 My name is Raphael Rodin and I work in the livestock genetics program at EWI in Nairobi and as a geneticist. I hold a joint position with SRC in Edinburgh. So the critical factor of speaking to this one is getting the science right. So how did it all start? I am from Nigeria and I'm from the family of five children of the last born and my father and mother we had a robot plantation. So that was the means by which the family was actually sustained and sent us to school. So just to give you a quick picture, when my brother, before me, just my immediate senior brother finished primary school there were not enough resources to send him to secondary school. So basically finished primary school and we're just helping around in the farm. So I finished primary school as well and it looks a bit unfair for them to send me to secondary school when my brother was here at home. So they said, okay, let's send both of them together. We just see how it could get through. So both of us went to secondary school. And of course, from a village and you feel so glad just to be in the secondary school it was just something delightful. But the secondary school in the village or this is a rural place was a college school, a college mission. They funded it very well. And so we have good teachers, very good standards. So these attracted people, students from politicians, wealthy people, very rich people, they will send their kids here. So you go from a rural place and you meet all these kids from very rich families. But the thing about these kids was that they came, they have already been well instructed by their parents who wanted to be a doctor, wanted to be a lawyer. So they came very well prepared, ready to study and so they were very competitive. So I became their friends and so the competition began. So they pushed me and we pushed each other. It was a very competitive class. So we all, about five of us, we always struggled. Who would be the first in the class? So the competition began and they began to push me and I began to enlarge my vision. Maybe if you are from the village, I could do something big as well. So I began to, my desire for knowledge began to increase. You know, but life has a way to repeat itself. So we finished primary school, of course, so I finished secondary school and I found myself in the University of Ifa, Nigeria. And again I met a group of people, boys, very competitive. They said, we are here to break the record, that was just the beginning. Wow, I said okay, I join the group. So the competition began again and we really broke every record in that faculty that year. And maybe one of you might know one of them, Dr. Akina Deshina, the president of the African University, so that is how it began. So again my desire for knowledge began to increase. But in addition to that, I must not forget the teachers that took me under their arms in my secondary school. And they gave me time, they showed me my interest, they gave me space, they were demanding excellence from me and I must say they helped me, they pushed me and that was very helpful in developing my desire for knowledge. But what's actually making marketing in my life was in the 40th year of my degree for agriculture. So that year the University changed the curriculum. So after three years of lectures, you spent a whole year in the farm with farmers, several farmers, you moved from farm to farm. You were the first and so were the king of pigs. So that year, they would do lectures and move from farm to farm, stay with farmers, eat with them, talk with them, they asked me questions and I'd just come as part of all my knowledge that I couldn't answer most of the questions. And so that became to make me to think that there must be something more than pure science. If my science didn't work, it's got to be relevant and work for the farmers. And that will also be sort of affected me and affected the way I began to look at life. So when I finished my first degree, I went to Edinburgh University to do my PhD and the first thing that hit me was the garden knowledge. So much knowledge there and looking back from Nigeria, how come that I wasn't even aware there so much? So that was the first time I said, now it is time for me to make science simple and applicable. And so that was the reason why I wrote the first book, Nidia Models for the Prediction of Breeding Barbies. It is in the third edition and still widely used around the world. The motivation behind it, how can I make science simple and applicable? And so that was, that's so philosophy. And that was the thing that brought me first to Erie. I was invited first of all to Erie to come and give a practical course on animal breeding and genetics. Then after that, I had the opportunity to work with all these wonderful geneticists in the dairy and poultry section. And we tried to see, okay, is it possible to take complex models, breeding programs in developed countries and make it work in Africa? And I think we are having a crack at it. A disease is making some progress. And I'm really delighted to be able to have the opportunity to do that. So in concluding, I want to underscore three things. The first one is that competition is good. Even fierce competition. It helped me. It can make us to get the science right. The second point is teachers. Teachers who pour their life into me, who have confidence in me, encourage me, and I'm sure all of you are here because of teachers. And I really just want to take this opportunity for those teachers who pour out their life. Maybe we don't even acknowledge them. For me, they made me to get my science right. And finally, the practical aid. It helped me. It made me to realize that getting the science right is actually making sure it works for farmers. Thank you very much.