Imtiaz Sooliman – Key Note Interview Responding to Crisis Gift of the Givers Full Interview
AI: Summary ©
The speakers emphasize the importance of inspiring young innovators to strive for success and not give up, as it is crucial for personal success. They stress the need for passion and integrity, finding a mentor and being a great learner, respecting social distancing and maintaining healthy lifestyles, and finding a positive environment for growth and innovation. They also discuss the success of ground nuts and the importance of innovation in the world, creating a positive environment for people to develop and innovate, and empowering people to believe in themselves and not just innovate for the sake of getting something worth it.
AI: Summary ©
Okay, hello everyone. So today is day one of our annual innovation
Festival, and it really is an honor to be sitting next to Dr
intiya Suleiman, who is the head of the gift of the givers
foundation. So the theme for this year is at local, think, global,
innovate Durban, and how fitting it is to be seated next to Dr
Suleman to hear about his fantastic journey with the gift of
the givers, and just to get some inspiration from him and to hear
his story. Dr Suleman, thank you so much for joining us today. It
really is an honor to have you at this year's innovation festival.
So I think just to begin with, we all understand that your journey
began in 1992
we've read about your story. I think everyone knows some of the
details around how it started. But today we're speaking to an
audience of young innovators, entrepreneurs, those who are
starting off in their business journey, some who are starting off
in the innovation journey. And I think it's crucial to for them to
hear your story and how it all began, just to inspire and
motivate some of the thinking around this journey that you had
began.
Thank you very much for the interview, and congratulations to
all the innovators and all those people who are striving in life.
It's important to strive to be the best you can according to your own
disposition. Never give up. To try giving up if you give up, that's
failure. To try and not succeed. That is success, and it's
important that innovators achievements cannot be done
overnight. Its success comes to striving, constant trial, constant
error, and one day, will get a product that you will be truly
proud of. It reminds me of, you know, children at school too. You
know that when they strive, they strive, and some of them don't do
solimetric. And finally, they excel adversity in something that
they love. It's about having passion. Passion is something in
what you're innovating that will take you a long way. It is this
passion that drives me in gift of the givers. It's something that
drove me to a teacher in Istanbul. It happened in August 1991
I was told to go to Istanbul. Somebody advised me visit a
teacher in Istanbul. My wife and I went for the first time in August
91 we came to a Muslim spiritual holy place for the Sufi Master.
What we saw was eye opening. We saw people of all religions, all
colors, all classes, all countries. People had diverse
thoughts. People said we don't believe people were Jews,
Christians, Muslims, Hindus. People were just
inquisitive, wanting to know what's going on. We saw the place.
We saw love in the place. We saw discipline in the place. We saw
respect in the place. I was very motivated, and so was my wife, but
I was fortunate to go back the following year. It was a Thursday
night the sixth of August, 1990 2:10pm,
after a religious program, the spiritual master looks me in the
eye. He said, in the corner of the room, I'm sitting in the side. He
looks heavenward and he looks at me at the same time, and he says,
in true and Turkish, my son, I'm not asking you, I'm instructing
you to form an organization. The name in Arabic will be Waqf
waqifin, translated it means gift of the givers. You will serve all
people of all races, of all religions, of all colors, all
classes, all cultures, of any geographical location and of any
political affiliation, but you will serve them unconditionally.
You will expect nothing in return, not even a thank you. In fact, in
what you going to be doing for the rest of your life, expect to get a
kick up your back. If you don't get a kick up your back, regard it
as a bonus. Serve people with love, kindness, compassion and
mercy, and remember the dignity of men is foremost. So if someone is
down, don't push them down further, hold them, elevate them,
lift them. Wipe the tear of a grieving child, cutters the head
of an orphan, say words of good counsel to a widow. These things
are free. They don't cost anything, clothe the naked, free
the feed the hungry and provide water to the thirsty. And in
everything that you do, be the best at what you do. It's like
innovation. Be the best at what you do, not because of ego, but
because we're dealing with human life, human emotion and human
dignity. He went on to say, this is an instruction for you for the
rest of your life. And then he said, The most important thing I'm
going to tell you now that whatever you do is done through
you and not by you. It's a spiritual thing. And then I asked
him at some point, I said, How come when you speak Turkish? I
understood.
It every single word that you said, yet I don't speak Zach. He
said, My son, when the hearts connect and the souls connect, the
words become understandable. And then I asked him, you've told me
all these things to do. What exactly do you want me to do? I'm
a doctor in private practice. I have three surgeries in Peter
marisburg in South Africa. He just told me one line you will know.
And in 28 and a half years, I do know what to do, when to do, and
how to do.
That is amazing. Dr Suleman,
you know, you touched on so many important points in what you've
just said, but I just want to know at I think it was you were 30
years old when he gave that message to you. How did you feel
at that point? I mean, you were young man, you had three
surgeries. You're a medical doctor, but how did you feel when
someone is telling you now to basically change, well, change the
course of what you were doing, but not directly, really leaving it to
you to change that course and make that decision. When I went there
the second time, I knew I wanted to get involved into something
spiritual. So my mind was pre planned for something but I didn't
know what was going to happen. I didn't expect an instruction. I
wasn't expecting to form an organization. I was expected to be
guided in my life. That's what I went for not to get instruction to
form an organization. But at that point I was basically numb in
inverted commas, because, okay, he told me, this is something I do in
the weekends, after hours, long weekends, holidays, school,
holidays. When do I do that? Because I got three surgeries, and
then to hidden outline it to say, start Monday morning, you know.
And he was carrying on like this, and sell your practices. You
didn't say anything like that. He just said, you will know. And
because I went there with a mind to accept what was said, because
once you a disciple of a spiritual teacher, you follow to the letter.
And I said to myself, what God was will happen. And as the days
unfolded and the years unfolded, it came to me, as I said, You will
know. And then in June 1994
actually, my wife called me once I was in Bosnia, she said, I think
we should close your surgeries. This is not working out. The
patients don't want to see your locums. They don't want to see
anybody else. They only want to see you. And I'm getting afraid
that children are sick for a long time and they're not going to
another doctor. They rather find another doctor. They rather know
that you're not available anymore and on the spot. I mean, normally
you have to think, make a decision. Look at the figures. I
said, Yes,
it was something meant to be, and we still don't get a decision,
because as things unfolded, you can't do two professional jobs at
the same time. You know that's for the innovators. Whatever you do,
please do something simple, but be professional at what you do.
Rather let it take longer, but make it really, really something
worthwhile and substantial. Yeah, no, that's actually excellent
advice for our innovators, and I'm really grateful that you've
imparted that to them just something else that you know you
as, as innovator, and we often encourage mentorship or some sort
of guidance from someone else to be imparted to these innovators,
because they're young and they want to learn. They're hungry for
knowledge, hungry for information. You've mentioned your spiritual
leader, and I'm also aware that you do have another spiritual
leader in your life and guiding you at present. What do you feel
the role of mentors play within your journey, but also in the
journey of other entrepreneurs and young people who are trying to
make it in life?
There's no better teacher than experience. Why reinvent the
wheel? Why spend years of trying to find something when it's
already done, follow the path of somebody who's already walked the
path. You can show you what the stones are, where the obstacles
are, where the difficulties are. It just makes your life so much
easier. But to follow that path requires faith, requires
commitment, requires sincerity and requires passion, and you have an
ear for understanding and patience and you prepare to learn, you have
to commit yourself fully to the mentor that you believe it can
teach you. If your ego comes in the way and you think you know
more than a mentor, don't start, rather carry on your own. But if
you want to learn, the most important thing is to and
highlight ego. Like he said, Whatever comes comes through you
and not by you. From a spiritual point of view, your achievement is
not your own achievements. I'm giving my point of view now. It's
by God's grace, because man on his own can only do what he wants,
because God guides him to do that. And if you understand that from
the beginning and you have a humble approach, you will be a
great learner, and one day, a great learner becomes a great
teacher.
That is such good advice. You know, I am a strong personally as
well. I'm a strong believer of God's will and favor in my life,
and it's also something that I try and teach others. So what you've
said is just so true and just, you know, being able to be humble in
everything that you do with humility is such an important part
of being.
A great leader. And I just love what you said about being able to
learn. A learner will become a great leader, will become that
inspiration to others. And I think you've lived that life. We've seen
it through the gift of the givers and the work that you've done. And
that is why I constantly say you're an inspiration to everyone
that's listening, and to myself as well. So thank you for that. Just
a bit about how you've made it work. And you know, we're all
about innovation as innovate Durban, but just to know, you
know, when you started gift of the givers, I'm sure it was not easy,
but you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm sure it was not
easy, and I'm sure it had to start somewhere. We are very aware that,
you know, within getting a business to work properly.
Networks are extremely important. Relationships actually are vital.
Can you just tell us a bit about how you started and getting this
network together? Network of donors, of responders, your
business works so well. It just all comes together so well, and so
I just want to understand, and just also for innovators to
understand, because we often encourage them to collaborate. We
always say collaboration is key, but just your take on that. I got
an advantage. No, because the spiritual teacher said you will
never have to look for money. Yes, people will come to you, but part
of that advantage is being committed and sincere to your
goal, or what you've set out and what you've agreed to. And of
course, I did projects before. Gift of the givers in 1990 I
responded to a crisis in Mozambique when Iraq invaded,
Kuwait, all projects in the north of Mozambique collapsed, and
people assist wanted requirements for boreholes. They wanted malaria
medication. They wanted support hospitals. They wanted for food.
That time, I was part of the Islamic Medical Association, and I
said, Let's go and see for yourself. Now you can't learn in
an office. You know, my teams know you have to be on the ground. You
have to go out to experiment so and to be honest, nobody can teach
me my work because I've done it from the beginning right to the
top. I set up the projects. I do everything myself. So I know every
aspect of the organization, in every way, you have to do that
yourself. You have to understand the process. So I went there and I
said, Okay, need custom clearance. We did a place you find the
library people on the ground. You need what's required, how to get
the cross shopping. I did that. And there was some marketing
around that. People came to know. I got that involved in that. Then
the Gulf War came something similar. We got involved. We did
something. Then the sacrament in Bangladesh came. Then I spoke to
government on a ship. From there, a naval ship took to Bangladesh.
And so on that trip, then I met a spiritual master for the first
time. And thereafter, we also have another advantage, because from
the Muslim community, which initially supported me, you know
what the first back is? As part of the religion, you have to give
charity. God says, If you don't give charity, you don't worry
about your neighbor, your fellow man. It doesn't matter what
religion the person belongs to, as long as humankind, if you don't
show mercy, please don't come and pray, because I don't need your
prayer. I need the prayer to teach you to help somebody else. So that
was an advantage. And then over the years. Of course, as we grew
and we diversified our projects and international travel,
international disasters, media started traveling with us, and
people could see this is not a sectarian organization. It was
what the teacher said, serve everyone unconditionally. And with
that point, more people started following us. Then we decided to
focus more on the marketing locally, although we doing local
stuff, but it wasn't so highlighted. So in 2016
I decided to kill all marketing for international projects.
Although I didn't kill the project, I just killed the
marketing. And 2017 the first big project was nice and set the fire.
And since then, local media, of our local projects, corporate
local media projects, have been taking a much bigger view. And
then we got the day zero in 2018
in Cape Town. 2019 the hadrout in Makanda and in Eastern Cape. 2020
the biggest one for us, intervention in covid 19. And you
know that country and the world followed us and still following
us, and it was just finding the right project. And it's not about
finding the project for the sake of making somebody happy. Yeah,
it's about doing what is right, because we do a lot of projects
which don't get any kind of coverage at all, and doesn't
matter to us, as long as we are doing the right things, and you're
benefiting people, you know, it's karma. It comes back in a positive
way, sometimes in some way or the other, definitely. And just on, on
what you've done, you know, during the pandemic covid 19, obviously,
we've, we've read about the work that you've done, and it's amazing
work. So really, hats off to you and the team around that. But just
in terms of doing something during such a difficult time where there
was national lockdown and so there was not a lot of room to maneuver
in, how were you able to gather people around to respond to such a
huge crisis, one that we've never faced before. How were you able to
respond to that? I've got full time teams. I don't need
volunteers, no, because I prefer full time people, because we
disaster specialists. So in my team, everybody was knowing their
sleep what to do, and they really know know what to do in their
sleep. And I have people who are.
Fearless, who have passion. They're not afraid of covid or
anything else. They know they've got a job to do. And during covid,
those teams without exaggeration, what 365, days a year, sun, Monday
to Sunday, long weekends, Easter weekend, eat day, Christmas Day,
New Year's Day. And they worked throughout because they knew
people needed them, and they went to the area. It's a simple rule,
wear your mask, don't touch your face. Keep the social distancing.
Make sure you sanitize. And when you finish, touch 100 food
parcels, 100 people, you know, they come and touch you, then you
can do about it. People should do that with love. You can't push
them away. So when they do that, all you do is make sure you
sanitize before you touch any part of your face. And fortunately,
after today, everybody has been fine. We delivered the food
parcels. We delivered 320,000 food parcels. We supported 100 soup
kitchens. We know we supported 210 hospitals with two those with
PPEs. We delivered two and a half 1000 CPA machines in 10 days in
six provinces. We set up tents in 37 hospitals, or 37 tents in
hospitals, triage tents. We did 1000s of tests. We did a whole
range of things, built walls and delivered just in water tankers,
five, 600,000
liters of water a week. They're just some of the things that we
did in covid 19. I just love the fact that you keep going back to
humanity and that love for humanity. So even though we were
faced with such a crisis,
humanity still came first, and that love for people, that respect
for human, for for your fellow human. I mean, so often, you know,
we're so afraid during this pandemic to touch someone else or
to be near someone else. You know we've got to respect social
distancing and so on, but you still adhered to those basic
principles on which the gift of the givers was founded, and that
you've never lost sight of that. And I think that's important also,
as an entrepreneur and as an innovator, that we often have
these ideas and these innovations, these wonderful ideas, in fact,
and we know why we want to set up our business initially, somewhere
down the lines. Often we lose that vision. We get caught up in so
many different things that we lose that vision of, why did we set
this up? Why did we begin this journey? And I love the fact that
you've continued with that from the beginning. You've never lost
or forgotten that instruction from your spiritual leader, and you've
embedded that into your team, just on teams and how your operation
works, and just for our innovators, in fact, and I'm sure
they would love to hear I mean, you've obviously got a really well
functioning organization, and just in terms of innovation and the
systems and tools that you use, I also read in another article about
you, that you know, everything that's happening in your
organization, every project you know, I got four phones, Exactly,
he's got four phones. Do you sleep at night? Everybody asked me that
question, yes, I do sleep. And I have a very good sleep, because
you're so I don't need to sleep much for for lockdown from the
15th of March until today. I mean sleeping four hours a day,
right? And and anyone you sleep, it just it's a peaceful sleep to
give your mind rest, but your subconscious mind is awake because
you got projects not in South Africa. You got them all over the
world, and that phone rings. You know, nobody's going to phone you.
That part of the money, unless it's something urgent. So your
eyes, your mind has been slightly awake. So that phone rings, you
can take the call or take the message. So yes, you know it's
it's
all credit goes to the team. And as part of innovation, you give
people the opportunity to do things and make the mistake, the
only way you're going to learn is by making the mistake. Don't be
afraid to make mistakes. Don't be afraid to fail. Success comes from
afraid. You learn. It's not actually a failure. It's a lesson.
Okay, this doesn't work. That's not failure. You say, Okay, this
doesn't work, that doesn't work, that doesn't work. Okay, this
one's got to work. It's a process. It's not failure. It's learning.
You know, on the process, we've changed things around. Okay,
should we do things this way? No, no, we shouldn't do things this
way. Should change it this way in disaster intervention. Should we
send, send the medical teams first afterwards? No, send a search
industry teams first. Do we send a search industry teams first and
the medical teams afterwards? But the third side? No, you can't do
that. Send a search industry teams, what some of the medical
teams combine it so you learn as you go along. And the only way you
can do that, I told you, you don't sit in the office. You go outside
and you see on the field first. Then what the practical aspect is
we got project managers. We got a corporate manager. His only job is
to sit and talk to corporates into government. That's his job full
time. You start off alone, we gave an additional person to give a
second person, and again, my third person just to cope, because that
thing grew. I'm not into it. Guy things, you know, we all people.
We don't have to do that kind of stuff. My son came to me, he said,
Ah, your IT things all behind time. You know, you need to do
things differently. Again, it's about, well, it's not about
innovation. It's about positive intervention into change things
for the better. But everything is not innovation. It's just the
correct intervention. And he said, I think we did our own social
media team. One person's office will never be able to cope with
the amount of projects we got and the way the technology is
changing. That person won't know all the new changes is happening
all the time. So you need a company that has, you know.
Which technology which is innovating all the time, and how
to adapt it to your situation. He said, Okay, we got four to five
people a day working on our social media pages. We contacted it out
we had to adapt into something different. Then we said, okay, all
we had every province is running separately. And then we decided
no, because we are seeing now was bought in August last year, we
decided to centralize the entire operations for the whole country,
to manage the warehousing, to manage the administration, to
manage the finances, to manage the teams, everything from it to
marism, possess our ware office and make smaller warehouses all
over the country, just to keep emergency supplies and bring all
the trucks from here to run all over the country. The other thing
about the teams is, as I said, they're allowed to do what they
want. Don't say, do this. But I tell you, I'm in the field here,
and it's not like what you're telling me to do. It's different
here. Can't work like that. Tell them, you in the field, what do
you need? I need this, that and the other. You allow each person
to grow by themselves, and that's the best way of developing is
project management, but you allow the human spirit to grow, and they
come back and say, you know, Doc, I did this. I said, very good. You
did an excellent job. And you learn, but you allow other people
to develop, and that's the strength of the organization.
Yeah, sure, that's so well said. And it's also just about adapting
to your environment, like you said, you know, you can't sit in
the office and be able to tell someone this is what you need to
do on the ground. You need to be in that situation on the ground.
But I also think I love what you're saying about allowing
people to develop on their own, making their mistakes. Sometimes
people feel that or see failure as being something so negative, but
it's something so positive that can come out of it. They should
take the word out failure. It's not the good when you deal with
something, it's not failure. Failure is when you stop trying.
That is failure. But to keep trying is not failure. It's
finding the right fit cast. This didn't come out. You know what?
Let's take a simple thing, the first person to bake the first
cake. Can
you see how that happened? Did he know? Okay, I got to take some
flour, take some egg, take a egg out from the white and the yellow.
Put it separately, put some caster sugar, or some icing sugar,
whatever. And how did he know? But the thing must have been a
disaster, the first one that he made. But the idea came and it
perfected. And look how kids grew up today, where they kick in this
kind of cake and wedding cake, and what kind of cake we get it. Then
it started off. What practice? What tried, trying again and
again. If the first person stop, maybe there cake today.
That's amazing. Just, you know, talking, just going back to
innovation, I see the gift of the givers also developed a very
innovative, I think it's a food supplement, yes, called Cebu CISO
food supplement. Can you just tell us a little bit about how that
came into being? To be honest, I think truly my inspiration, I was
in Malawi, or the company that works with us, with offices, they
buy ground nuts, and at that time, we know that milk products causes
more diarrhea in malnourished people. It's a problem. Soya is
the ideal, but soya itself doesn't taste very nice. Ground nuts
itself can cause allergy, you know, so and idk, why don't we put
the two together? And so you put groundnuts and the best quality
ground nuts, which have low aflatoxin levels, come from
Malawi. Poor Countries support purchase of Malawi ground nuts.
You can have the economy in the country. Soya was imported from
South America. Organic sugar came from Kenya, and you had to add the
vitamin free bricks that came from India. So you had all the
essential ingredients to put this product together, and then you
made it such that it's ready to eat, doesn't require cooking,
doesn't require heating, doesn't require water, open the bottle and
eat, and it's working. It hasn't been used worldwide because it's
very expensive, because the content is so you know, quality
content, and the people who need can't afford it, right? So it has
to be given out for free. So it's mostly Malawi right now, and but
the advantage of that for us in disasters, when you go to
disasters and it floods and there's people, or, you know, some
type of earthquake, and there's no access to food, immediately, you
can just open a bottle of the stuff and eat. So it is something
that came by inspiration. It hasn't been developed further. It
has to go to all the trials. We haven't done that yet because we
know people can afford to pay for it. It's too expensive, so we give
it out for free, sure. So that's a, you know, such a perfect
example of innovation. The other invasion that we did before that,
we innovated the world's first mobile hospital, and the first
project where the teacher said, You will know, the moment I walked
out of Istanbul, the first project that came into my hand was a civil
war in Bosnia. Now, that's even insane. You don't start an
organization in a war. You know, you start off doing something
simple. Don't start of responding to a war. And we got involved in
the war. And in 92 I went twice, Dr August, in August and the same
month, and in November again, and in the new year. In 93 I said,
Look, these people need health services. And we came back to
South Africa, we saw containers that were used by armsco theater,
X ray and sterilization unit. I went to the company and built it.
I said, Look, if you can do three we can do all hospital. They said,
All hospital. I said, Yes, we can do the whole hospital. And we went
and we brought in all the ICU people, and brought the equipment
people, and we brought the shipping people in if the
container flies in the ship, bottle oven to the equipment, put
shop.
Absorb this year, shock absorbers here, if one gets burned out, you
know, we don't want to depend on the other one. So make each one
independent. If one gets born, the other 27 don't get affected, kind
of stuff. And we looked at it and we innovated the world's first for
terrorized mobile hospital. What's important about that, and for
innovators, it's a product of African technology, yes, built in
Africa and taken to Europe. Now, South Africans and Africans
believe that we can't do anything in this continent. We are way
behind. We have to get everything from Europe. We have to follow
them and everything else. That's because we don't have belief. Lack
of belief is one of our biggest problems, the creepy crawly it's
made in South Africa. So you know, we need to believe in ourselves,
and with that belief you can do anything, CNN filled that hospital
on the first of February in 1994 and they said the containerized
South African mobile hospital is equal to any of the best hospitals
in Europe. And it wasn't comparing container to other containers. It
was comparing a container to fix building hospitals in Europe,
because there are no container hospitals in Europe. It shows if
you put your mind down and you work together, what you can
achieve. So it's not impossible, but you have to make the mistakes
you have to take, the steps you have to be patient and important,
to develop or innovate something that's beneficial to mankind.
Don't make something useless, something there's this is
frivolous. I'm quite blunt about those kind of things. And I'll
give you a 32nd story. The kingly one area said, who can come up
with something very innovative? So a lot of people can argue, all bag
of gold. So everybody came and did all the things. One guy came from
a distance. He threw the thread. It went through, it into the eye
of the needle. The king said, very innovative. You'll get the bag of
gold, and you get 100 lashes, also for wasting time with something so
invaluable. It's not invaluable, something so useless. Yes, it was
good, you got it through, but it's useless. So when we focus on doing
something, you develop something benefits mankind. What it comes a
blessing when people benefit from what you do that benefits people.
And with that, I'm going to close actually, I think you've answered
all my questions and given me so much more than what I had
initially thought I would get and asked for. So thank you so much. I
think that advice that you've given to innovators, and the
reason I'm ending there is because I want our innovators, to remember
what Dr Suleman said about believing in yourself. I think
that's such an important point to end off or note to end off on,
just believing in yourself, but also, don't just innovate for the
sake of innovating. And I know we always say that, but just hearing
Dr Suleman speak today just reinforces that. Believe in
yourself, have respect for others, dignity. Remember your vision.
Remember why you set up or created what you're what you've created,
why you're an innovator, why you've left everything else to
begin or to embark on this journey. And I think Dr Suleman
has imparted so many incredible words of wisdom to us, and let's
learn from this journey. Not everyone's journey is the same,
but I think we can really learn from this, from this incredible,
incredible man and his story and his journey. So hats off to you,
Dr Suleman, your amazing team. I think you've done such a fabulous
job. We can only learn from your humility as well. I'm humbled
sitting next to you, and really it's an honor to be interviewing
you today. Thank you very much for your time. It's a pleasure. Thank
you very much. And all the best, all the success with all
innovators, all the best to you, all the best for the conference,
and let's hope in life, all of you succeed. You.