It is not about Perfection, It is always about Progress!!

This article is inspired by Denzil Washington. Yeah, My favorite actor of all time. I was watching a movie where he played an Ex-Military/Intelligence field Agent- The Equilizer. In one of the scenes, he was trying to motivate his co-worker to cut some weight so that he can join a security guard position at their workplace. The co-worker was close to quitting until Denzil talked him out of giving up. From that conversation, one sentence stroke me hard. " It is not about Perfection, It is always about Progress!! " I saw a reflection of my journey in a spilled of a second.

As a Chief NERD, I always push my team towards perfection daily. My role is to lead the technology development process as efficiently as possible considering cost, time, and available resources. I never expected an optimization course I took back in college directly fit my role, even though the curriculum was engineering design-oriented. Design at our lab is never DONE DONE. There is always room for improvement. I can't count how many times I find myself staring at a decision matrix to push a product out or conduct a further feature upgrade. Perfection is like chasing a cloud for me. The more we progress, the more we learn and our judging criteria dynamically upgrade to somewhat higher and more sophisticated expectations. We are consistently making sure we are progressing by adding value to our knowledge bank.

Our journey towards Reverse engineering UR5 robot manipulator is a reflection of progress. The journey started a year ago. In a team meeting, one of the lead researchers at that time was given the lead researcher position to develop a six-axis robot manipulator. He exceeded our expectations by designing, identifying components, and getting us a discount for the servo motors we needed. Shout-out to @Yitbarek Tedla. He showcased the project demonstrating basic motor maneuvers using a user interface designed specifically for the task of actuating every joint by sending position commands. The Video attached next to this article will demonstrate a pick and place maneuver executing a pre-programmed waypoint.

The greatest progress is making sure there is a continuation in terms of adding sophistication on top of what is already built. It won't be an exaggeration if I say, this is a rare thing to happen in the research and development community in Ethiopia. I can't emphasize more that, the lack of will for collaboration and contribution to excel in a project is the norm of the tech community in Ethiopia. I call it the "little Knowledge syndrome". I had the chance to advise senior university students and it's really annoying to see that there is no knowledge transfer between students and previous graduates. I see no connections between thesis in a way that the universities are trying to build a solution to the community by integrating these thesis projects. This is because there is no active research going for more than a year by senior university staff open for undergrads and postgrads to join and pursue a tangible finding for the reputation of the universities and the senior executives. Not just that, Students seem to be paranoid to share their ideas and project findings expecting that they will change it to a startup and raise capital with it.

Raising capital is the new success story for the tech industry. Being a well-respected Professor conducting state of the art research by organizing a team of Ph.D. Researchers, postgrad, and undergrads are nowhere to be seen. In my opinion, the greatest net-worth is not the capital raised to run a business but the knowledge bank built throughout a journey that is consistently progressing. I aspire to build a community that has a firm stand about the value of knowledge. A community so virtuous, willing to contribute to its community wealth. This might sound gibberish for the business-obsessed media. But I feel like I would have joined Nikole Tesla if I went back in a time machine to the time where he discovered wireless communication. NERD is where the most real tough and bold researchers and technologists are being cultivated. I say this with confidence. I am excited to see our contribution to the community progress towards the opensource philosophy. What we gathered in our knowledge bank is beyond my expectation. It always fuels me to do a little more. I am blessed to be part of an environment not many are lucky to have around. Beautiful Minds!!!

I will see you at the Next One.

Power to the NERDs!!!!