1_6 - Skander Ben Hamda: Tunisian Revolution, Technology as a Superpower, and Stewarding Nature with Blockchain

[00:00:00] Hello, friends. Welcome to Minority Trip Report. MTR is a podcast for underrepresented views and life journeys with mental health, psychedelics, and consciousness. I'm your host, Raad Seraj.

RS: Today my guest is Skander Ben Hamda. Skander is an entrepreneur and digital nomad. He founded several ventures and projects, including Decentralized Impact, the first blockchain and Web three Accelerator in the Middle East and North Africa region in partnership with IFC. 1337 is a venture builder, reputation management and digital security agency that collaborated with top European listed companies.

RS: Skander is currently the co-founder and head of product at Oleaster, a web3 company, connecting nature to the decentralized age and transforming green resources into liquid, tradeable assets, generating yearly returns paired with carbon credit. Skander, welcome.

RS: So Skander, you have a long body of work and quite a few things that you do, that you've done. An hour long podcast, it's not enough to capture all your incredible experiences and the story that you have, [00:01:00] but, we'll, we'll try. So, I read out your bio.

RS: There's quite a lot there. You're an entrepreneur, digital nomad. You, you know, you're working in blockchain and social impact in the meaner. Uh, you have experience with psychedelics, which is obviously why we connected in the beginning, but let's start with how you describe yourself and the work you do today.

RS: Who are you? 

SH: Yeah. It's a very difficult question. We will get back to that later. But part of the way I describe myself as digital nomad because I refuse to stick to myself some country or way of identifying things. But mainly what I do, all my story is around technology and computers.

SH: It started when my mother gifted me a computer at the age of four, and I had very early access to the internet compared to here, to the region. And since then, I've been one fascinated by this amazing tool or technology. It gave me really super powers for a kid growing up [00:02:00] in ea. It's a small suburb near Tunis capital.

SH: It gave me a lot of superpowers and super abilities. And so I always was fascinated by this, and my whole life was gravitating around how to leverage technology. To make a change before it was impact or social impact or whatever. I also, part of my identity the willingness to change things since I was very young, I'm either breaking or changing things and sometimes it, it goes together.

SH: I break things to change them. So yeah I'm using technology. I'm curiously continuously learning new stuff and trying to see how can it apply to change lives for the better or can improve ways in which we do things or we work or we collaborate or we create value. So this is more of a meta level presentation, but what I do actually is I'm an entrepreneur.

SH: I recently co-founded Oleaster. This [00:03:00] is where I'm spending most of my time on right now. Oleaster is tokenizing trees and we are giving people the ability to buy trees through blockchain. And also, I own and founded 1337 a digital studio based here in Tunis, where we help startups and especially young startups here in Tunis develop their product and shine.

SH: So beside of this, on a personal level, I'm I love music so much and art, and I always look into the cross of my two passions, which are technology and art, basically. 

RS: Amazing. And we'll talk obviously a lot about Oleaster because its fantastic. You guys launched last week. Again lots to pick into. What is it about technology that you fell in love with early on, and what is technology to you?

RS: It's a very heavy word. I think when most people think about technology today that think about software. They think about like big tech, they think about robot dogs and all this [00:04:00] stuff, but really what is it fundamentally about technology that you find you are really passionate about and what struck you so early on?

SH: Yeah I told you I, when I was a kid, it was more about those super abilities and like giving you super powers right now. You are in Toronto. I'm int we are seeing each other live. We should not take this for granted. It's a super power. It's almost telekinesis. And at more general level, as I grew up, I saw in technology a tool that helps us to elevate our consciousness and elevate to a better purpose.

SH: When we started with, when we first discovered fire, right? We were, before that, we were shoeing for six to eight hours and then there is fire and meat is cooked. And now we have plenty of time, we have six hours that we can use for other things. And I always saw technology as this. So [00:05:00] it's a tool, it's part of the human evolution to have tools that make us do things and manifest things the way we envision it. This microphone I'm speaking through right now was first an idea. So somebody imagined something how I will have a device, I will speak into it and it will go digital and so on.

SH: But he had this idea and he had, and he used tools to manifest this idea and bring it to the world. And I think technology. What is fascinating about technology is it, it shortens the span from idea to conception. So whether hardware, software layers, protocols whatever it is basically reducing and for which I'm really grateful is reducing this time and this bandwidth between imagining something and putting it out there in the world, either creating something or sometimes it can be a message to amplify it, to give it [00:06:00] more reach.

SH: So this is what I love the most about technology is it's a tool and I really don't understand people who are scared of technology like it's replacing us. No, man, it's giving you more time to focus on your ideas and to build better stuff. Even if it's a terrible idea now, in less time that it's a terrible one.

RS: I agree with your definition. But I also understand the sort of reluctance sometimes, see the way I process technology philosophically, I think all technology is ultimately an amplifier of intent and technology's not necessarily software, it's a tool like you said, but is the intent behind it that where the tool ultimately becomes, used, so for example, Sorry, could you 

SH: say that , that was, it's my Apple watch . 

RS: I have Siri spontaneously talk up sometimes during meetings. I don't understand Siri, talking about technology, right? Yeah. So there's this idea called the theory of extended mind, which is essentially saying something similar to what you [00:07:00] were going getting at, which is, every idea starts as an abstract object in the mind, like a psychic object.

RS: And then through layers and layers of technology and progression of technology itself, those ideas become, they become collection atoms in the real world, right? If you think about a pencil, yes it's a pencil, but really it turns those abstract ideas onto a piece of paper where it can be communicated and broadcasted openly, and then used to orchestrate human behavior collectively.

RS: So you can use technology, you can use a paper or pen to draw blueprints draw a map. You can, construct an airplane or a bridge or , you can use it for a propaganda. And, oppressing people, same thing as again, they all start as abstract ideas in the mind. And so from that perspective, I think the, sometimes the hesitation I also understand, because if you use that definition of technology, which is an amplifier of intent, then technology can be a tool or a.

RS: [00:08:00] Whens a hammer, a tool, and whens hammer a weapon. I think for a lot of us me and you per particularly probably like people with our backgrounds, grew up in non-industrial, non-western countries, it was one way to come up from our current predicament. I don't know about you, but I didn't get a computer until 1998 in Saudi Arabia, yeah. It was, Whoa, here's this world I've been missing my entire life. 

SH: Yeah. The I think it was around the same time but there is a small difference in age. At 98, I was four years old , so 

RS: I'm just a really old guy. 

SH: I had my first computer. It was a Pentium three, huge revolution by that time. And yes, the, it's, and especially like quick anecdote, we had an old regime and. Against which there was a revolution and an uprising. And the guy , the president himself had created a family computer program where every family should own a computer. And it turns out as the [00:09:00] worst to happen against him.

SH: And part, I say part not the reason, but part of what contributed to the fall of this, his regime was people having digital literacy and leveraging social media and internet against him. So I totally agree with you. It can be used as a weapon or as a tool, and it's only a mean and not an end by itself.

RS: Yeah. Yeah. And I think the way forward really is empowering people, educating people. Helping them earn an income and a livelihood, supporting their families, allowing them, giving them agency is really the best way forward. And that's where I think technology can be most powerful.

RS: We're gonna talk about the Arab Spring and your involvement there and your experiences, which I think is, incredible to hear about. Cuz I've never met anybody who has been directly involved, obviously us sitting in the western world, industrial world and looking at it and going wow, what's happening?

RS: But to hear from someone who's actually being on the ground, especially Tunisia, was the bird place of the [00:10:00] Arab Spring. That's where it all started in 2011, yeah. So I'm excited to talk about that. But let's, before that, let's go, let's go backwards. 

RS: Okay. So that's crazy. But tell me a little bit about how you grew up in Tunisia. What was that like, and when was the, when did you start traveling and getting a sense of, or taste of being a nomad? 

SH: Yeah. It's interesting question. Because I grew up differently and as I told you, the way I grew up in Tunisia is hugely different from what other people experience it.

SH: And that's thanks to the computer. So I was born in Ouardia, small neighborhood near the Tunis capital. And it's between a very popular area and a very bourgeoisie area, the same city you have a lot of used to be rich families and French people. We were colonized by France and the neighborhood was called Mutuelleville as its French name.

SH: I grew up in this very diverse [00:11:00] neighborhood where you see people from different backgrounds, from different ranges of society, different levels of wealth. You have people with no dinner. I grew up with people who didn't have food, and people who have pool in their house, and it's 300 meters, 500 meters separating them.

SH: So my mom, as I told you, was a teacher. And the thing that was also predominant in my family house was the value of education. My mom is coming from a very poor background, not very poor. Let's say poor. And they she had seven brothers and sisters, and her father was the only one working. And she made it through education. And since very young, she would only put the accent on curiosity and education. Like you see, we are on this part of this rail. Thanks to the education we had nothing.

SH: And I studied a lot and through my studies I [00:12:00] was able to get a job. And now I'm a teacher and she choose the job of teacher, not because it was the job available right there, but because she genuinely believed in the value of transmitting knowledge. So I was right there exploring, seeing a lot of cognitive dissonance, like something, and it's opposite in the same neighborhood. But at the same time, I had my mom highlighting the value of education and curiosity. And my dad, who was also a different type of person and he's more a people person. So he typically, in Tunisian words, he would tell me at three years old or four years old, things like what we see now on social media, your network is your net worth and so on.

SH: And he had a lot of friends from different countries. He traveled the world and he left at the very young age. He left Tunisia at 17. And so he always put the accent on people. So at the [00:13:00] same time, I grew up very interested in people, but I had some sort of cave where I would go close on myself and try to learn new things and solve riddles and so on. 

RS: I've had a few guests on the podcast now, and the common thread that I find in all of them is this relentless curiosity and this ability to go inwards at the same time, being contemplative. I find these two are very common themes and I can really relate to a lot of what you said.

RS: Having both that foundation of knowledge, first be curious all the time because that's the way you will elevate, that's the way you will get outta your predicament. That's how you will, elevate your whole family's consciousness and hopefully, build wealth and things like that, right?

RS: Because social mobility can only come from education when you are coming from low income backgrounds, there's not really many ways to escape that. And I, my own background, it's very similar. My parents, we grew up in Bangladesh. And I don't wanna say we were poor, we were certainly not, didn't have any money. We never had any money, So I guess [00:14:00] we were poor in certain ways, and then growing up in Saudi Arabia, my father being a migrant worker, and my mom was a stay home mom, money was always an issue, but we always had books.

RS: We always had plenty of books. That's the one thing that mom and dad always made sure that you had enough books to read. And you read all kinds of books. We were constantly reading again. That was the only way to escape the sort of the systemic space we were in, in the sense that money wasn't gonna give, be given to us.

RS: We didn't inherit any wealth. It wasn't gonna come from anywhere. And of course, there's only so much you can do just by working a job, right? Yeah. But the curiosity is the constant driver here. My dad left Bangladesh when he was 27 years old. And he left Bangladesh basically looking for a better way to support his very large family.

RS: Back then people would have 7, 8, 9 siblings, 11 siblings. Oh my God. Crazy to even think about. I can't even imagine having one child which is a different conversation But, he left and then he joined a Singapore a cargo vessel and he traveled the world.

RS: And of [00:15:00] course, all of a sudden all that sort of exposure to other cultures, other ways of thinking, different kinds of people informed his way of thinking for the rest of his life, which ultimately permeated into me and my siblings. So I can, I think we have a very similar story.

RS: So how old were you in 2011? 

SH: I was 15, turning 16, or just turned 16. Okay. 

SH: That's when the Arab Spring catapulted, right? It burst into the global consciousness. Now, of course, you being on the ground in Tunisia, you guys have probably sensed this coming for a while, for the rest of us Oh, what's happening on Twitter? All of a sudden it's not like that, right? Coming from Bangladesh, revolutions don't start all of a sudden. What was that like? What was it like living in Tunisia prior to the revolution? And then of course, I would love to hear about how you are involved.

SH: Yeah, so what was it like? Is, the country, to be honest, and especially now where I stand was doing good and the regime was bad in some things, [00:16:00] but there, there were a construction and say again, it's a cognitive dissonance where you had a regime that is giving internet and computers to the people very early on, having huge international manifestations and events happening in Tunis. So there were prosper prosperity. There were some kind of evolution, but there were no freedom of expression, unfortunately, and a lot of corruption. and the concept of equal chances and equal opportunities was not there. You would start a project and then someone from the president's family would come to say, Hey, you gimme 50% of the business, or you're closing tomorrow.

SH: If you were able to start the business in the first place, because everything is locked and the machine, the game is rigged, let's say. And the city, the hood I grew up in I saw a lot of injustice. We will come to that later, but a lot of people who are getting imprisoned for smoking cannabis.

SH: [00:17:00] So I saw a lot of people from my generation getting arrested and their future completely destroyed because for smoking one joint. There were a lot of people who were persecuted for being part of Ultra groups. Ultras is like, soccer supporter teams. So the technical police, we call it, they would take photos at the stadiums and they will come during the, in, during the week, pick people from their houses because they shout or something, or had some message at the stadium.

SH: It's a bit of, I don't know if you know the movie Get Out, it's that vibe where everything is fine, but you feel that something is not fine. And no one... 

RS: Great analogy. Something's really off here... 

SH: Right? Yeah. And no one is talking about it. And you feel that there are people who know about it, but they auto censor themselves. So there were censorship. And more importantly, self censorship from people who saw [00:18:00] people getting arrested or future is destroyed because people said something. And so people were self censoring themselves. And also what impacted me the most and what was the spark for me to be an activist was internet censorship.

SH: So it started as I was 12 years old at the time and I had a friend from friends, he sent me a video, what we call a frag movie in video games, like video of him playing the games so well, and it was on YouTube, and he sent me the link and I opened the link and it says 4 0 4 Not found. So it's some kind of error message and.

SH: I say, No, it's not working. He say, No, it does work on my side. And so on. He said, Maybe it's some sort of parental control, he thought I had parental control and he gave me the vpn. So he told me you should use a vpn. And I discovered YouTube and the whole YouTube and daily motion. And a lot [00:19:00] of websites, like big websites were censored in Tunisia. You cannot access to YouTube before 2011. So I discovered that, yeah, there is something that we are trying to hide here and it's parental control at the society level. And from there, as I'm curious, I try to understand why there is a part of the internet that is cut off or forbidden for tunisians. And I discovered a lot of websites that were censored and especially bloggers.

SH: And on that side of the internet, the regime was not the story we were told. As he is the savior, emperor, building bridges and constructing stadiums. He was that, but he was also someone who was arresting people, torturing people.

SH: And quickly I started being more sensible to this narrative. At the beginning I was completely shocked, like how it's like telling you your father or your friend is a horrible person. You, and a lot of good things from [00:20:00] him. So at the same time, how can it be? And one of them is lying probably.

SH: I followed the rabbit hole along all the way. I could have stopped at the very first blog and continued gaming, but I continued digging. And at some point I said to myself, Focus, can you were searching for the truth. Now you got it. This is the whole story.

SH: Now what are you doing to do with all those information? It's similar to Morpheus. Are you getting back to your old life, gaming and pretending like there is nothing or you are going to act against it? So I joined a think tank, an online think tank, a very angry and anarchist let's say think tank on the internet. It was the most geeky movement out there. Like it have its roots from the cyber punk in the nineties. And we were all using pseudonyms and we didn't know each other's identity. And they had good knowledge of internet and hacking and [00:21:00] cryptography and so on. So I joined Taris, and as you said, it's a buildup.

SH: There is no one day, there is revolution. And in 2008, the same thing happened, but there were no means to, to transfer the information outside of the region. In Gafsa, in the south of Tunisia, there were a huge uprising, even bigger maybe than the one in 2011. But Ben Ali would close the city. No one can get in, no one can get out, and no media.

SH: And back then there were no internet, no Facebook, so no images are getting out of there. And they would beat the people, arrest people, et cetera. And it's done until today. You go to the streets and ask people in Tunisia who are tunisians, what happened in 2008 in Gafsa and they don't know. So there was this anger, resentment from the people growing and they were also the wikileaks cables in November, 2010 and one month after 17th of [00:22:00] December, 2010, there is Bouazizi who sets himself on fires. But this time they were internet and they were Facebook.

SH: And the information, even though we stop a journalist from a foreign journalist from getting in, the image was getting out to the word and people were knowing about the protests and the people being shot in the streets and so on. , I would describe what happened in December more as a tipping point than a starting point.

SH: And from there I was, as I told you, involved with Taqriz and with few other movements and so on, and I got myself arrested at 16 by some secret police. I was more kidnapped than arrested because my family couldn't know where I was, or even me, I didn't know where I was. And I spent few days there.

SH: And the rest of the story is on January 14th, Ben is gone and the regime has fallen. A lot of people frame it [00:23:00] from December to January, but there were some root movements going on years and years before that. And the Bouazizi setting himself on fire was the tipping point or something, that it is over and we would not accept it anymore.

RS: That was the flash point in the global consciousness too, right? So much of what you're saying is, I see it happen around the world too. Tunisia has gone through this and I, I'm not really sure about the reality on the ground today, coming from Bangladesh, I see this similar story right. On one hand you have all this development, right? We do need bridges. We do need internet. We do need reliable power, we need businesses. We need opportunities to get out of the sort of... we've been poor. Bangladesh has been poor since this inception in 71. Some of it has manufactured, some of it is globally positioned. Some of it is just due to the fact that, it's a new country. People don't have the skills or the mindset to be entrepreneurial yet. On the other hand, while I go back and I'm like, blown away, look at all the stuff now. Holy [00:24:00] crap, we got big buildings and bridges now. It used to take 12 hours to go somewhere and now it takes three.

RS: Crazy. Which is huge. It makes a it makes a real impact on people's lives. On the other hand, do what you want as long as you do what we tell you to, right? That kind of a thing. Knowing that you are not really free, you cant really speak your mind. There is no free press per se.

RS: You're free to do what you want in the box we gave you. Do not step outside that line cuz then you get kidnapped, you disappear, you will be abducted you'll be harassed. So this is happening in many countries around the world.

RS: How do you feel having gone through this really crazy experience, seeing your country turn upside down? But how do you feel now? Do you feel hopeful? 

SH: To be honest with you, rather than to your audience? I would split it in two ways of answering the question. If you ask me if I compare Tunis today in 2022 [00:25:00] to the image that I imagined the 16th of January in the morning. So you wake up, Ben Ali is gone and there is a country to build. And that morning that Tunisia I imagine it in 2022, is way different from the one that we have now.

SH: So I imagine that a lot of our problems would disappear and things would move on, and we would have flying cars in 2022 in Tunisia. So there, there is part of amazing ambition. We knew that Ben Ali was the problem. He was the problem at some extent, but he's not all the problems.

SH: So today we went through way different phases. I think at least five or six governments in the last 10 years. And things have been changing. We have different kind of elections and now we have new constitution that was voted through a referendum [00:26:00] a few days ago in July. 

SH: We are hitting some obstacles and we are learning, and this is what would happen if you leave your kid go in the street by himself. And I grew up in the street and a big part of my education was from the street. You can protect your kid at your home all day, and he will not bruise himself. He will not fall, and you would protect him.

SH: And this what was Ben Ali doing? Or giving the illusion of doing, I am protecting you. Look, all these foreign threats, all these threats, I'm your savior, I'm protecting everyone, et cetera. But he was overprotecting, let's say, and there were no sense of initiative and you cannot take risks and so on.

SH: So what happened is especially in 2011, an outburst of freedom, like it's similar to [00:27:00] people in Colorado, for example, when they legalized weed they would roll huge joints like this. Why would you roll this one? Just because I can now, yesterday I can't. So today I can, So am I gonna do it And we had the, we had a weird period where we were just seeing things because we can, or doing things because we can.

SH: And there were a lot of, let's say, bad times, a lot of good times, a lot of hope. And also I think a lot of learning. And from now where I stand, something started that day. The revolution was more of a start than a destination by itself. Like it's not, Ali is gone, the country will have a huge GDP and we will create jobs and everything. So it's all part of a learning process. And from a comparison perspective, I'm more hopeful, even though it's terribly bad now in Tunisia, but [00:28:00] I'm, in terms of hope, I'm more hopeful now as there are endless scenarios of what could happen versus before, where there is one scenario, one party, one idea, and it's chosen for us.

RS: As with everything, the answer is maybe and it's gray and and it's, it depends, right? Yeah. But I really like that framing because I think self-actualization on a personal level is a process, and you apply that to a nation, right? It's a process, I think it's happening around the world now.

RS: The world has become so complex and what does actually self-actualization mean? And then of course, as a Canadian Bangladeshi, with a Bangladeshi background my entire life being told that, Oh, you are a poor country. Nothing ever a good happens there. Corruption, disaster, all the deaths and famine and floods and all this stuff. All the while people are living their lives. My folks still live there. I, I spend quite a bit of time there. I don't [00:29:00] feel like it's lacks hope, but I think to build a a national consciousness around what is possible, at least now we have the agency and we can explore multiple perspectives versus being told, okay, either I take care of you or you're fucked.

RS: Let's switch gears now because I want to come to one of the core mandates of the show, to talk about consciousness and psychedelics. Now you and I connected on Twitter. I don't wanna say randomly, cuz is there anything really random? Depending on what we put out there and the sort of mindset and the way we carry ourselves, we tend to come closer to people that we're meant to be in touch with. And so you and I connected and right away we talked about psychedelics.

RS: I wonder what your experience with psychedelics has been and how do you process everything you've gone through? But before going there, let's talk about the first time you tried psychedelics. Where were you, What was it like? 

RS: Yeah. It was in 2015, and I [00:30:00] heard a lot about psychedelics and especially acid. And at that time there were a hype similar to the one we are seeing now about microdosing.

RS: So maybe it was the start of generalized hype or for this information to come to the mainstreams. And especially I've always been a huge fan or. Culturally matching with Silicon Valley and what's happening in San Francisco. And it was the trend out there. So we had articles from Wire, then Tech Crunch, seeing, hey, execs at top startups are microdosing to enhance creativity, and so on.

RS: So it was the first contact with the idea itself. I didn't know it existed. And so I started digging and I was seeing what is it about and everything. And then to acquire is a journey by itself. I had an experienced friend with me as a trip setter and [00:31:00] I just took it at night. Yeah. Something happened that night. But to be honest with you, and I saw this pattern with a lot of people. The first reaction is it's doing nothing. Even though it was a hard one, a very potent one, but I think there were a need for some sort of sensibility. And to know what is it? it's like umami in when you're tasting things, like there is something, but I can't describe it. So the first night was more contemplating and trying to catch the feeling, what is it? Et cetera. And they had a broad range of expectations. And the one that I took, they didn't have a lot of visual effects. 

SH: It was interesting. I took some notes and then I wanted to try again.

SH: The second time was the huge revelation for me to discover the substance and the field, let's say. And also the figure that I told my friends about is [00:32:00] I opened drawers. I imagine that in my brain there are drawers and some of the drawers I didn't open them, or doors I didn't open since years, and they were stuff in there, so sometimes good, sometimes bad.

SH: And from that day I had some part of the experience being a little bit hard to process, but the day after I thought I was going to be traumatized or else, but I said, Okay. What, why are you taking this? So is it more for to enjoy? It's not something to enjoy. There are other substances that, that just make you euphoric. So you are on this path of discovering yourself and while discovering yourself, you will find good things and bad things. And there, and since that day, I even refused to let my friends say the word, I had the bad trip for me. There is no bad trip. It's all trip. And it's what you find it is [00:33:00] good or bad.

SH: And imagine in your house you are doing some cleaning and you find a rotten yogurt or tomato right there. Maybe it's awful and it doesn't smell good while you are processing it and throwing that way. But your house will be much cleaner after you throw it away and you deal with it. So same with trips.

RS: I love it. Okay, so you open drawers, bad yogurt. Okay, great analogy.

RS: When you said drawers, did any of those drawers open up? 

SH: Yeah, a lot. A lot of drawers. But let me describe in a better way. Actually, even though I came from, my background, but with this superpower, which is which is a computer and access to internet. And it was my window to the world, and it changed my perspective on a lot of things.

SH: But you just created, even with the revolution and the [00:34:00] activism and so on, it was more about pushing away boundaries. And the box that we were speaking about was only getting bigger. So, and in your mind, you, since you are just in a small box, the first reflex is to push the box and get it bigger. But getting outside of the box are you can be I have nothing against people in the box or being in the box, but it needs to be from your choice and conscious choice. that day, I realized it's not one day, but it's more of process. I realized that there is more than the box and more than my mind and more than my experience. And especially I had a lot of traumas, one going through the revolution and so on. Even my neighborhood where I grew up, there were a lot of traumas and things to deal with.

SH: And also when I was doing [00:35:00] interviews with the media or speaking to other people, people and me, we framed myself into this whole narrative of, okay, similar to the story I told you yesterday, I grew up in , blah, blah, blah. And then I did revolution. Oh, they tortured you. Oh, I'm sorry. Now you're entrepreneur.

SH: That's great. So, you would fix . Yeah. You would fix, your people would put you in a certain narrative. And if you are not conscious about it, you would put yourself into a narrative. And like every narrative, it have limits of potential of the curve, have its potential. And you need to be part of that curve.

SH: It's a path and you are going through a path and doing psychedelics gave me one, the epiphany or eureka moment where, okay, I can be outside of this path and that will be fine. like, I would be fine. And there are, there is nothing to worry about [00:36:00] and to look how many paths exist.

SH: Okay. I spent, to be honest with you, also a lot of time into this, really, into this. And for most of the time, I was more contemplating the different scenarios or options I had without taking options at the same time, understanding or visualizing my mind and processing my thoughts, my old emotion, trying to reinvent myself.

SH: But at some point of my life, it was only about this. So I would wake up, Hey, today I'm going to explore my mind and explore my emotions and be more conscious about them and so on. And more in a contemplation than action. And then I decided to start microdosing by the idea of microdosing is we must admit it, psychedelic trips need to have proper trip and time, and I was working a lot by that time.

SH: And for [00:37:00] six months, I think I cycled. Microdosing like once every three days. And I tried different dosages, different cycles, and so on. And I was mainly revisiting my life and what I was doing while I was a bit under influenced if we can say that. So I was rediscovering things, rediscovering the road to my home, rediscovering my car, rediscovering my house, rediscovering people.

SH: And it gave me a lot of empathy and a lot of presence. I am more into my mind as a person. I spend a lot of time into my mind and having micro doses and going out to the word made me think, see more, contemplate more my friend's faces or the small, subtle changes they would have on their faces. I would contemplate my garden even more.

SH: On a bigger level. Like, the biggest realization is I don't know nothing even about myself. And [00:38:00] when I opened all these drawers, et cetera, oh, it created the disturbance of who I am. Like I thought I, I knew all my drawers and what's inside them and so on.

SH: And now you discovered way more. So are you sure you know yourself, Skander. And also when we are into the default mode network of our brain, we think we know. Like I know the road from my office to my home. I know it by heart, but do I really know it? 

RS: That is I think, one of the key points of psychedelics. Sometimes being in this space, which I really love and I'm so excited for what's to come, but sometimes I feel like we venerate the substance itself and don't talk about how to get to these altered consciousness without the substance. It's not about the psychedelic, it's about how we can walk through these doors without it. That the truths and these possibilities exist within us already. We just sometimes need help. But like you said, once you see [00:39:00] the door, the point is to walk through it without the psychedelic.

RS: I wanna start, bring it all together with one point. I'm sure you're a fan of Naval Ravikant. I'm a huge fan of him. Me too. He talks about Not only freedom of mind, but freedom from mind.

RS: Once you know the possibilities are there, it's amazing. But you are also not your thoughts. Our brains and our minds have a way of still sticking onto things, being able to associate as well as dissociate from any particular lines of thinking. Because you can always say, who's really in charge? Is it really my inner self, my truest self? Or is it my mind and my ego? And is it my habits and tendencies? 

RS: We have a few minutes left Skander, so I wanna be sure to touch on Oleaster and what you're building is super cool. Really quickly in the next few minutes, tell us about what Oleaster is, what does tokenizing nature mean? Why is tokenizing nature important? And then ultimately, what is it about [00:40:00] tokenizing nature that presents a whole new realm of possibilities for people around the world? 

SH: I would try to do it in few minutes. Tunisia is known for olives and for oranges and for a lot of other things. But those are our biggest prides. And if I want to invest in olive trees or orange trees, I need to buy an orchard, hire someone and have that someone taking care of it and having to manage the day to day aspect of it.

SH: Choice two is investing in a company that owns trees and. Thus, I am investing in someone's management. And I deeply think that nature is generous and nature is evergreen. So sometimes the tree would be productive, but the guy managing the company would use the revenue from the trees and buy a new track with it and two computers that he doesn't need.

SH: So the company is not profitable, [00:41:00] but nature was profitable. And with my knowledge in blockchain and along with my friends Fares Mabrouk, who is our CEO and co-founder of Oleaster and Mikael Memmi, we wanted that first to buy an olive orchard and make own olive oil. And we said, Okay, we are not reinventing anything here.

SH: We are just closing on ourselves. And we wanted to discover if there are ways to pool funds and buy a huge olive orchard with other people, for example, and build an ecosystem around it. And we found that there were huge legal complexities, one. Two it's a very old way of doing things in industry like agriculture. A lot of people operating in that space are not plugged to the financial system and so on. And at the same time I was, I spent those last years very into blockchain and we started thinking [00:42:00] about how can we bridge the world. 

SH: Fares is coming from an impact investment background and finance background. And in his word, they were a huge demand for green assets. So there is a huge demand and funds and people, millennials and individual consumers in the United States where we are based, where Oleaster is based are more prone, like 90, 79% are, they are more prone to invest in a green assets if they are offered the choice between a green and non-green asset having the same revenue. Also funds mutual funds private equity all of them were wanted to invest in green. 

SH: So there is on this side, this amount of people wanting to invest in green and wanting to learn from nature and the other side, producers all over the world having green assets that are trees and participating in the green economy. But they are, in their own word, they don't have [00:43:00] access to finance, they don't have access to our tools and to the financial ecosystem. So there, we imagined the word we said, Okay, imagine if you can if we can buy trees instead of buying an olive orchard, I would just buy one tree. Why I need to invest in a 10,000 tree orchard and maintain it.

SH: I want to be a part of this industry even for testing, but without having a huge investment. So I want to own one tree, and we try to make that possible. And one of the solutions that came to us is blockchain technology. Actually blockchain technology, a lot of people think of us today as a cryptocurrency project or whatever, but we are just using the essence of the technology and the ability and superpowers.

SH: We can trace everything that is happening out there between the investor on one side and the producer on one side and Oleaster in the middle of them. [00:44:00] Two, transparency. We need to have transparency systems for people to trust each other and to know what's happening in there.

SH: If you are from the United States investing in one tree in Spain, you would love to see everything, what's going on and have all full traceability. And those are two prominent features of blockchain technology. The third one is the security. So blockchain is more secure than Oleaster having servers or setting up a fund that operates a shady black box system in which we don't know what's happening in there.

SH: And four is composability, and this is what we look most forward. This whole word of agriculture and green assets was not plugged to the different ecosystems. And what is amazing if is if we tokenize one tree. So we take one tree and there is [00:45:00] someone who labels it expert or a third party accredited person who would label it, take a photo of it, take the GPS position and put it a name, and then we put it on a coin, on a smart contract on the blockchain.

SH: Now you have a token and that token represents your ownership of the tree. But if I give you a certificate, it's worth nothing. If the certificate is issued in Spain and you want to use it with a bank in Canada, it's worth nothing. But if it's a token it's out there, you can move it.

SH: If you want to use the token, and there is some lending platform that will accept these tokens, you can use your token directly to put it as a collateral and take a loan. So, tomorrow we can pool, create a DAO, decentralized organization that would own different trees.

SH: I can have on an investor perspective, an index fund and the investing or collecting different tokens from the world rather than having certificates. And also it, [00:46:00] we solve the legal complexity, the financial complexity. Imagine tomorrow you Raad, you want to from Canada, you are tax resident there, I guess, and you want to invest in a olive orchard in Spain.

SH: And especially if you wanna do it for just 10 trees, 100 tree. So the legal fees and the complexity of it Would be more than the actual investment itself. And the headaches. The headaches especially, we don't emphasize this a lot, but the headaches are, even if you are willing to do this investment, the headaches can be a bit complex.

SH: So we created the new paradigm where amazing producers we did the road show this year and we visited, and we, when we say trees, it's the most premium producers out there, and they are producing very minority varieties. And it's very important. I hope we have time for this, but actually what is happening, for example, in olive [00:47:00] trees is a lot of people are producing one or two varieties of olive trees because they are easy to manage, easy to produce, but these trees are dependent on water, and they have intensive production cycles. So they bring fruits every year and you put a lot of water, you get a lot of olives, and you get a lot of oil and so on. And what is happening now is 85% of the olives in the world are from the same two varieties. And what's the impact you would say? Well, it's the same taste tomorrow.

SH: Tomorrow we would have a less richer taste. There is no biodiversity out there in nature, which is very important and could help us fight climate change. And two, even our food would be boring. Imagine all the olive oil would have the same taste across the world, or tomorrow all the oranges look the same.

SH: Like there is this [00:48:00] kind of orange, nothing as, Oh, what, what happened about this? Red oranges? No, they don't exist anymore. So, With Oleaster we are supporting minority varieties in trees and they are producing oil that is multiple award winnings, and those properties have been there for centuries sometimes. So we created this paradigm where we have, you have these properties with passion producers on one side and two investors that are willing to invest in green assets.

SH: And especially we get rid of the old mentality of you either make money or you support deforestation. And most of the the ecosystem was companies making a lot of money in carbon intensive industries and then donating all the money for other people on the other side of the planet to plant more trees, and they think they create some kind of balance. And what we were obsessing about is how can we [00:49:00] make money for real? It's not charity. You're not giving away money to someone to plant a tree instead of you. And you don't know if it's this the tree was planted or no, and was it cut down later on or no, to use it as timber or to use it wood.

SH: And also last point is we want people to learn from their investment. I invite people to check our website and see our first blog post. It says nature is an open book. Tomorrow investing is 'eduvestment' is education through investment. Today, if you want, if you buy shares of an automotive company that's, say you are not learning anything about mobility, you're not learning anything about how the engineering behind that car or anything, you're just getting money.

SH: But with our platform that you are building you would learn from your tree. You would have notifications from your tree like, Hey, I'm thirsty today. Oh, today it's a bit hot, or This is the pruning season. I need [00:50:00] a haircut. And it'll tell you why you need to, why the tree needs to change its sleeves and so on.

SH: So this is the word we are building. We are starting with olive trees. And then we are going to other green assets. I'm going to say it in your podcast. You are going for avocado trees, macademia trees and a lot of green assets. And then we will go from soil to earth, wind, and maybe solar.

SH: And the world we imagine tomorrow is a world in which you would open your portfolio and you will see green assets, three orange trees from here, and four olive trees in Spain, and five solar panels in another country that are generating return for you, making a good impact on the planet, while supporting passionate producers that are not into intensive production or intensive means of producing things.

RS: Amazing. I feel like I should just start a Web3 podcast and you and I should just riff forever cause this is fascinating. But as podcasts go, [00:51:00] unfortunately we are out of time, but Skander, this has been fantastic.

RS: Thank you so much for taking the time, sharing your story. I think you are a rare entrepreneur that has a very wide lens and I'm really grateful that you spent this time with us. Thanks so much. 

SH: Thank you Raad. And thanks to your audience and for this invitation.



RS: This podcast was produced in collaboration with Carolyn Tripp on Art Design. Thanks for listening to Minority Trip Report. I'm your host, Raad Seraj.