Konnected Minds Podcast with Derrick Abaitey

What happens when a former Minister of Education reveals that universities cannot be forced to change, but they will transform everything if you show them the money? In this powerful and deeply insightful episode of Konnected Minds Podcast, we sit down with a former Minister of Education who challenged Ghana's entire higher education system, created pathways for visual arts students to become engineers, funded pre-engineering programs that produced graduates with higher GPAs than traditional science students, and discovered that the only way to reform universities is not through force but through strategic incentives, for a raw conversation about university reform, entrepreneurship, graduate unemployment, angel investing, livable wages, job creation, and the brutal reality that if you want to transform a nation's economy you need 10 to 12 percent growth for 20 years consistently and Ghana is nowhere near. From explaining why he told universities that visual arts students who are imaginative and creative would make excellent engineers if given the chance to take one year of elective mathematics, chemistry, and physics to show proficiency, to revealing that when he offered grant funding for pre-engineering programs every university except Legon submitted proposals, to breaking down why Pentecost University and UMAT had the best proposals and their final year students are now coming out with higher GPAs than traditional science students because they are fully determined and approach engineering from a practical perspective, this is the story of what happens when you stop forcing institutions to change and start incentivizing them to transform themselves. Our guest breaks down why universities invariably cannot be compelled to do certain things but you can incentivize them to do research, innovation, and university-industry collaboration, why visual arts students who master mathematics and engineering will do better software development than those who came straight from science without a visualized background, and why he is most excited about the visual artists becoming engineers because if they are part of any project team the visual part of the software engineering will be superior. He explains why universities need to stop offering classical education and start creating innovators who create jobs before they leave campus, why the top companies in the software and computer space were created by young people who sometimes left university, and why the facilitation should come through angel investors not government agencies. But we also confront the uncomfortable truth about graduate unemployment, why a 19-year-old told him he's not going to university because unemployment is brutal and he would finish without getting a job, why free SHS put more people through a system that is not prepared to employ them, and why the type of education we are giving children is the reason we are not getting jobs because we are not creating innovators who are supposed to create the jobs. We discuss why some universities have gone away from classical education and a certain percentage of their graduates are creating jobs before they leave, why angel investors should be incentivized with corporate tax exemptions if they invest in young people whether they do well or not, and why instead of setting up government organizations that give away money we should give that money to angel investors as no interest loans because they know how to invest in the right businesses. We dive into the reality that entrepreneurship is not for everyone coming out of university, why some people need to have experience in the industry and see how things work before they can become entrepreneurs, why job creation is a critical aspect because not everyone can just come out of university and become an entrepreneur, and why private businesses that want to expand should be incentivized with tax exemptions per graduate they hire because that graduate will pay income tax and literally replace the taxes waived for the company. We break down why this was done in the US during Obama's time and more companies started employing graduates, why we must confront the issue of lack of livable wages in this country because you cannot produce for a market when you are paying people 2,000 cedis that doesn't suffice for transport, and why productivity needs to be increased but we need to find a way to pay people wages they can live on because the multiplier effect of livable wages is what creates more jobs. We unpack the powerful question of what America would do if they were in Ghana's situation, why brains would be working across the political divide because at that point it's not about politics it's about the survival of the nation, and why unemployed graduates should form an association and demand a seven point plan for graduate employment before voting for any politician.

What happens when a nation's education system prepares students to memorize answers instead of solving problems, and one minister decides to change everything? In this powerful and deeply insightful episode of Konnected Minds Podcast, we sit down with a former Minister of Education who took on Ghana's entire educational establishment, challenged WAEC's examination structure, and introduced critical thinking assessments that are now being adopted across West Africa, for a raw conversation about education reform, critical thinking, curriculum transformation, assessment systems, STEM education, university access, and the brutal reality that if you don't change how students are tested, teachers will never change what they teach. From confronting WAEC and telling them that Ghana wants critical thinkers but their exams don't test critical thinking, to pushing 40% of examination questions to focus on synthesis, evaluation, and creating instead of memorization, to launching 33 pilot high schools that now test students at level three and four of Webb's Depth of Knowledge where students must apply critical thinking skills instead of repeating memorized answers, to introducing biomedical science, engineering sciences, robotics, advanced computer science, and aviation as high school courses in public schools across Ghana, this is the story of what happens when one leader refuses to accept the minimum and pushes an entire nation's education system toward transformation. Our guest breaks down why he told WAEC that the country wants critical thinkers but their exams don't reflect that demand, why assessment should come first in education reform because if the exam doesn't change teachers will not change what they teach, and why he called WAEC Ghana and demanded they change their high school curriculum exams because teachers will always teach to the test regardless of what the curriculum says. He explains the CIA framework in education which stands for Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment, why most nations design curriculum first then instruction then assessment and wonder why transformation doesn't happen, and why he reversed the order by changing assessment first so that teachers would scramble to teach critical thinking because that's what students will be tested on. But we also confront the uncomfortable truth about what happens when you don't have science labs in your high school, why students who attend schools without proper science facilities are permanently locked out of engineering and medicine unless they leave Ghana and go to the UK or America where they get a second chance, and why visual arts students who are imaginative and creative would make excellent engineers but Ghana's system tells them they will never be engineers if they stay in the country. We discuss why he went to Yachikramso Senior High School for O Level and they didn't have a science lab so none of the students could do science and that was it, dead end, you'll never be a doctor or engineer if you stayed in Ghana, and why this personal experience drove him to create pathways for students to reconsider their career direction at university level. We dive into the launch of BSTEM to bring STEM education to basic schools not just high schools, why equipment has been distributed to basic schools across remote communities so that students can build mobile apps and learn technology from an early age, and why some Ghanaians still believe nothing is happening because they see viral images of computers being drawn on blackboards while transformation is happening in 33 pilot schools that are now teaching courses not even available in some American neighborhood schools. We break down why Ghanaian students studying at Accra STEM Academy have led Ghanaians living in New Jersey to say that this school is better than their neighborhood school in America, why St. Barnabas was transformed including changing their uniforms so students could think differently, and why he gave a donation to take children from Osu on a field trip to Legon so they could see a university for the first time. We unpack the issue of soft skills and why graduates come out of universities having studied computer science but don't know what MySQL is, why the new high school curriculum developed with support from MasterCard Foundation incorporated the four Cs which are communication, critical thinking, collaboration, and creativity, and why internships and work placements were built into the curriculum so that biomedical science students could work with clinics and get hands on experience coming out of high school. We discuss why university reform cannot be done the same way as high school reform, why you cannot ride on your high horse as Minister of Education and tell universities what to do because they will not comply, and why the only way to change university education is to institute a grant program with free money and tell universities that everyone who wants to go in this...

What happens when a man who thought he knew everything loses everything and discovers that the most expensive education is the one you refuse to accept when it's free? In this raw and unfiltered episode of Konnected Minds Podcast, we sit down with Aldis Ozols, a European entrepreneur who made millions in real estate, lost it all in 2008, and discovered that his biggest enemy wasn't the financial crisis but his own refusal to listen, learn, and prepare for what he didn't know was coming. From admitting that even today when he gives people his book less than 10% actually read it because people think they know everything, to confessing that he was exactly that person who thought he was self made and proudly believed his strategies were genius when in reality he was just buying agriculture land and flipping it for 10 times the price without any real business strategy, to the moment a casino owner told him "you are out of your mind but don't worry enjoy, just buy gold" in 2007 and he ignored the advice completely even though gold went up 400% after that, this is the story of ego, ignorance, financial illiteracy, missed warnings, and the brutal cost of thinking you know everything when you actually know nothing. Our guest breaks down why he thought his real estate flipping was strategy when it was actually just speculation in a rising market, why real strategy only begins when you start construction and need to include engineers and build a proper team, and why if he had read financial history he would have known that no market goes up forever and he should have been prepared for the day it crashes. He explains why one of the largest casino owners in Latvia told him he liked the way he was doing things but warned him to buy gold, why he didn't buy gold but instead bought gold painted furniture from Century 17 and decorated his Old City apartment with special cherry wood because he believed money would come abundantly forever, and why all those pictures are still on the internet showing exactly how he was living when he thought the wave would never stop. But we also confront the uncomfortable truth about savings and preparation, why no matter how much money you have you should always put something down and throw the bread ahead so when you walk forward there is already something waiting for you tomorrow, and why at age 52 he now understands that this mindset is what separates those who survive crises from those who lose everything. We discuss what he would do differently if he could go back, why he would buy more real estate without loans, why he would buy apartments and warehouses that generate rental income no matter what happens in the economy, and why warehouses are the simplest investment because as long as there are people there will always be goods that need to be stored somewhere. We dive into the psychology of ego and whether ego is truly your enemy, why people say ego is the enemy but without ego you wouldn't wear nice clothes or buy a nice watch or drive a nice car, and why if you have no ego at all you are just a monk sitting in a monastery which is actually the easiest way to live because it's easy to be humble on top of a mountain but try being humble in the city in business when people are trying to hurt you. He explains why he believes you should have ego, why you should become a monster physically spiritually mentally financially and then control the monster, and why someone who is weak and nice is not really nice but simply must be nice because they have no other option. We unpack the moment after the collapse when he went to minus 7 million euros and started searching for a spiritual path, why he went to Tibet three times to climb Mount Kailash at 5,800 meters altitude and build a stupa to connect to the universe, why he tried to become Buddhist and read the Bible to his son desperately trying to find himself, and why even during the high life he felt something was not sitting right but couldn't explain what was wrong. We discuss why losing everything forces you to confront the questions you ignored when you had money, and why the search for meaning often begins only after everything material has been stripped away. We also explore the brutal reality of becoming a pedestrian after losing all his cars, why he walked barefoot through the streets with his son just to get to meetings, why his wife finally said stop we are not selling the last apartment and it stays in my name, and why this was the moment that held the family together. We break down the powerful moment when his wife brought all her gold jewelry and said "take it, sell it, start something new, I trust you," why this trust nailed him and held him through all the dark years, and why this became the foundation for his next chapter in the underground gold trade. We get into the pivot into gold trading, why he went to the pound shop to sell his wife's jewelry and the owners laughed because he was the first person to tell the truth.

What happens when you lose everything to the 2008 financial crisis and the only way forward is to trust the bankers you owe millions to, give them back their collateral without a fight, and walk away with nothing but your integrity intact?

In this raw and unfiltered episode of Konnected Minds Podcast, we sit down with a European entrepreneur who went from 25 million euros in assets to minus 7 million in debt, and discovered that the way you handle collapse determines whether you can ever rebuild trust, reputation, and access to capital again.

From the moment in 2008 when the Latvian government created a law that land could no longer be used as collateral in banks and his entire real estate empire collapsed overnight, to the decision to voluntarily hand back properties to five different banks and register them under their names without any legal fight, to the bankers being shocked and asking "you are not going to fight?" and him responding "what is the point of fighting, now we need to quickly get peace, yours is yours, mine is mine," this is the story of financial collapse, integrity under pressure, bankruptcy, trust, reputation, and the brutal reality that how you behave when you lose everything determines whether anyone will ever trust you again.

Our guest breaks down why when the 2008 crisis hit he immediately called every bank he owed money to and said "register this land on your daughter company, take it, because the banks shouldn't start fighting for my bonds," why he knew that if five banks all put legal hooks on the same properties the land would become unsellable and trapped in the land commission forever, and why he chose to give everything back cleanly so that each bank got their collateral and he could walk away with peace instead of years of legal warfare. He explains why the bankers were shocked because most people in his position would have fought, hidden assets, or tried to manipulate the system, why they appreciated his honesty so much that they all became his friends and remain his friends to this day, and why when he walks the streets of Latvia now and randomly meets them they hug each other and say "I see you on social media, you're doing well, good, how is it."

But we also confront the uncomfortable truth about bankruptcy, why he paid for three years in the bankruptcy procedure only to have the judge say "we don't really believe that what you declare is only your money because we see on YouTube you are hitting world records in deadlift and you cannot afford that trainer and that lifestyle with the amount you are declaring," why the judge rejected his bankruptcy application after three years of payments because they thought he was hiding money, and why he had to wait and apply again because bankruptcy was the last thing he wanted to do but he had no choice. We discuss why announcing bankruptcy felt like shame, why he wanted to pay everything back himself and close the chapter with dignity, and why sometimes the system forces you into positions you never wanted to be in.

We dive into the moment when he came to Ghana for seven days to investigate the 20% gold discount opportunity the bankers had told him about, why in those seven days he opened a company, got a gold buyer's license, understood the entire regulatory system through PMMC and Minerals Commission, and discovered that the 20% discount was not true but there was still opportunity. We break down why on the seventh day when it was time to go back to Latvia he asked himself "when I'm going back, what I'm getting there again? Again pawn shops and walking around, that's not the future what I want," why he saw that Ghana was very ready for crazy people who are ready to work, and why he made the decision to stay and send the two translators back to the airport while he and one other guy changed hotels, moved to La Palme, and paid $200 per night for a few months ahead because recently he was very rich and $200 didn't sound crazy to him.

We unpack the transition into small scale mining, why he met an old Ghanaian man through the Minerals Commission who was 62 years old with gray hair, a calm voice, and finished every sentence with "by the grace of God," why he thought this man knew what he was doing because of his spiritual way of talking, and why he now realizes it was just two blind men guiding each other. We discuss why they raised half a million dollars from investors back home, why the old man said "with half million we cannot do drilling or large scale but we can go to Prestea and do small scale mining, I have a rich land, riverside, logic sounds good right, you make money and then finance large scale," and why they didn't know that small scale mining was just going to chop their money because the industry of excavators and heavy equipment was not profitable when gold was only $28,000 per kilo.

We get into the brutal financial reality of starting operations in Prestea, why they overpaid $20,000 per year to rent a four...

What happens when a man who made millions, lost everything, and rebuilt from nothing reveals the raw truth about why most people fail in business before they even begin?

In this deeply personal and unfiltered episode of Konnected Minds Podcast, we sit down with Aldis Ozols, a European entrepreneur who went from real estate millionaire to illegal gold miner to diesel parts supplier, for a raw conversation about failure, galamsey, business mistakes, reputation, reinvention, motivation, partnership disasters and the brutal reality that sometimes you sabotage yourself just to feel alive again.

From admitting on camera that he did galamsey even though it's terrible for his reputation because truth is truth and he's not here to show only his medals, to explaining how he hired 27 workers on day one and watched a quarter of his capital disappear before even digging the first hole, to selling his $85,000 trommel washing machine to another investor who also lost everything within six months, to pivoting into excavator rentals that made fantastic money for three years until the machines got tired and breakdowns cannibalized the entire operation, this is the story of what happens when you fail repeatedly and discover that the chase itself is what keeps you alive.

Our guest breaks down why one gentleman named Valdez called him from Latvia asking to do gold mining together and he said it's too late everything is gone, why Valdez still came to Ghana and paid $20,000 to $30,000 just for his knowledge, contacts, and mistakes, and why that investor also lost everything within six months because galamsey is not a business you can succeed at without understanding the land, the chiefs, the water, and the brutal reality of operating in the gray zones. He explains why he told the investor you don't need 27 workers, you need only you and an operator, why you need to first understand where the gold is before opening the pit, and why you need small pits not Olympic swimming pool sized pits because you cannot control the water.

But we also confront the uncomfortable truth about why he pivoted into excavator rental, why his investors who lost money with him in galamsey said let's use that knowledge and do excavator rental because we were paying $1,000 a day for excavator rent, and why for three years this was a fantastic business until the machines got tired and all the money went to Caterpillar Center for repairs. We discuss why a set of injectors cost $10,000 at Caterpillar Center and they would laugh in your face and say go to the cashier and wait two weeks, why he discovered he could remanufacture injectors and sell them for $3,000 with a one year guarantee covering everything even if you use wrong fuel, and why this gap between $10,000 and $3,000 is what made his company blow up because he gave something that didn't exist in the market.

We dive into the psychology of why he calls himself a professional loser, why even as he speaks he worries that he might lose what he has, and why the question of what happens if you lose your health and how strong your team is to move the company forward is an uncomfortable question nobody asks themselves. We break down why every time he was building again he was the happiest man in the world because that's what was driving him, why he would wake up at 4 a.m. without any music or motivation because it's like running from a lion and you don't need motivation when you have a lion chasing you, and why after you run two miles and the lion is far away you stop running and need to challenge yourself again.

We unpack the powerful and controversial idea that people sabotage themselves by making dumb risky decisions so they lose everything and start again because building from nothing makes them feel alive, feel young, and gives them one complete life from point A to point B. He explains why it's like walking on a rope between skyscrapers where the person said all my life I'm waiting for the next time I'll be walking because only then I feel properly alive, alert, here and now, not past not future but now, and why this is exactly what happens when you truly have a good plan that drives you.

We also explore the new vision he's building now, why the new name of A1 Diesel is The Fix, why they are building a one stop shop for all spare parts to give Ghanaians total comfort, and why he brought in a young partner from Latvia who is one of the largest spare parts suppliers and gave him part of his shares because he would rather have 50% from the cow than 100% from the mouse. We discuss why they are inviting Ghanaians who want to cooperate and take parts to all the regions because they want a branch in every region where people can sell correct parts, and why they are building what the market desperately needs not just what they need.

This is the story of what happens when failure becomes fuel, and why sometimes the only way to feel truly alive is to risk everything.