yard

Navy Yard Southwest Washington DC according to Wikipedia “currently serves as a ceremonial and administrative center for the U.S. Navy, home to the Chief of Naval Operations, and is headquarters for the Naval Sea Systems Command, Naval Historical Center, the Department of Naval History, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, the U.S. Navy Judge Advocate General's Corps, Naval Reactors, Marine Corps Institute, the United States Navy Band, and numerous other naval commands”.

But to me, Navy Yard connotes a whole different meaning:

For five years I pursued an internship with the Naval Historical Center department of Navy Yard from Nigeria, and couldn’t get in. Not because the center was unwilling to offer me a placement or I wasn’t qualified enough, rather it was because of certain adversaries that resolutely contended with my stretch over an already flattened wall.

This professional opportunity at this time was the biggest thing that could happened to my career, as an undergraduate of history and international relations this was an excellent fit and the next logical step in taking my career global but adversaries would not let me cross beyond borders. My school wouldn’t, the embassy didn’t and my resources couldn’t. At the height of this contentions the vision to help people like me fenced out of basics (international internships) of academic/professional experience birthed the social enterprise I now lead – Landmark Development Initiative.

In an intriguing interview the visa consular said “you mentioned you are a social entrepreneur so why an internship at the Navy Yard?” without much thought I responded “everyone needs an entry into their global career….and this is mine”. She looked at me with an agreeing posture, and it seems for a second she was going to open the border but did not.

My inhibition to cross to Navy Yard at that time despite relentless leaps wouldn’t appeal to the social entrepreneur in me, rather I invited Navy Yard to Lagos Nigeria to speak to my university. Without a platform of my own, I began making rounds to every international organization that I know operate in Nigeria. While pitching for funding at the South African Embassy for the project, I was inspired to have a platform of my own since the school wasn’t keen to host Nary Yard.

As I stand today at the Navy Yard, every piece of it reminds me of how the pursuit for an internship in this every place would create the building blocks for my path in social entrepreneurship, and the priceless joy of creating this very same experience for the young and aspiring around the world. Today I come to the Navy Yard, Washington DC not as an Intern seemingly at the zenith of his professional goal, but as an Atlas Corps Fellow just getting ready for the global stage, breaking down transnational boundaries for those whose careers hinge on it.

This is what I see that stands Atlas Corps out from other programs; its multilateral, multinational, free flow of service. This is what I can see as my major contribution toward African Renaissance, and the very next big thing to the global development practice. As people cross borders through this fellowship in an ‘open-source’ fashion, the technology that holds back the remaining 2/3 portion of the world from being flattened is freely licensed to them. Like me, we realize that Navy Yard is not just exclusive to the United States; it is reproducible in every single part of the world even in Lagos Nigeria.

This is what Navy Yard means to me.

A Whole New Civilization

On April 1, 2011 shortly after concluding my very first training as the Atlas Corps Fellow serving in Atlas Corps as the training manager, I quickly headed to One Lounge DuPont Circle where I became engrossed in an interesting conversation with some African Americans on my American experience. This conversation was probably triggered by my conspicuous dressing (meant for the training), I had a proudly African attire on in a happy hour bar on a Friday evening. Just a mere looking around confirms I wasn’t appropriately dressed for that location.

“....and where are you from?” someone asked, “Nigeria I answered”, this response started a thrilling 3 hours stint chat on what my American experience has been, and ultimately the million dollar question “so what is your plan after the Fellowship?” “I will go back home” I said. These guys were probably stunned with the confidence wrapped around those words, and out of a disturbing curiosity they asked, “Why do you want to go back to Africa?”, “Why shouldn’t I” I answered. To further buttress my response, I stressed, “Isn’t the Unites State is just 1 country of out of about 200” why should I die in 1!

And for every other day I live here in the US, the Great Society speech by Lyndon B. Johnson, re-echoes:

“We have the power to shape the civilization that we want. But we need your will, your labour, your hearts, if we are to build that kind of society. Those who came to this land sought to build more than just a new country. They sought a new world.”

In these words I have found faith and fortitude to match forward towards that civilization I seek. Like the infamous Death Strip of the Berlin Wall, many have encountered their deaths at this very boundary I now see behind me. And now that I’ve gone beyond the border, what do I do?

I am taking with me new building blocks;
I am igniting ripples of hope for the aspiring;
I am realizing the prophesies of many; shaping out the civilization deeply lodged in their hearts.

This is what my description of the Atlas Corps Fellowship is – “a cross border experience where civilizations are hatched”. Through this experience I have come to uncover the genius of every great civilization:

The United States of America isn’t what we necessarily think of it as outside of its borders, Americans for centuries have been successfully aligning their vision for the country with global reality. Americans have been shaping the civilizations they want.

Even the Atlas Corps Fellowship isn’t different, for the past 5 years, the program has been conforming the world’s experience to its intended vision; Atlas Corps has been reshaping the conventional practice of international service; creating a new a whole new civilization within the development sphere.

Now that I am in this great country and a member of the incredible Atlas Corps team – I now have the power to shape a whole new civilization.

Let’s Stretch Our Hands across the World

I was in Nairobi Kenya when Zain changed to Airtel, I didn’t know whether curse or bless. Few hours prior to this, I was showering praises on their One Network service. An interesting rooming service that allows me use my Nigerian Zain line in Kenya without having to incur to the high tariff associated with rooming services. With the One Nework, I get to make calls in Kenya at local rates without charges on incoming calls.

This change of name was abrupt: ends an all night party at 11pm; it cuts short my feeling of excitement on the network. But not too long to this change, I stumble on yet another blessing from the network- a television advert featuring 2Face (Nigeria), Ali Kiba (Tanzania), Amani (Kenya), Navio (Uganda), JK (Zambia), Movaizhaleine (Gabon), Fally Ipupa (DRC), 4x4 (Ghana). These guys are Africa’s finest music artistes, and with R Kelly as a group they chorus – “stretch your hands across the world”. This instantly became an inspiration, building an upsurge of faith to once again take my enterprise vision global.

The timing couldn’t be more apt; in two weeks time I am off to Washington DC for the Atlas Corps Fellowship flying through London Heathrow Airport. As I fly into Washington Dulles, Ify Ogo, the newly appointed consultant for my enterprise operations will be flying into Nigeria from the very same London Heathrow. She will be coming back from an incredible interface with UK organizations on providing work opportunities for African’s young and aspiring development leaders, and in the coming weeks ahead, she will be repeating this process in Southern and East Africa. Ify will be stretching our shared vision of Landmark Internship International across the world.

As Ify stretches her hands wide, mine wouldn’t be hindered; I will be doing the same across in the East Coast on the United States and in subsequent months will stretch to Southeast Asia. And like the One8 team of Airtel network, Ify and I will be stretching our hands, the network of Landmark across the world.

This year crescendos my very many attempts of stretching my hands globally: back in the in day, there were no physical hands to stretch, like a baby in the womb, my hands were inward, and all I could was stretch my imagination. I worked with one of the world’s biggest travel agency for students, wistfully I oversee travel tickets sales to very part of the world – students resuming to schools abroad, youth going for exchange programs, and international volunteers coming into the country. This was not the only ordeal I put up with; I also had the uneasy task of pitching international travel products to potential clients of all categories and never evidence my inexperience to international travels. Yet, I’d always stretch my inward hands across the world.

From once infantile to now fully grown, I stretch my hands not just to the world but towards a Higher hand; the hands that stretch the heavens and the earth into being. With this partnership, I am confident the entire world is now within reach, I am confident my reach will exceed my grasps and I am confident many more aspiring hands will stretch across the world.

If you would, let’s stretch our hands across the world.

1%: United Nations

Sometimes in the year 2001, my International Relations lecturer held the class hostage. The class was supposed to have ended by 4:00pm but my watch was saying 7:00pm. For everyone that tried to walk out of the lecture-room, it took a fresh register, we could not dare the implication of not getting on list, as it may worth of our test scores.

At the peak of our collective frustrations he made a prophetic statement - “You all have all come here to study International Relations but only one of you will become an Ambassador(, Diplomat or work with the United Nations)” he said. The resulting silence in the room was deafening, our growing feelings of frustration turned into gloomy mood of depression – most of us never felt qualified or blessed enough.

Having had the best of us, he decided to release us to our shells. We all left with divergent views of that encounter ranging from acquiescence to denial. At the gate of the university I sat with classmate ruminating over those words – “….only one of you will become an Ambassador, Diplomat or work with the United Nations”. Perhaps but for that extra investment of time we made, I might not have made that 1%. We both decided not to take the route of lecture-room but the social service way; we decided to lead a nonprofit from that every lecture-room and we did!

Many thanks to this decision, I now work as a Consultant for the United Nations.

Social Media is a Social Contract

During the Global Peace Convention which happened in Nairobi this past week, Uriel Gbenga of Landmark Internships, Nigeria, said something quite interesting. He said that participation in social media is tantamount to entering into a social contract with other people. I was/am a student of Sociology and Economics and his statement took me back to my University days when we were learning about the communist manifesto and social contracts. I loved those days – reading about the fathers of sociology, their ideas, arguments, and critiques. Sociology was just the ish. But I digress. Given Uriel’s statement, I wanted to explore what social contracts meant back then and how it can be interpreted today.

The Social Contract then
The Social Contract theory, the modern one at least, was advanced by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. According to the Internet Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, “Social Contract Theory, nearly as old as philosophy itself, is the view that persons’ moral and/or political obligations are dependent upon a contract or agreement between them to form society.” A Wikipedia definition that I also liked mentioned that “the Social Contract can also be thought of as an agreement by the governed on a set of rules by which they are governed.” It also asserted that “Social contract theory formed a central pillar in the historically important notion that legitimate state authority must be derived from the consent of the governed.”

Given these definitions of social contract and how Uriel referred to it during the Global Peace Convention when talking about Social Entrepreneurship, I believe that there is a fundamental connection between how the social contract theory was interpreted then and how it can be interpreted now. The times have clearly changed but the fundamentals still remain the same.

Social Contract in the age of Social Media
As we all know by now, social media has revolutionized the way people publish, find, read, and share content. And with loads of content from all across the web as the world wakes up to the reality of everyone being a publisher or potential publisher, something critical happens – Information Overload. But as Clay Shirky aptly pointed out, “it’s not information overload, its filter failure.” When we have so much content out there, we have to find ways to ensure that we don’t miss out on the valuable content by getting drowned in mediocre content. The filter process involves finding the best mechanism to sort out the best content. In social media, authorities and influencers is what you remain with after you separate the wheat from the chaff. What does this have to do with social contracts?

Uriel said that by deciding to follow you on Twitter, I am entering into a social contract with you whereby I follow you on the premise that you will provide me with good content. In the same way that “a legitimate state authority must be derived from the consent of the governed”, in social media, your attribution as an authority in whichever field you write on is not up to you but your readers. It is through their consent that you enjoy the authority status. By your readers subscribing to your content be it through liking your page, following you on twitter, signing up for your newsletter, joining your community, or subscribing to your blog posts, they have entered into social contract with you whereby they acknowledge you as the authority in return for quality content/insight, no less.

When this contract is not upheld, you lose your authority as people unfollow, unfriend, and unsubscribe. So the one thing you should always remember is that a social contract is an agreement with an exploding offer. The catch is that you will continue to have our attention for as long as you can provide us with quality content. The same agreement that was struck between the governors and the governed back then is still the same one that is being made between content creators and consumers.

The question then is; are you holding up your end of the contract?



This blog is authored by Marvin Tumbo

The Invisible Boundaries

I started 2010 by announcing an audacious mission statement for year – Going Beyond Borders; and this I’ve done to every aspect of life. As I press in making this word become flesh, I come to the increasing realization that in this age that we live in, the barriers that hold people back from reaching global impact have not just become blurred, in fact, they are now invisible. And all it takes is a ‘walkthrough-faith’.

How did I come to this conclusion?
Do I have any claims to strengthen this conclusion?

And if I did, are these claims direct products of my experiences?

My answer is yes I do, and out of many I introduce you to 3 personal experiences in the course of the year:

1. Meet by computer engineer from Pune India

In the month of June, my laptop suddenly started having a mind of its own, probably because it’s been compromised; it began drawing back my work flow. My updated anti-virus couldn’t help, online DELL support forums couldn’t help either; I couldn’t tell if the problem was a hardware or software. In a Skype chat with Damola Williams, an IT professional friend in India, he volunteered to fix the computer in the course of our conversation. I couldn’t believe this was possible at first; until he remotely accessed my laptop in Lagos Nigeria from India through TeamViewer, and before I knew it, the computer became normal again.

Because of invisible boundaries, Demola has been able to extend his market share beyond the geography of India to opening up new markets in Africa. Because I have experienced him, I have potentially become an international brand ambassador of his, publicizing this aspect of his service to my local markets. Should Damola decide to pursue this as a business model, he has insulated himself against the economic realities of India and plugged into the global economy. Damola has been able to fearlessly walk through his imaginary boundaries of geography.

2. Meet my conference speaker from Calgary Canada

In this month of October, I hosted the Global Jobs Fair 2010 Employability Seminar. The goal of the program was to open up evolving corporate professionals in Nigeria to global work opportunities through social media. To demonstrate the borderless possibilities of social media to this audience, I decided to extend an invitation to Renate Donnovan, a social media instructor and career coach in Canada, to participate in the program. Without living the comfort of her office, she was able to speak and answer questions from an audience of 120 in Lagos Nigeria through Skype video.

Because national boundaries as we know them have vanished, Renate has been able to stretch the scope of her social impact beyond the students of Bow Valley College in Canada to graduates and young professionals in Nigeria. She was able to make 120 of them see the topics of Digital Identity, Personal Branding and Social Networking from a Canadian perspective. Like Damola, Renate has walked through invisible boundaries.

3. Meet my interviewees across Nigeria

I currently coordinate a national fellowship program for Nigerian graduates seeking professional growth in the Green energy sector through the Green Collar Jobs Fellowship Program. Without the use of traditional media but just posting this opportunity to local social networking websites targeting job searchers in the country, I was overwhelmed with the volume of applications. 3 times, my company’s ISP called that I am exhausting my allocated bandwidth – this was an unexpected success wrapped with unexpected challenges.

In the spirit of creating equal opportunities to preselected, I was compelled to grant all shortlisted candidates interview opportunity, so I resulted to Skype interview. Like Renate, from the comfort of my office in Lekki Lagos Nigeria, I was able to virtually travel to more than 10 states interviewing. Like Damola and Renate, I too have walked through invisible boundaries.

These experiences support that we live in a borderless world, it demonstrates that the walls that hold people back from reaching their dreams are no more, and again, all it takes is just walking through our perceived boundaries.

Who Interviews The Interviewer?

Interviews: every professional strives for one because this is what it makes her. Be it a one on one, panel, telephone or Skype interview; these few minutes unlock a whole new level of life and the realization of long career dreams.
As interviewers talk to us, seating confidently as if they no longer have need for such, currently at the echelon of their career aspirations. One question we seem to often ask ourselves is – do these guys know what it feels like to have one’s next phase of professional life determined by a series of questions or a few minutes conversation?

For the past couple of weeks I have been interviewing aspiring interns around the world; Young professionals seeking internship opportunities in Africa, Nigerians reaching to intern abroad, Nigerians abroad keen to integrate into corporate Nigeria, Graduates desperate to get their very first work experience, Volunteers impatient to get their own platform to change the world and so on. But little do these folks know that as I interview them, simultaneously, I am being interviewed as well; with the same set of questions I pose to them, I get to answer some interviewers too.

The truth be told, this experience for me is a dream come true; looking back those years I travel pretty long distance to cyber cafés to access the internet, in fact, in other to make the most of my internet surfing, my friends and I would do what was called “all-night browsing”. But this faithful day, I can remember challenging myself; thoughtfully asking, what is really spectacular about these organizations I travel miles to elicit a positive response from abroad? Why can’t I be the one to globally receive and review applications, interview, and determine who qualifies or not?

During those days, although we come from different locations yet our goals were all one and the same – to travel abroad either as a student, intern or conference participant. It’s been over a decade now that I’ve traded places, once an unaided internship applicant now a social entrepreneur, creating internship opportunities for the young and aspiring around the world. However, as I give thanks for the remarkable turnaround, the reality remains I’m still being interviewed on a continuous basis.

Just as my interviewees are high in hope; implicitly trusting their applications with me become successful and probably replaying the memory of every aspect of the interview we had; how they introduced themselves, convincingly demonstrating what makes them uniquely qualified, what compelling value they bring to the table and so on. In the same manner, I undergo these discomforting emotions; hoping whatever I had said to my interviewers were well received. And should their decisions be unfavorable, what contingency plan B, C and D do I have in place.

But just this morning, out of a gross gloomy darkness of anxiety, comes a ray of light; a gently mild voice on my inside, a comforting reassurance that my interviewers need me more than I can imagine. My initial response to this conjecture was how do I substantiate this intuition? Then I ask myself, isn’t this evident with those I interview? As I receive their unrelenting follow up calls and emails, trying to ascertain the status of their applications, don’t I smile? Saying to myself, if only they knew how much their applications meant to me, they will contemplate picking my calls.

Although, I am yet to get definitive feedbacks on the outcome of my interviews neither have I done the same to my interviewees, the lesson I take home from the experience is - we are more valuable than we think. So my advice to everyone helplessly stuck on the pending outcome of an interview, be certain that regardless of the outcome, you are so much more valuable!

I end this blog with the lines I picked from the One Tree Hill series – “Most of our lives is a series of images, they past us by like towns on the highway. Sometimes a moment stuns on us and says, it happens, and we know that this instinct is more than a flitting image, we know that this moment, every part of it, will live on forever”. This is what it feels like when we prevail upon The Interviewer to unlock our dream jobs out of their hands; the experience although only lasts for a season, the memory and net effects, inerasably linger on forever.