Team Spotlight: Introducing Ikram

Every week we ask a Terra team member to let us know who they are. Here's Ikram:

What wearables are you using?

I use the Fitbit Luxe.

What do you use it for?

I like to track my steps, aiming for 10,000 per day. And I also like to track my sleep as well, it's nice to see when I am sleeping and waking up. Usually I try to wake up at 5:30am, that's my goal and I actually managed to do it four months in a row during COVID.

Wow, you wake up so early?

Yep. It's super quiet, everybody is asleep and I'm able to get things done when there are no distractions. I feel like there's a real calm and silence, I like it.

What's life for you outside of Terra?

Good question, I'm still figuring it out! I just moved to London from Algeria.

In terms of exercise and physical activity often I would workout at home and do some pilates. I used to train a lot of martial arts, 9 years in total.

I also read a lot of books, mainly around history and philosophy and recently I've been reading articles in areas like Deep Learning. I like to draw a bit too and from time to time I'll play a bit of piano. I love listening to music!

Right now in London I'm still trying to discover the city and go to a new place every weekend, meet old friends from my university days and make new friends here. I'm also keen to get back to martial arts after a 7 year hiatus.

Which martial art did you specialise in?

I did Judo for 9 years and aikido for 1 year in university.

That's a lot of time, did you compete too?

I've competed once in Judo, but it was mostly for training. I also coached too!

There was a time when I really wanted to be in a competition when I was in middle school. But there was nothing in my weight range so I had to either gain or lose weight to compete. So I started overeating. I gained a lot of weight, but I didn't do it properly and didn't end up making the weight range... Next time I'll do it right!

You mentioned piano, are you quite musical?

I'm self taught with piano, I've been playing since I was 11. Generally just playing by myself and trying to figure things out, I can't really read music so I just play by ear.

Is music important to you?

I love performing with people. I play the guitar, well barely - four chords in total, but I can sing with it too so that makes up for it. I love jamming with people, including performing in a theatre in front of an audience. And I listen to all different types of music and feel connected to it.

What type of music do you listen to?

Hmmm lets see. It used to be a lot of Evanescence, I was obsessed. Then I went through some crazy rock screamo phase... I thought it was pretty cool, apparently not. I also love Targui music,I'm Berber and I think Saharan style music is pretty amazing. Oh and I also like a lot of Vietnamese, Chinese, and Korean music. Believe it or not, but Orthodox Arabic Chants are excellent for productivity.

That sounds like a lot of different languages

Yep. Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Korean, Berber, and a lot of African influence for sure. Especially Saharan.

How do you understand the lyrics?

I don't most of the time.,. But I also try to learn the languages. For me it's about how the music makes me feel, that doesn't always need perfect understanding of the lyrics to be communicated.

How many languages do you speak?

Berber is my first language. Arabic, French, English, Korean at intermediate level, German beginner level. Italian was one of the first languages I started with.

So you're a bit of a serial language learner then?

That's what I used to do. The most recent language I've been trying to learn is Russian. I took a break because I wanted to focus on software engineering.

How have you found living in London versus Algeria?

Well my adulthood has been in Lebanon, but I've spent a bit of time during lockdown in Algeria. But London is pretty cool, I love drinking tea with my friends (yes, so British). I'm still getting used to how often people like to go out to eat, in my family we prefer home-cooked food. But, it's a bit of a personal dilemma for me because I hate cooking... I can make food, but I don't enjoy it. It stresses me out.

Outside of that, it's been amazing being here and working in a startup, the team culture and unity is so important and communication is great here. The team spirit is really fun and has a great vibe, we're having fun and chatting together and we actually went to an Algerian restaurant for dinner the other day, that was great!

There's one thing we do at Terra which I really love and its the book challenge. We read a book every couple of weeks and discuss it with the team and think about how we can apply the learnings to our own life and to Terra. It's great.

Something that shocked me though about London is that it sleeps at night, it gets quiet! Beirut, where I was in Lebanon, never sleeps.

What are your future plans 10 years ahead?

I'm really keen to grow within Terra and see how big it can get. I'm excited to take on more responsibility and managerial roles as I feel I would thrive at that and I really enjoy inspiring others.

Anything else worth mentioning?

Yes! I memorised a song in Chinese, and Elliot challenged me to sing it to the team. I told him that I will, but in ten years time. So I guess that's on the calendar too!

Oh, and I've got a lot of choices when it comes to choosing a personal trainer from the Terra team!