1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:10,800 On today's episode of Afrinu podcast, if you want to commercialize a product, spawn a startup, 2 00:00:10,800 --> 00:00:15,200 develop climate solutions to emissions free base load electricity, get high impact funds 3 00:00:15,200 --> 00:00:20,240 and evaluations on your innovative ideas, then listen to the end to get enriching details 4 00:00:20,240 --> 00:00:25,520 as we bring you a big catch in the industry, Lakshana Hoode. Lakshana is an investment 5 00:00:25,520 --> 00:00:30,800 associate at the engine where she brings over a decade of experience in academic research and 6 00:00:30,800 --> 00:00:36,320 commercialization of climate focused technologies. Prior to working at the engine, she helped build 7 00:00:36,320 --> 00:00:41,920 activate baston an entrepreneurial fellowship program supporting science innovators from concept 8 00:00:41,920 --> 00:00:50,160 to first product. Lakshana was also at APAE a high risk high impact funding agency within the 9 00:00:50,160 --> 00:00:56,080 department of energy USA. Lakshana holds a phd nuclear engineering from University of California 10 00:00:56,080 --> 00:01:03,760 Berkeley and an image in mechanical engineering from imperial college London. A big catch to have 11 00:01:03,760 --> 00:01:10,640 someone as big as you on here. So very happy. Not at all. It's it's really my pleasure to be here. 12 00:01:10,640 --> 00:01:17,040 Oh thank you so much. I sincerely appreciate that. Yeah absolutely absolutely and i'm really 13 00:01:17,040 --> 00:01:24,960 looking forward to the conversation. Tell me about you and what you do. Absolutely absolutely yeah 14 00:01:24,960 --> 00:01:32,080 and thank you once again for for having me on the pod pastury and and and maybe just for a little bit 15 00:01:32,080 --> 00:01:37,920 of context you know we both know each other through the on-deck climate tech fellowship 16 00:01:38,720 --> 00:01:43,040 which you know i'm really thankful that i got to meet so many amazing people such as yourself 17 00:01:43,040 --> 00:01:53,440 in that fellowship. So i um my my name is Lakshana Hidar and i thank you for clarifying your name. 18 00:01:54,000 --> 00:02:00,240 Thank you. Yeah yeah absolutely because the name is really really unique so it's good for our audience 19 00:02:00,240 --> 00:02:08,240 to know how to pronounce it. Cool. It's a difficult name yes it's an Indian name. Mine is more difficult. 20 00:02:08,240 --> 00:02:15,920 Have you tried to pronounce mine? Jeremiah Mbazor? Okay there you are. You tried. Good try. 21 00:02:19,760 --> 00:02:26,400 You laughed it correctly. Yeah you're right. My name is Mbazor Jeremiah. So you're correct. Oh great. 22 00:02:26,400 --> 00:02:30,960 It's just that i pronounce it a little bit faster because it's my name so just the way you pronounce it 23 00:02:30,960 --> 00:02:42,160 is like China or something like that so. Cool. Yeah yeah perfect. Yeah so i you know i i grew up in 24 00:02:42,160 --> 00:02:49,120 in Belgium did my undergraduate studies in the UK at Imperial College in mechanical engineering. I was 25 00:02:49,120 --> 00:02:55,440 always very interested in kind of science and math and that kind of thing so wanted to get into 26 00:02:55,440 --> 00:03:02,480 engineering and then while i was doing my undergraduate studies i um i sort of became fascinated with nuclear 27 00:03:02,480 --> 00:03:10,160 engineering and the potential for nuclear engineering to um to solve some of our climate 28 00:03:10,160 --> 00:03:17,680 change problems especially given that it's a emissions free source of baseload electricity which is 29 00:03:18,240 --> 00:03:25,360 um it's it's not easy to find solutions like that that can uh yeah you know that can 30 00:03:25,360 --> 00:03:33,520 uh yeah like readily combat some of these climate change issues and of course you know i i understood 31 00:03:33,520 --> 00:03:40,800 that there were a lot of controversies around the space you know like the the issues around the nuclear waste 32 00:03:41,360 --> 00:03:49,440 disposal but i was still really fascinated by the by the potential for these technologies and 33 00:03:49,440 --> 00:03:55,760 um and i was starting to learn more about advanced nuclear reactor designs that could combat some of the 34 00:03:55,760 --> 00:04:08,720 challenges that our existing nuclear reactors were facing um and so i came to UC Berkeley to get a PhD in nuclear engineering 35 00:04:08,720 --> 00:04:17,440 so i studied advanced nuclear reactor designs i i worked on the heat transfer of the nuclear reactor core 36 00:04:17,440 --> 00:04:24,640 in a fluoride salt cooled high temperature reactor so that sounds so technical yeah yeah it was it was 37 00:04:24,640 --> 00:04:34,080 definitely a very technical uh PhD with a lot of experimental work and um you know computational 38 00:04:34,080 --> 00:04:41,440 work uh some theoretical work it's like it was a mix of a lot of a lot of things and um and it was it was an amazing 39 00:04:41,440 --> 00:04:51,440 experience to be able to um work on advancing some of these technology wow it's it's it's so amazing 40 00:04:51,440 --> 00:04:59,440 like i mean like at what point because i begin to wonder like someone um especially um from 41 00:04:59,440 --> 00:05:06,480 india originally although you said you grew up in belgium which means a lot of the lifestyle of the 42 00:05:06,480 --> 00:05:17,360 of the develop world must have infiltrated or like been in you already so i began to wonder like at what point 43 00:05:17,360 --> 00:05:24,480 begin did you develop the interest to go into nuclear technology like at what point what like what was the 44 00:05:24,480 --> 00:05:30,960 the the spark that made you say oh this is it for me like and especially going into the advanced 45 00:05:30,960 --> 00:05:36,960 nuclear technology because um for me coming from a developing world i would be interested in gen 4 46 00:05:36,960 --> 00:05:42,960 reactors and the advanced one but i will not be looking at home perhaps maybe at the immediate 47 00:05:42,960 --> 00:05:52,960 um level except maybe in looking at the future because um will like be more receptive to kind of 48 00:05:52,960 --> 00:05:59,840 um proving technologies and not the advanced ones except we want to leapfrog as usually in africa so 49 00:05:59,840 --> 00:06:07,840 at what point did you get that spark uh that came to you to say okay i'm going to do this yeah that's a 50 00:06:07,840 --> 00:06:15,840 great question and i honestly can't really pinpoint an exact moment where something just clicked for me 51 00:06:15,840 --> 00:06:23,840 um but i do remember uh during a class in high school in one of my physics classes we were talking about 52 00:06:23,840 --> 00:06:33,120 different ways to generate electricity and and i remember the page on nuclear had you know had uh had pros and cons 53 00:06:33,120 --> 00:06:39,840 and that was the only page that had pros and cons all the other pages like solar and oil and gas like 54 00:06:39,840 --> 00:06:51,840 they were all just like pros so and and i like to tell people that i've always been drawn to controversial 55 00:06:51,840 --> 00:07:01,840 topics uh because i love to kind of delve deep into why something is controversial and yeah and um 56 00:07:01,840 --> 00:07:09,840 and so that was so i would say that certainly got the idea in my head that i want to learn more about 57 00:07:09,840 --> 00:07:17,840 nuclear technology and how it can be used for electricity generation and then just yeah and then 58 00:07:17,840 --> 00:07:25,840 like throughout my undergrad and you know i i kind of kept you know kept up to date with what was happening in the field 59 00:07:25,840 --> 00:07:36,720 and um and research in the us at least and advanced nuclear reactors was really picking up and uh there was lots of 60 00:07:36,720 --> 00:07:46,240 uh you know research funding in in these types of areas and so uh that's what really um kind of cemented the idea for 61 00:07:46,240 --> 00:07:54,560 me that i wanted to work in this space wow and now your journey has really taken you to like the the highest 62 00:07:55,040 --> 00:08:04,240 echelon of of research and also organizations that that deal with people that have ideas and new ideas of 63 00:08:05,760 --> 00:08:11,840 starting up new products or technologies and this brings me to the next question about 64 00:08:11,840 --> 00:08:18,640 the area where you are working and that's the activate fellows and from your background you you said that 65 00:08:18,640 --> 00:08:27,040 um you you helped to start up the activate fellows in the boston office right you have to build 66 00:08:27,040 --> 00:08:32,880 yeah you have to build activate boston and can you tell us a bit about activate boston and what it means 67 00:08:32,880 --> 00:08:38,640 and activate in general because i understand from the under climate fellowship here we met 68 00:08:38,640 --> 00:08:44,640 um you talked a lot about the activate fellowship and maybe our audience would like to hear more about it 69 00:08:44,640 --> 00:08:52,640 and know what you have to say about it perhaps it's yeah might be what they want to get into yeah 70 00:08:54,000 --> 00:09:02,080 absolutely um so yeah so my my journey has kind of taken me away from nuclear actually at this point 71 00:09:02,080 --> 00:09:08,480 obviously yeah but still still very much involved in in kind of keeping up to date with what's happening 72 00:09:08,480 --> 00:09:17,040 and um yeah so i you know i i spent about a year and a half at an organization called activate which 73 00:09:17,040 --> 00:09:24,240 is a non-profit that operates an entrepreneurial fellowship program uh that's really focused on 74 00:09:24,240 --> 00:09:32,880 empowering scientific founders that want to spin out their academic research into uh into a company 75 00:09:32,880 --> 00:09:41,200 into into something that can be commercialized that's quite unique that yeah yeah i think it's um 76 00:09:43,200 --> 00:09:50,720 you know it's a really great opportunity for you know for the entrepreneurial focused researcher 77 00:09:51,600 --> 00:09:56,960 to be able to kind of you know spend two years so the activate fellowship is the two-year program 78 00:09:56,960 --> 00:10:02,960 um where you know activate provides a living stipend so you don't have to worry about 79 00:10:03,440 --> 00:10:07,360 you know sleeping on your mother's couch while you're trying to spin out the company 80 00:10:08,400 --> 00:10:13,360 as well as a small research stipend as well and the idea is that you know in these two years 81 00:10:13,360 --> 00:10:19,360 let's try to build that initial prototype that uh that meets commercial specifications 82 00:10:20,000 --> 00:10:25,600 um or let's try to fail really fast you know so that's another way to learn very important 83 00:10:25,600 --> 00:10:33,440 yeah fail in first right yeah yeah absolutely um and so so that's what the that's what the 84 00:10:33,440 --> 00:10:40,480 activate fellowship is really about and it's really around um around hardware-based technologies 85 00:10:40,480 --> 00:10:49,520 that can have a large social impact so of course climate tech falls into that um but you know climate 86 00:10:49,520 --> 00:10:59,120 tech is not the only type of technology that that activate has under its umbrella um and and so 87 00:11:00,480 --> 00:11:08,320 yeah so so that's that's kind of how the program operates and um the program like one of the other 88 00:11:08,320 --> 00:11:13,920 sort of benefits of being in a program like that is that you're you're gonna be with other 89 00:11:13,920 --> 00:11:20,400 entrepreneurs who are in the same kind of boat is yeah yeah if you think you think if you want 90 00:11:20,400 --> 00:11:28,080 to float you float together cool nice yeah yeah and it's really nice to have like peers that you can 91 00:11:28,080 --> 00:11:37,680 talk to and you can kind of learn from um and and as well as just having access to a large network 92 00:11:37,680 --> 00:11:45,200 that activate has and i cannot i cannot then i've actually yeah yeah i kind of had i cannot have uh i 93 00:11:45,200 --> 00:11:51,360 kind of had a kind of um foretaste of that kind of environment in the on-deck fellowship because you have 94 00:11:51,360 --> 00:11:56,080 a wide variety of people with different ideas although you have one big umbrella idea of the 95 00:11:56,080 --> 00:12:01,920 climate but people have different solutions they've come to present for this so uh perhaps that's 96 00:12:01,920 --> 00:12:10,080 kind of a similar comparison to what the activate fellowship presents i guess yeah yeah for sure 97 00:12:10,080 --> 00:12:17,120 and and activate is very much focused on sort of supporting that very early stage um in helping 98 00:12:17,120 --> 00:12:25,600 grow the company uh helping you network with various partners investors uh strategic who might be 99 00:12:25,600 --> 00:12:34,240 able to kind of you know help you grow your company as well and um yeah yeah so what's what's then 100 00:12:34,240 --> 00:12:44,080 actually i've moved to um the engine which is an early stage venture capital fund uh that's focused 101 00:12:44,080 --> 00:12:51,760 on investing in um you know lab lab breakthroughs academically search lab breakthroughs that have a 102 00:12:51,760 --> 00:12:59,520 large societal impact so do you have any example any example of maybe maybe what you've maybe come out 103 00:12:59,520 --> 00:13:08,880 to it in in this fellowship maybe any example of maybe eventual organization or maybe a startup 104 00:13:08,880 --> 00:13:17,040 that sprung up from the engine or the activate fellowship yeah yeah absolutely so the engine 105 00:13:17,040 --> 00:13:25,920 has around 33 portfolio companies right now um you know so they just close their it's it's a large 106 00:13:25,920 --> 00:13:33,840 portfolio and and these companies are you know either focused on climate tech or human health or 107 00:13:33,840 --> 00:13:39,280 sort of advanced systems infrastructure type stuff and so you know one of the big companies 108 00:13:39,280 --> 00:13:46,720 that the engine invested in is called commonwealth fusion systems uh which is a company 109 00:13:46,720 --> 00:13:54,720 that's going to be generating electricity through fusion power wow that's cool so yeah yeah and this 110 00:13:54,720 --> 00:14:01,760 is a this is a this company has grown really big and it's you know wow that's that's more than 150 111 00:14:01,760 --> 00:14:08,480 employees and there's going to be uh they're building a pilot plant now here in massachusetts wow 112 00:14:08,480 --> 00:14:14,400 so it's it's very exciting for that yeah that's really really interesting okay so um it's very 113 00:14:14,400 --> 00:14:21,840 amazing and also very thought provoking how you've navigated your career through the nuclear field 114 00:14:21,840 --> 00:14:29,360 and also in the startup area and entrepreneurship and and the thing surrounding it so it's quite 115 00:14:29,360 --> 00:14:36,240 interesting to see how this has grown and how you grown in it as well so this brings me to the 116 00:14:36,240 --> 00:14:45,520 next question about um because we have a lot of young people that are listening to us and 60% 117 00:14:45,520 --> 00:14:52,080 of the people in sub-saharan africa are young people and you can be very sure that the larger 118 00:14:52,080 --> 00:14:58,720 portion of people listening to the podcast are young young stars so i wonder like looking at 119 00:14:59,440 --> 00:15:04,960 your career path and the way you've grown in your career it will be very very challenging and 120 00:15:04,960 --> 00:15:12,000 captivating for a lot of young stars and also talking from the developing world's point of view 121 00:15:12,000 --> 00:15:19,360 a lot of things need to be done i wonder what are your thoughts and what has helped you along the 122 00:15:19,360 --> 00:15:27,760 way as you progressed to becoming who you are at this point now please yeah that's a great question 123 00:15:27,760 --> 00:15:36,240 and i would definitely say i would say two things uh so one for me was kind of having um 124 00:15:37,920 --> 00:15:43,280 not so much a clear idea of where i wanted to be because i had no idea that i would become i would 125 00:15:43,920 --> 00:15:51,360 be in venture capital ten years ago um but more around that i really wanted to be in a space where 126 00:15:51,360 --> 00:15:58,960 i could have an impact on climate change so that was sort of my guiding star to all of the decisions 127 00:15:58,960 --> 00:16:06,240 that i made throughout my career um so you know when i was uh when i finished my undergraduate 128 00:16:06,240 --> 00:16:13,440 studies i was applying for jobs and one of the jobs that i got was um with an oil and gas 129 00:16:13,440 --> 00:16:20,160 services company which would have paid me really really well i would have been super well off at a 130 00:16:20,160 --> 00:16:29,120 very young age um but then i i didn't want to be in the oil and gas space like i wanted to wow 131 00:16:29,760 --> 00:16:36,400 that would be so strange to hear in these parts of the world everybody wants to work in the oil 132 00:16:36,400 --> 00:16:42,880 company in nigeria especially in most african countries absolutely and that's because it's you 133 00:16:42,880 --> 00:16:51,200 know it's a it's a very lucrative space like you you know you're you'll be set for life right yeah 134 00:16:51,200 --> 00:16:57,920 most likely uh but i i really wanted to try something different like i wanted to 135 00:16:59,120 --> 00:17:07,520 work on a technology that could potentially help with climate change um and so that that was one of the 136 00:17:07,520 --> 00:17:14,000 you know that was kind of a guiding principle for me i guess i mean it really depends on on the 137 00:17:14,000 --> 00:17:20,080 person but for me that's what really helped me make decisions throughout and the other thing i would 138 00:17:20,080 --> 00:17:27,200 say is you know just having you know trying to find a really strong supportive network of people as 139 00:17:27,200 --> 00:17:35,520 well you know that might be your your family um your friends people from uh you know from some 140 00:17:35,520 --> 00:17:42,320 some job or like the on-deck climate tech fellowship um you know people that you can just kind of talk to 141 00:17:42,320 --> 00:17:51,040 uh about decisions that you want to make and also express your controversy as well yeah absolutely 142 00:17:51,040 --> 00:17:55,680 absolutely exactly these are people who will call you out if they think that you're not doing the 143 00:17:55,680 --> 00:18:02,560 right thing right so yeah uh so i would say um yeah yeah you know it it's it's comes to a point where 144 00:18:02,560 --> 00:18:07,040 you you just need to leave your comfort zone at some point you know when you're in a place where 145 00:18:07,040 --> 00:18:13,040 everybody is like nodding to everything you do everybody's like you are like the the good in the 146 00:18:13,040 --> 00:18:19,280 good books of everybody even though you are not making any impacts like you don't make any change 147 00:18:19,280 --> 00:18:26,640 there is no impact generally there's the need kind of break out of that box kind of and to make a very 148 00:18:26,640 --> 00:18:31,840 strong stride that will make you that will launch into the next level and that's really very 149 00:18:31,840 --> 00:18:40,160 commendable on your part so uh i want that being in the us and um 20 percent of the electricity 150 00:18:40,800 --> 00:18:47,680 generated in us is from the nuclear and uh the atmosphere does not seem very conducive although 151 00:18:47,680 --> 00:18:53,760 there are a lot of startup companies that are bringing up new technologies uh i i don't i don't 152 00:18:53,760 --> 00:19:01,280 want to name them at this point but i'm very sure that um your company alone is already like looking 153 00:19:01,280 --> 00:19:07,680 at um companies and people that are like developing new technology that will be very useful what in the 154 00:19:07,680 --> 00:19:14,480 us and for the international market so i wonder like what's the what's the future like although you've 155 00:19:14,480 --> 00:19:19,200 drifted away from nuclear but you cannot take nuclear away from you you know it's still in your 156 00:19:19,200 --> 00:19:26,480 system i believe right yeah absolutely and what do you think is the future like what's the future like 157 00:19:26,480 --> 00:19:31,920 for nuclear in us and kind of in the in the world if you might have a grasp on that 158 00:19:34,160 --> 00:19:42,560 i would love to see more nuclear um in both in the us and and the world of course and i feel like 159 00:19:43,360 --> 00:19:48,160 especially in the developing world i feel like there's a lot more opportunity for new nuclear 160 00:19:48,160 --> 00:19:57,520 bills right because um you know there isn't any baggage that uh i feel like yeah because 161 00:19:58,240 --> 00:20:03,200 populations are growing in the developing world like you could just look at like india for example 162 00:20:03,200 --> 00:20:12,880 there's just a lot more demand for for a clean baseload electricity right um so i mean pollution 163 00:20:12,880 --> 00:20:23,920 is already a big issue in in india for example um and and and so is blackouts um they happen constantly 164 00:20:23,920 --> 00:20:32,160 in india that's very normal here as well in nigeria especially oh right right right and and it's 165 00:20:32,160 --> 00:20:40,640 like yeah it just becomes so normal but it's uh there there are solutions after right like there are 166 00:20:40,640 --> 00:20:48,960 um and so you know nuclear might be one of those solutions and um and and i think you know like 167 00:20:48,960 --> 00:20:55,360 especially with these advanced nuclear reactor designs they they're going to be able to combat 168 00:20:55,360 --> 00:21:05,760 some of the legacy issues that these old generation one generation two reactors have um so i feel like 169 00:21:05,760 --> 00:21:13,120 i feel like people might be more receptive to the advanced nuclear reactor designs okay that's very nice 170 00:21:13,120 --> 00:21:22,480 but i wonder like i have a little um um concern if it's if it's if that's if that's what it means 171 00:21:23,680 --> 00:21:31,280 my concern is this like having the advanced nuclear technology having to use that without having 172 00:21:31,280 --> 00:21:38,720 it been proven somewhere like you know the nuclear field i don't know if it is becoming more like 173 00:21:39,360 --> 00:21:44,560 something you can just get the latest model and use without testing the old one you know like a 174 00:21:44,560 --> 00:21:51,120 smartphone you can start using an android phone from at at this point without even learning how a 175 00:21:51,120 --> 00:21:58,320 phone works and you can just go off from that point and be a phone user but i wonder how it it is in the 176 00:21:58,320 --> 00:22:04,240 in the nuclear technology aspect like is it is it easy for one to just leapfrog into the advanced 177 00:22:04,240 --> 00:22:10,640 nuclear technology like in a place like um africa where we don't have that benefit of learning from 178 00:22:10,640 --> 00:22:17,280 proven technology likes the gen three and gen three plus um options i wonder like what do you think 179 00:22:17,280 --> 00:22:21,280 about this you know in india you already have nuclear power plants working from the russian 180 00:22:21,280 --> 00:22:27,920 technologies and difference and thanks to the um new regulation i mean new um international law 181 00:22:27,920 --> 00:22:35,600 that removed the trade embargo between us and india so you can now trade technologies or do 182 00:22:35,600 --> 00:22:42,240 a kind of technology transfer so but already you have an existing technology going on so what do you 183 00:22:42,240 --> 00:22:49,680 think like especially from the start up point i know you may be being a start up um accelerate or 184 00:22:49,680 --> 00:22:56,400 kind of pressing you might have some things you need to get from maybe the scientist or the guy who's 185 00:22:56,400 --> 00:23:01,920 proposing a new technology that will make you approve it or fund it but when it comes to the guy who 186 00:23:01,920 --> 00:23:11,120 wants to buy it he it's yeah it might make a good business case but going um in the operation and 187 00:23:11,120 --> 00:23:17,520 maintenance and also in in the future if i may say do you think this might be a problem in the future 188 00:23:18,080 --> 00:23:24,320 i mean i think you know as you very rightly mentioned like there are still a lot of challenges and 189 00:23:24,320 --> 00:23:33,600 i think um you know a lot of these a lot of this can be mitigated with strong um government 190 00:23:33,600 --> 00:23:41,440 support and public private partnerships which is what is trying to happen in the u.s. yeah they 191 00:23:41,440 --> 00:23:49,680 were public private partnership you got it great right right exactly and so you know kind of because 192 00:23:49,680 --> 00:23:59,120 a lot of these projects require a lot of upfront capital cost um and you know it's very hard to 193 00:23:59,120 --> 00:24:07,760 raise that kind of money in the private sector yeah um so being able to you know get support from 194 00:24:07,760 --> 00:24:14,240 the government to be able to set up test reactors uh so at least you know test out the technology 195 00:24:14,240 --> 00:24:22,240 um can really help because once you once you have those kinds of integrated um test 196 00:24:23,120 --> 00:24:29,760 you know results and things like that like that can really help with um licensing your reactor 197 00:24:29,760 --> 00:24:37,200 yeah so you know going through all the regulatory hurdles and yeah um so yeah it's definitely not an 198 00:24:37,200 --> 00:24:44,960 easy thing to do and it's definitely very nuanced and um yeah i mean like i know i understand that 199 00:24:44,960 --> 00:24:52,720 um like an example of china that got the ap 1000 the westin house reactor they got it but it was 200 00:24:52,720 --> 00:24:59,200 not working anywhere like they were already building it in u.s. but it has not been completed i think in 201 00:24:59,200 --> 00:25:07,520 the voktul site and somewhere still not completed yeah still not completed but but the chinese have 202 00:25:07,520 --> 00:25:13,600 already bought this technology they already got it working in in china already without having to see 203 00:25:13,600 --> 00:25:20,480 it working elsewhere so i think there is kind of um a future like if the people are very willing 204 00:25:20,480 --> 00:25:26,880 they might be willing to take the risk and take the big jump or like the the the leap of faith if 205 00:25:26,880 --> 00:25:33,120 my if i may say and like give it a good shot like if i'm if i may say if that's the the right word for 206 00:25:33,120 --> 00:25:39,520 it so i think there is hope kind of yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah i think so and i mean you know these types 207 00:25:39,520 --> 00:25:48,560 of reactors um often there's hundreds of jobs uh that come with this type of reactor uh so that's another 208 00:25:48,560 --> 00:25:55,680 you know hundreds of like very skilled high paying jobs right yeah so that's another kind of incentive 209 00:25:55,680 --> 00:26:05,120 is that yeah very good so um lakshana it's quite interesting to talk with you and i'm very very 210 00:26:05,120 --> 00:26:11,520 happy it's quite an interactive and amazing session with you i want to have some last words 211 00:26:11,520 --> 00:26:18,640 from you so that we can call it a time in the session perhaps in the future we can have more 212 00:26:18,640 --> 00:26:24,960 time with you or at this point i just want to ask you just two questions one i want to ask you 213 00:26:24,960 --> 00:26:33,040 about the activate fellowship if you take people from outside the us uh i don't know about that 214 00:26:33,040 --> 00:26:42,480 can you tell us if that applies for sure um so there's uh definitely applications are open 215 00:26:43,680 --> 00:26:51,680 for people outside of the us the only stipulations are that you have to move to either boston or 216 00:26:51,680 --> 00:26:59,360 berkeley or the duration of the fellowship um and then you know the fascinate that movement 217 00:27:01,200 --> 00:27:09,040 uh we we do a we do have real patients stipend um so definitely we encourage people to i mean 218 00:27:10,560 --> 00:27:15,760 okay that you know that's a very core part of the fellowship uh being in the same location as 219 00:27:15,760 --> 00:27:22,240 everyone else okay and then having the the access to you know just making sure that you're able to 220 00:27:22,800 --> 00:27:28,560 work in the us and work for your company like work for the company that you're spinning out 221 00:27:29,120 --> 00:27:35,040 uh which are kind of very yeah technical minor details but you know that's good yeah so 222 00:27:36,000 --> 00:27:40,080 uh i sincerely appreciate the answer to that question that brings me to the last one 223 00:27:40,080 --> 00:27:47,760 um what are your last words like what do you want our listeners to know like what are your last words 224 00:27:47,760 --> 00:27:51,440 any word you want to to give to those who are listening to us now 225 00:27:53,040 --> 00:27:58,880 can you i just want to say you know thank you once again for for having me and you know i'm 226 00:27:58,880 --> 00:28:05,920 really looking forward to learning more about uh the you know progress of nuclear technology 227 00:28:05,920 --> 00:28:15,920 in in africa especially in nigeria um and um yeah and also you know please get in touch with me 228 00:28:15,920 --> 00:28:22,800 if you have any other if you have any cool startup ideas or or if you would like some advice on 229 00:28:22,800 --> 00:28:29,040 you know how to spin out the technology um i'm definitely happy to help with that type of um 230 00:28:30,720 --> 00:28:35,520 that type of advice and thinking wow that's quite a generous offer from you thank you very 231 00:28:35,520 --> 00:28:41,520 much Lakshana for the time with us and i sincerely appreciate and hope to speak with you one more 232 00:28:41,520 --> 00:28:48,800 time and um i get to know more about you and what you do and um expand the frontiers of our 233 00:28:48,800 --> 00:29:06,720 network thank you so much for being with us absolutely thank you so much jerry this was great