Founder, futurist, and UN speaker, Alex Tsado, has spent the majority of his professional career operating at the intersection of disruptive technology, community economics, and historical regenerative philosophies. Before co-founding Ahura AI, Alex led go-to-market for Nvidia’s fastest growing business, cloud AI computing. He founded the Alliance for Africa’s intelligence to ensure that African innovations get the chance to change lives and African people across the world are never again left behind during industrial revolutions. He has spoken at the UN, top business school programs, multiple podcasts, and National AI workshops about our world and how the future can ensure disruptive technologies are used to expand access to improved living conditions in frontier markets. 

Learning has been a crucial part of Alex’s success throughout his many professional endeavors. In his words, “Through my work…I’ve been exposed to how very quickly technology is changing the landscape of business and society…and so it’s crucial and critical to always be on the cutting edge of what’s happening in your space”. He experienced this first hand during his time at Nvidia where he got to see what thousands of start-ups were doing with their GPUs. It became clear to him very quickly that, in these cutting edge fields, learning is necessary for survival. It’s critical to success and maintaining relevance in constantly changing fields. Working as a product manager in various capacities, Alex has seen the importance of constantly striving to learn about customers and improving the skill sets and tactics that allow one to do so. As he put it, “I’ve become a lot more obsessed, as a product guy, with customers and really ensuring I learn how to listen to customers better to understand the pains that they’re talking about, and even the pieces they don’t talk about”. Learning is crucial to the success of individuals and organizations at every level. As such, Alex uses various methods to make learning part of his everyday routine. 

As a learner, Alex is “…notorious for not liking to read”. He reads slowly and so he tends to gravitate towards listening and watching as his preferred methods for learning. He prefers audio to video but will take pretty much anything over long form written material that requires him to read. This is, in part, due to the fact that most of the learning he does is on the go while he’s doing other activities. Anytime he is cleaning his house, doing dishes, going for a run, or a drive, Alex always has something playing in the background. He enjoys content about a variety of topics. On the professional side, his areas of interest change depending on his job and what he’s working on. As the co-founder of Ahura AI, he is constantly learning about artificial intelligence and seeking out content related to what’s new in the industry. Outside of this, he is always looking to learn new skills and improve on old ones. Presenting and public speaking have been a big part of Alex’s professional experience. As such, he has committed to refining these skills and learning new ways to be a more effective communicator on a consistent basis. On the personal side, Alex loves learning about history. He is particularly interested in the history of minority groups. He enjoys learning about the origins of these groups, how they came to be where they are today, and projecting where they might go in the future. 

Alex developed his passion for learning well before he stepped foot in the professional world. In our conversation, he recalled a teacher from his childhood, Mr. Yomi, who had a profound impact on his relationship to learning and education. Alex spent a summer receiving extra lessons from Mr. Yomi during middle school. He went to Mr. Yomi’s house throughout the week to study and learn about math and physics. In one summer, Mr. Yomi and Alex mastered 3 years worth of high school level mathematical and physical concepts. They started with the basics and kept pushing forward studying more advanced topics with relative ease and enjoyment. Alex developed a sense of excitement and interest around learning that he hadn’t felt before. He took an immediate liking to math  and physics, and his experience that summer helped Alex develop the self-confidence and skills that would allow him to succeed in his academic and professional careers going forward. Today, Alex is helping build the world’s first AI tutor to accelerate self-learning for the workforce. With Ahura AI, millions of people around the world will be able to replicate Alex’s experience with Mr. Yomi as they strive to develop their passions through the practice of learning. 

Alex’s passion for learning comes from the people and experiences that helped develop his interests and show him the importance of learning to individuals’ and organizations’ success. What role do you think learning will play in the development of the world’s workforce going forward? How will the emergence and adoption of new tools like AI change our relationships to learning? What relationships or experiences helped define your own personal views on learning/education? We’d love to hear your thoughts! Please feel free to share your insights in the comments or create a post of your own using #HowILearn, and be sure to tag us @AhuraAI so that we can be sure to follow up.