Profession: Architect
City: Pune
Country: India

What inspired you to want a life in Architecture and the creative industries?:
Well, today i live and work in the city of Pune, India. Its unbelievable because i come from a very tiny village in Western Uganda. Its name, KAISEKENKERE, i couldn’t pronounce the name until i was about 12 years. At 7 years old, i was enrolled in a boarding school 500kms from my village in the capital city of Uganda, KAMPALA!. This journey was like a movie playing on the windscreen of the taxi for the 5 hour journey, i watched the movie start with a village and transform into a city, from children walking to school, to arriving to a school with children from the high class families. My mind was convinced that we had to find a solution, how to turn a village into the city. That inspired me into architecture, that same story inspired my journey into edcuation space design. And honestly, i am still trying to figure out how India became part of this journey.

Who inspired you in finding your path to Architecture/Film and the creative industries?:
My parents. My dad granted me the liberty to follow my heart, and support it. Anything architecture, technical drawing, painting, art, he supported it and guided me on this path. My mum noticed i had a natural gift of art, she inspired my poor sketches to become my great designs in my architecture journey today. The confidence and trust of my parents fueled me on a journey of self discovery, on that journey i have tranversed through the different fields of art, architecture being the guiding field and discipline.

How you unlock obstacles and overcome bias in your work?:
i am on a journey where i am becoming more self conscious to such questions. Curiousity and playfulness have always unlocked obstacles for me. 6 years down the road, i aligned everything in my life with architecture, so i trust my self, first with the knowlegde ive gained and second with the fact that i can gain more knowledge as per required. So i view an obstacle not only as lack of knowlegde but as confusion on how to use knowledge. Thats where curiousity and playfulness help me, they create pathways through which the knowledge unlock.

I recently moved to India, and the issue of bias has never be so expounded like now in my life. But many people are not informed of cultural differences, many people are carrying hearts of discrimination and bias, in one room you’re overlooked, and in another room, you’re mocked. But i choose to trust my journey, if that triggers me, i would lose the focus and responsibility to my purpose and service. I have not learnt how to overcome it, i let my ability and potential speak for me.

What improvements do you feel are required to promote effective change in the academic and working environment?:
System thinking over individual stage. Many people walk the world thinking we are solitarym solitary in our work, in our research, in our creation, in our experiences and yet we expect the world to create one big community. This has led to overload on individuals and failures of systems. Most of our seniors have found a cheatcode later in life but are comfortably watching, teaching, nurturing solitary beings. I am not an architect without the design team that i can play with. i am not a writer without people to experience life with. Many enter school hoping to be the best, or work, hoping to be the most hardworking, yet all we need is to be the best friend/teammate. These environments should teach more about the systems that we work and live in rather than placing baggage and load that many carry for years before they throw it away later in life.