 Good morning, good afternoon and good evening. My name is Leanne Maudley and I work as lecturer at the University of Johannesburg. I'm also the International Lead for Young Water Professionals South African Chapter and part of the EWL Career Building Troop. But I'm sure most of you know that by now. So the reason why we are here today, we would just firstly like to welcome our new listeners and then our returning listeners. Thank you once again for joining us. We have an exciting lineup today and I cannot wait to get into it. So today, we have the honor of speaking to Farooq Lakkar, all the way from Ryerson University in Canada. Farooq is a professor and a PhD candidate and a research focuser on resource recovery from wastewater and she is also passionate about contributing to the SDGs. She's also the president of the YWP Canadian Chapter and she has over 2000 followers on LinkedIn. Yeah, I know, my jaw dropped as well. I'm sure you are as excited as I am to learn more about this young, passionate and ambitious professional. Farooq, welcome and thank you for taking time out of your busy day to join us today. Hello. Hi Leanne. Hi. So you are currently working in academia. Is this by choice? Hello everyone and thank you Leanne for the great introduction and the question and I should say yes, it is by choice. It's very interesting how it started. I really wanted to briefly share this story with you that how I was a little teenager and I was reading this series of books about teachers who were teaching in high school and how older struggles and problems and they were solving and dealing with the kids and it just inspired me so much to be a teacher at that time and then when I got the opportunity to go to school, guess what? It was not my choice to be an engineer. It was my choice to be a teacher, go to teaching school, but then I went to engineering school because I selected another part because I love math as well and then I wanted to transfer. I went to my dean, I was like, can I please transfer to teaching? And I was like, why? And then I was like, because I love to teach and then he was like, you can still teach. Don't worry, just go to your class. And I took that and I don't regret that decision because right now, even though I did engineering, still I could pursue my dream of being a teacher and a professor. Wow, that's such an interesting story. Thank you so much for sharing with us. So do you see yourself in academia for the next five years? If not, why not? And if so, why? That's a great question and the answer is yes and no. I know it's funny when you have both because I do see myself in academia because I love to teach and I feel like I wouldn't be able to survive without being in a class and attracting with students and doing research of course. So I will be for sure in academia for the rest of my life. But on this side, I felt like I could do much more and add a little bit spice in my life. And I am that kind of person that I think I get sick when I don't have so much on my plate. I need to have that dynamic life and up and down and pressure. So I want to also take some entrepreneurship pathway as I did before in my back home. I was an entrepreneur and a professor. So similarly now when I'm in Canada, a new life and new path. So I do want to have my own business on site of the academic. Wow, that's so interesting. So what kind of business, if I may ask? Absolutely, although it's a secret, but it's okay. So it's going to be again, academic. That's interesting. So my business will be about having a career college in future. Wow, sounds so interesting. I can't wait to hear all about it soon, soon when it's out there. So do you think there's anything rewarding about being a civil engineer in academia? Absolutely. I can tell that for anyone who would like to pursue this path, it's really rewarding how you can contribute to the worldwide challenges and see that how all these, for example, climate change, the big challenges that people are struggling outside. And as a civil engineer in academia, you have the opportunity to contribute by your research, by your small talks in the class that you can talk about people's daily routine event, that how you wake up in the morning and you go to toilet, flush the toilet, which button to use. How you can, when you're brushing your teeth. This is little things, if you as a professor, you talk in your class, you're making an impact. So as a civil engineer, I believe in academia, you can also make an impact. And also not only that, supervising great leaders and impact makers in the future. Isn't it rewarding when you see the future that what if your students became someone who is advocate and is shining out there? And he's like, that was my student. Isn't that rewarding? I definitely agree with that one. It's truly rewarding. And I can truly relate to that as well. But do you think there's any difficult issues with being a civil engineer in academia? Of course, there is always for a human being anywhere you go, there are challenges. But the good thing is that they're always solution for it, but you just need to know how to deal with it. And I believe for civil engineers in academia, the main limitation is the facilities that they have. I believe that in academia, civil engineers have less facilitation and less facilities or research equipments and things to contribute to all these great things that are out there. Versus if you compare with the industries, they have more money, of course, and more contribution and they're more visible. Because for the academia, you don't have that luxury to all those pilot or big scale in the researchers, right? So I would say this is sort of a challenge and also the culture and perspective of the audience, the students, the people, and even the industry towards academia, it's a little bit biased and different. For example, there is this bias that they think in academia, people just publish into graduate students, right? Or it's a little bit of small work, right? Which is not fair in some context, right? I feel it should be a little bit more friendly because it's a little facility that we're getting. How much more we can do, right? So I believe there are opportunities. Yeah, no, I agree with you. Thank you so much for highlighting those. I think we have the same challenges and one of the main things always would be the budget. We're constantly applying for funding and not always getting the funding but still being expected to do your job as if you got the funding. So I totally, totally agree with you there. If you had to give someone advice who'd like to follow the same path, what would be your advice? Thank you for giving me the opportunity to say that because I wish I would hear something like this when I started my career because it's so interesting how our young generation goes towards what they Google or what they hear from people or they search and they say, oh, this salary has a great job and I should go there or believe it. Some people come and ask me that, Miss, what do you think, which job has the highest salary? Which discipline should I go? And then I'm like, no, this is not the question you should ask. You should ask that, what do I like? You should ask yourself a question first, okay? So then that's where you will enjoy your work and whatever you do in the future. So if anyone wants to follow the same path as I did, I would like to tell them that, listen to your heart and see, do you like it? Do you like to be in the class? Do you like to interact with the people? If you do, then for sure, follow the same path. But if you don't, find what you want. That is so inspirational. So, so inspirational. Thank you so much for sharing. I think we now need to start paying more attention to our emotional and mental health and realizing that money is not everything because you might have all that money. But if you're unhappy and you're unhealthy, it's totally worth nothing. So thank you so much. That's a very inspiring piece of advice. Thank you. Can you give us two fun facts about yourself? Oh, for sure. One fun fact is that my family told me that you can be a great stand-up comedian. Believe it or not, I sometimes, when we have a gathering, I did. I went there and I said beautiful jokes and made everyone laugh. Wow. I think that adds up to my teaching as well, when I probably, when I'm teaching, I go there and I put some jokes inside the lecture and it makes it more interesting. So that's a fun fact about me. And also, one more thing that I love dancing. Wow. Had we known, we should have said, please repay a 10 second dance for us. For sure. For sure. And I love to dance in different songs from different cultures, different languages. So yeah, it's one of my hobbies as well. Oh, wow. That's such an interesting fact. Now I know what to ask you next time. Are there any two secret, powerful daily habits which you can share with us? The first thing is keeping connected. Sometimes when I work with my group of volunteers, I tell them that I'm exaggerating, that the first thing I do in the morning before feeding my kids is to check my LinkedIn. So be there and be visible. This is something I, it's a piece of advice as well. That's my routine as well. Although I'm super busy with balancing life with the kids and all the other things I haven't played, but you gotta be out there. And that's my routine to be there and to make sure that I'm connected with my friends in professional life as well, right? That's one thing. And the other thing is that keeping healthy. Because if you're not healthy, if you're not thinking of yourself, then you can't function. Dancing every day again. Those are amazing two tips. I can see how we can put that into our lives as well. Thank you so much. What else do the IWA peers not know about you? So besides the dancing, can you give us two more things that we don't know about you? Okay. I do want to learn salsa. If anyone knows, please, can you teach me? Because I do know how to dance individually, but I don't know how to do salsa. Please. If anyone there can hear me, please reach out to me. I really want to learn. Even if it's virtual. I think it will be virtual for now. Yes, for sure. And the other things, I don't want to ruin my image, but I'm a terrible cook. When sometimes I cook at home and my kids see it and they're like, did mommy cook? Because it's so terrible they can tell. Did mommy cook today? Oh, gosh. And kids have no filter. So they'll always give you things that you sometimes don't want to hear, but have to hear. That's true. Thank you so much for sharing with us. And then, obviously, I was so impressed by over 2,000 followers on LinkedIn. I was like, wow, okay, I don't even have one. How do you even get followers? So I want to know more about branding yourself. Do you have anything to share, any tips that some of us like me can use? I think I already give one tip before that tracking frequently and just being active because it's all about algorithms. So that was one thing. And the other thing was just for the LinkedIn in particular, when you are participating to the events, online events, just don't go without having at least one or two connections, right? Making sure that when you're participating to the online events, at least you connect to two, three people on the chat box, getting their LinkedIn, or if they are sharing most of the events nowadays, they share LinkedIn's profile at the end of the event. Make sure to take your time to do that, because eventually, by the time that comes up, and then you make all these followers. And by the way, Leanne, good job with checking the numbers. I haven't checked the numbers yet. Thank you so much for sharing your professional life, some insights into your personal life, and I'm sure everyone enjoyed this as much as I did. Thank you for your time, thank you for your efforts, and we look forward to chatting to you soon. Thank you so much, Leanne. It was absolutely...