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Tolu Fiz Akanee is a thinker, writer and speaker; the author of A-Z Life lessons

Thursday, November 8, 2012

Sandbox Paris monthly dinner

Last night was exciting for me in a lot of ways.

I was at the Sandbox monthly dinner. This dinner is organised by Sandbox Paris and is thrown open to non-members. It was an amazing evening for me sitting in the same room with people from different walks of life who are doing amazing things daily in pursuit of their dreams, the atmosphere was intellectually stimulating and if you know me so well you should understand my excitement.

At first I was with my friend Onyeka Nwelue and I was just getting to introduce myself to Sophie and her friend when Nettra Pan (who I like to call a Cambodian goddess because of her beauty and aura) came around and said I should not sit with Onyeka and forced me to sit with some other people. So myself and Sophie, who by the way I find very interesting and smart, decided to look for somewhere else to seat. We found two empty seats around this table of four and we Alban and Cecile who were obviously jsut meeting themselves.

Alban is a very interesting fellow, he has travelled far and wide, he runs a business, he's hosting a party next week, so I'm definitely going to see him again some time soon.

Cecile is a medical resident, she's tall, beautiful, smart and seems rather adventurous and outgoing (a trait which is rarely associated with medical professionals). I gave her a copy of my book and I made her promise to review the book and send her honest opinion about the book.

I wrote A-Z Life Lessons in Nigeria and for Nigerians, and I am really interested in knowing what Europeans think about my book. I was telling Alban that Nigerians majorly read motivational and religious books, but fiction seems more appealing to the people here in Europe which is one of the reasons why I might be publishing a fictional piece in the nearest future. As much as I would have loved to, I couldn't give Alban a copy of my book, I've exhausted the copies I came here with and I really need to get more copies from Nigeria asap. Sophie said she would glad to review the book too and I really hope we meet up for that coffee soon :)

Sophie is intelligent and pretty, has a degree in business, she's currently pursuing her masters in renewable energy in a school here in Paris. She couldn't hide her passion for renewable energy

We talked about Alban's idea of mobile offices, his incubator company, and online platform; we talked about work-life balance, routines and how to break away from them, the benefit of having your house in proximity to your office; we talked  renewable energy, development in that sector, energy storage, energy trading; we talked about medicine, mobile health applications, effect of doctor's personality and charisma on treatment and diagnosis; we talked about spirituality, spiritual journeys, yoga,  etc, and towards the end we talked about my book and my motive for publishing.

I also met Etienne Adriaenseen, the Co-founder & CTO of Poutsch a socio-political online platform. He has definitely interacted with a couple of Nigerians as he was able to say "how far" "how you dey" etc. Awesome dude, you guys should check out Poutsch and subscribe.

In Cecile's words, those evenings are great for the mind.

I love the Sandbox community, I love this initiative, I love Paris.

Have a good day ahead guys!

3 comments:

Myne said...

Been a while, nice that you're blogging again. And you're in Paris! Kudos on the training, and make sure to maximize the opportunities.

Tolulope Akanni said...

Thanks for stopping by Myne. I will do my best to maximize the opportunities that come my way :)

*Michael Onobote* said...

Nice to have you back man. I really love the kind of environment you're surrounded with, really intellectually stimulating. Wish you all the very best and look forward to your next post.