Team Spotlight: Introducing Jaafar

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

Hello! How are you Jaafar?

I'm good man

Which wearables do you use?

I used to have Apple Watch, I broke it - it fell when I was putting it on in. It was also a bit too expensive to get a new one. Now I use a Polar Ignite and an Oura ring.

You use two devices, why?

The Polar is for my workouts. For example, I can optimise my training in different heart-rate zones and also learn how quickly my heart recovers. This helps me know if I'm improving or what's impacting my performance. My Oura ring tells me how my sleep is going and I can correlate it with the Polar to get the most accurate measurements.

What sort of training do you do?

My focus is Kyokushin karate which I do three times a week. But I'm also being peer pressured by the Terra guys to go to the gym... so I do that twice a week too.

What belt do you have?

I'm black belt. I've been doing karate since I was 7 years old.

Wow cool, have you competed in any big competitions?

I trained competitively when I was 17 and 18, but then I got a bad knee injury and right after that I moved to London and couldn't find many dojos nearby so I stopped karate for a few years and focused more on Muay Thai and taekwondo.

When I was training competitively I went to Japan for the open tournament, it was a crazy experience and great to see the best fighters around. There's a youtube video of me losing... I almost hit the guy in the head four times though!

What does Kyokushin mean to you?

It's all about falling and getting back up - its spiritual and physical symbiosis. A lot of mental work is needed to be put in to be patient when you train and push yourself forward at the same time working hard physically to achieve your goals.

Do you bring this attitude to other parts of your life?

Yeah. Failing is not a problem, it's a learning opportunity. How you learn from each failure is most important. I was at a tournament two weeks ago and didn't perform at my best so I learnt what to work on from there.

Nice, you mentioned you moved to London a few years ago. From where?

I'm from Lebanon, lived in Beirut my whole life and came over when I was 18. I think I'm the first person in my direct family to move to London as most of my family would move to France to study.

Do you speak French?

Yes I do.

Which languages do you speak?

French, English, Arabic and a little bit of Spanish... Arabic is at home, French is at school, English is for uni here. I went to a French school in Lebanon.

How is living in London versus Lebanon?

I haven't been back since XMAS 2019. I think the main difference in London is a lot more opportunities to grow personally. But in Lebanon there's a different cultural vibe - people are very kind and friendly but London is quite businessy and professional.

Why did you come to London?

For university, I was planning on going abroad regardless

Do you like to travel then?

Yeah. I travel for hackathons. I was in France and came to London for a Hackathon and also went to Zurich twice for the annual Hackathon there.

Where is your favourite place?

I think Malaysia, it was really exotic. One of my favourite experiences, and the first time seeing most of the different wildlife species there.

(Jaafar trying to smile and not cry?)

And going back to the Terra team who winds you up?

That would be Oliver, we have a friendly rivalry. But Alex is getting into it, don't be fooled by his friendly demeanour. I think Callum is a good guy (not biassed as he's doing the interviewing).

What things about Terra going forward really excites you?

I'm very sold on the vision, I think what we are working on is definitely like next generation big hits. The team drive is unique, everyone is very focussed on that vision and ready to put in the necessary hard work.

In the future I'm excited about real-time streaming data to digital assets... this'll be the next big thing!!

Anything else you'd like to share?

Building things that don't scale was a key learning point for me. I used to spend too much time thinking about what to build but here at Terra we just execute in small batches and then iterate. Thinking about first principles here is also key.