 Good morning. How are we today? I haven't seen most of you since they have begun, so happy new year. Do I not like the fact that the students are sitting at the back? Students, you should be informed because this is more of a learning experience for you than for the rest of us. Okay, my name is Maria Natpunda. I am a communications and marketing specialist. I currently work with New Breaks CRB as the chief operations officer. And I love storytelling. One of my established hobbies is that I am a filmmaker with an award for best documentary from the Igana Film Festival 2022. And I think the topic I'm talking about is not new to all of us. We all know what a story is. In our own understanding, we know what a story is. And in simple terms, a story is just a narrative where a series of events that are told in a sequence that has a beginning, a middle and an end. In simple terms, every story that you see whether it's a film, even if it's in a song, it will always have a beginning. There will be a middle part there, the climax, maybe a protagonist and antagonist there, and then it will end. But storytelling in itself gives us a huge opportunity to put things across and just to look through a few examples that we might be familiar with. We all know who Nelson Mandela is, yes? Show of hands. I know I have people in the room. Nelson Mandela, how do you know about Nelson Mandela? Because I doubt many of us here have grown up for living in South Africa. We had a story about him, yes? The story of creation. We all, if you're a Christian like me, you know you were created by God. How did you get to know that you were created by God? There was a story somewhere written in a book that we call the Bible. And then one of the greatest people, as a speaker and as a storyteller, one of the greatest storytellers that I know is Jesus. When Jesus was teaching most of the things that he taught us, the immunos, the lessons, the admonitions and everything, he always used stories. Yes? Parables as they are commonly known in the Bible. He never said, okay, you will do this, don't do this, don't do that. He always used a story to illustrate the point. And the other person that I can think of who uses storytelling very, very powerfully is the Nigerian author Paul Chimamanda Bosie. She once talked about the danger of one story where she shared about her life experiences and about this household they had, I think a house boy. And what they were always told as a young children was, I know they come from a point less, we are helping them, we are doing good. But then, one time she got the opportunity to visit where that boy was coming from. And the story was different. The reality on the ground was different. Yes, he had come to work in the city, but he was not as badly off as it had been portrayed where she came from. So storytelling has a lot of influence. To bring it even closer to home. I come from Kabaddi. Any people here from Kabaddi? Have you known Mosaic Argoined? Yes. He always told us stories about our ancestry. Powerful stories. When I met him on the street, when I had him on radio, wherever you bumped into him, he always had a story to tell that would tell you about the culture of the Banyatidazi. And then children's stories. This one might sound funny, but who knows why that chicken scratched the ground. Who knows that story? No one. I see a hand there. Why does the chicken do the hand scratch the ground? It's looking for something. Looking for something. Do you know what in particular? I think it was the Nido. A Nido. The story has it that the ego and the hen used to be best friends. Until the hen borrowed a Nido from the ego and then lost it. So the hen is always scratching, looking for that Nido. But because she had never found it, the ego picked a grudge and that is why the egos eat them. Chicks. It was always a hilarious story. But well, it at that time does at that time. And then we have so many traditional stories that we've grown up on. From Bukanda, I remember the story of Chintu. There was another one about Nsanji. I just remember that song, I don't remember the entire narrative. Nsanji, who knows that one? Maybe I could look for it in QuickTime and you help me remember it. Who knows the story of Nsanji? I had someone say Nsanji. If you look at the moral of all those stories, they were always teaching us something. So what does that say about storytelling? I'm looking at the key words of our discussion today. Storytelling is just really the act of using language and imaging is another form of expression to convey a narrative or a message. And then when you look at what communication is, it is really the process of sharing information. I'm feelings with others through language, symbols and other forms of expression. And a combination of these two gives you a different delivery and helps you become even more effective in your communication. So why storytelling? A few people I can quote saying, the stories we tell literally make the world. If you want to change the world, you need to change your story. You know the story you also tell yourself determines how your life turns out. If the story you always tell yourself is positive, you'll probably almost likely live a happier life. But if you're always telling yourself a negative story, you have a pity party going on in your head. Your life will always manifest negative realities. And another person says, Robert Markey says, storytelling is the most powerful way to put ideas into the world. If that is the case, what then are the benefits of storytelling? Storytelling is an universal language. Anywhere you go, if they picked you up from here and they threw you in which country. Maybe we are familiar with Chinese, they threw you in Vietnam. You probably don't know the language, they speak there. But somehow you manage to share a bit about yourself, about where you come from through a story. You'll tell about your homeland, you'll tell about the things that you eat, the food and everything. And that narrative brings people together. So you're able to make friends, you're able to build connections. So it doesn't matter where you go. As long as you have your story, you'll be able to connect with people. And then storytelling simplifies complex information. I remember in school, history was one of the subjects. I liked because it had stories and well, I had to read because I always loved reading. But there were parts of history that were really difficult. I remember in Olepo there was, was it the course of the railway in East Africa? Who remembers that one? Nobody studied history in Olepo. You remember the course of the railway, where was it starting from? From Mombasa. All the way I think up to Kassese, yes. And we had to rename the years at each point, you know, in 19 words. It was so hard for me to remember all those years. And our teacher helped us craft a story. In literature it's called personification. So each year became a person. So we started with the first year, from Mombasa and went to the next stop and made this one. They became friends, then they moved on together and then this person. So it became easier to remember and I remember I never ever failed that number even. And to name. Why storytelling? Storytelling also inspires action. Sometimes you can be feeling low going through whatever it is that you're going through. And you hear a story about someone else's experience, or what amazing things somebody else is doing out there. And you're inspired to also make a difference where you come from. You know, if you visited the documentary we did that we wanted a while before, was about Karamoja's first female doctor. She fought to stay in school when the family wanted to marry her own when she was young. And now as the first female doctor serving her community, she has inspired so many other young girls to also fight for the right to stay in school. That is a positive action that has been inspired by a story. The other thing is that it improves mental health. This ties into the previous point, inspiring action. If you were going through something and you're thinking, you know, my world has ended. This is the worst thing that can ever happen to me. And then you hear somebody else who has gone through probably what is worse than you are going through. And they've come through. They've pulled through and they are still living. They're still contributing to the ones that are used to theirs probably. And this is their negative experience to champions, social change. You will be inspired and that will help you, you know, come stress, come anxiety and all that. So stories are very, very good. And that is why they're also used on children to help them deal with the different issues that they go through. Because, you know, as younger children, everything you're experiencing is really a fast experience. So the students we have here, for most of them, it might be their first experience to come and interact with a large audience. So maybe being asked questions about themselves is a fast experience. But when they hear that you too went through that and you've learnt a lot and yourself to build a career, they will feel better about themselves, they will be inspired to go back and deal with whatever they are dealing with. And to share a bit of what research says. There's a survey conducted by the National Storytelling Network which says that 98% say that storytelling is an effective tool for teaching. And 95% say that storytelling can help improve students' learning and comprehension skills. I think I shared an example of that, how it helped me to also pass a particular subject. And there's so many other subjects that you can pass with storytelling. And then according to a report by those in pitch decks with a competitive story and emotional content, always hand funding by 19% more than all the others. And another study by Stanford shows that when you're just using data and statistics, you're most likely only to get 5% of people's attention. That's what you'll only remember 5% of what you say. But if you tie a story into what you're presenting, people will remember more of what you're presenting. So how then can we use storytelling to better our own experiences? One of the ways that we can use storytelling in our work, in our business, is product marketing. Many of us here are developers, right? So as a developer, first of all, you have a product yourself. And then you might create something else that you can sell and people buy. But how do you put it out there? How do you tell, you know, the potential buyers that, hey, I'm here, I do this work or I have this product that I've worked on, product marketing. So in storytelling, if you're able to tell, you know, how you came up with this product, what problem it is solving, you'll be able to hook people to want to use your product or service. The other point is, which is a very important one for us, when we are raising money, we need money to run our businesses, we need money to grow, we need money to scale. But how do you step out there and convince an investor to give you their money? Your story, yeah? Your story is the one tool that can help you be able to even get more, more contribution to your business in terms of funding, in terms of, you know, so many other things. And that was an example I read online that says that M. Copa has used storytelling and raised over 160 million dollars in funding. M. Copa Sola, you think is a Kenyan company? So if they can do it, we too can do it. The other thing that we can use storytelling for is in design experience, design, because you always want to create something or product or service that people will actually use, that will actually speak to different people. But then how will you do it? You use stories to gauge how people might interact with your product or service and then tailor it to their needs. And then also employee training, as we grow, as we build businesses, wherever we go, we need to be equipped with different skills. You need to understand what the company does, where they are going. The best way they can do that is through a story. Otherwise you would walk in and everything is boring. You don't know the history, you don't know where they are planning to go and a story is what helps to relay that. And as I wind up, when we use storytelling, it helps us to get more engaging and memorable experiences, not only with our families and friends, but with the different people that we interact with out there, with our customers, with our investors, with our employees. And it also helps us to build stronger connections. Because a story helps you appeal to someone emotionally, it helps you appeal to a group emotionally. We are in March, the women's month. Why does it change so much? Stories. We hear of so many stories of women doing remarkable things and that helps us to connect and want to associate with such people and to do more and we learn from their lives by learning about their stories. Thank you very much for your audience. Thank you.