Ask Balach Hussain About Product Roadmaps or Ideological Polarisation

Balach Hussain is a founder and Product Manager from Germany, who’s been nominated in the Future Heroes Noonies Award Category. In this brief but wide-ranging interview, one of Hacker Noon's all-time top Contributors shares current personal perspectives on everything from AI and robotics to mindfulness and social equity.

🚀 This Year's Noonies were made possible by: Sustany Capital, .TECH Domains, Grant for the Web, Skillsoft, Flipside Crypto, Udacity, and Beyondskills! VOTE until 12 Oct 2020 at NOONIES.TECH! 🚀

1. Which 2020 Noonie have you been nominated for?

Hacker Noon Contributor of the Year - Leadership

2. Tell us a bit about yourself.

I am the founder of epek.app, entrepreneur, Product Manager, team lead, mentor, coach, and writer. I love to get to know, help, and learn from people with interesting and strong ideas. I love sports, mindfulness, and building complex and useful software products.

3. Tell us about the things you make / write / manage / build.

I founded epek.app last year - a product roadmap planning and collaboration software for tech teams and anyone who needs to plan anything. I have been writing articles about new leadership, product management, teamwork, and mindfulness, and collaboration. Currently I'm writing a series of essays to be published soon in a book form.

4. What are you most excited about right now?

I'm really excited about new technology that enables us to live better on this planet, whether it's autonomous mobility, clean energy, urban farming, or robotics; and our evolution towards a symbiosis with AI over the next couple of decades.

5. What are you worried about right now?

What worries me most is the ideological polarisation in the world that might still hamper our progress towards harmonious coexistence on the planet.

The vast amounts of personal growth potential and shared joy that remain untapped or even repressed in the world, specially when it comes to women and non-white communities across the globe must find a way to equal rights, liberties, and shared contribution towards the planet.

Otherwise we might be on a one-sided march to conflict.

6. What's the most useful advice you've ever given somebody?

Learn to live well and express yourself in all areas of life.

Only then will you be an active participant in life on this planet, and die happily.

7. How has the pandemic changed your life and/or career?

The pandemic has had a negative affect on our business, but it has also accelerated a lot of my learnings when it comes to making sense of the fragile status quo across the globe, and the need for pragmatic decision making. At the same time it has made me realize yet again the need for more humanistic policies and ways of working and living together.

8. If we gave you $10 million to invest in one thing right now, where would you put it?

If it has to be one thing and one thing only, I would invest in green energy. If I could spread the investment I would choose green energy, epek.app (and AI enabled products for the human mind), and women and minorities led businesses.

9. What's an opinion you have that most people don't agree with?

Accessible AI will hugely speed up our evolution as a species and positively benefit the world by unlocking human potential across the globe. I do have a few others, but I'll save them for the AMA/Podcast

10. Which apps can't you live without?

Gmail (and other Google services), youtube, and epek.app

11. What are you currently learning?

I'm learning social media marketing, javascript, and about neuroplasticity as it stands

VOTE for Balach Hussain as Hacker Noon Contributor of the Year - Leadership before voting closes on 12 October, 2020! 🚀

With gratitude to Hacker Noon's 2020 Noonies Partners: Sustany Capital, .TECH Domains, Grant for the Web, Skillsoft, Flipside Crypto, Udacity, and Beyondskills!