Meet ESU alumnus Zain Hussain
In a few weeks’ time, we’re launching our alumni network with a social at Dartmouth House, and so we thought we’d catch up with Zain Hussain, an alumnus whose story is indicative of the great things that a connection with the ESU can bring.
In 2017, Zain won the Great Law Debate Competition, hosted by the ESU, BLD Foundation and BPP University at Dartmouth House, and was awarded a full scholarship to study law and the bar training course. In late 2021, he attended a piano concert at Dartmouth House which stirred his memories of debating and spurred him on to get involved with the ESU’s London branch, whose speech and debate committee he joined. Before long, he took to the floor and spoke at our cryptocurrencies debate – and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Read on to find out more.
What have you been up to since we last spoke in 2022?
Well, I finished my bar course, which was amazing, and was called to the bar in July 2023 – which has to be one of the best days of my life. My whole family were so proud. It came at a funny time though. A few years before, I’d started working in scam prevention at Monzo (then a tiny start-up), and I’d also been doing some acting. I’d had small parts in various series on Netflix and HBO, and had just finished filming an episode for the BBC’s Doctors series. I felt like I’d had so much good experience and that I wanted to put all my energy into something I felt really passionate about, so I decided to follow my heart and set up my own technology company to help people who have fallen victim to scams to stay safe.
I was selected for the Entrepeneur First Incubator programme and moved to Silicon Valley where I spent about a year growing the business to a multi-million pound valuation. It was really, really fun and very, very intense.
And throughout this time you were also volunteering at the Hult Prize – tell us a bit about that.
Yes, so the Hult Prize is an annual prize of $1 million for student entrepreneurs aiming to solve some of our most pressing social issues, such as food security, water access, energy, and education. Around 10,000 students worldwide enter each year and the 16 best get flown to a ‘Global Accelerator’ programme at Ashridge House outside London where they get help and advice on polishing their pitches, refining their business strategy and growing their networks and impact, as well as opportunities to meet with and demo to investors. I joined them as a volunteer in 2021 and the day we arrived at Ashridge House we were told we couldn’t leave because there was another lockdown. I ended up staying for six weeks and it was just incredible, spending so much time with people from different cultures from all around the world. It reminded me a lot of the ESU’s International Public Speaking Competition, and the inspiring things that can happen when so many different people can come together and mix.
What’s your role at the Hult Prize now?
My main focus is on the accelerator programme and developing the curriculum to assist the start ups in learning the fundamentals of business, from building their product to getting their first sales and hiring their team. Another area of focus, and one that teams need a lot of support with, is storytelling. Whether they’re presenting at a pitch or as part of the Hult Prize, they need to be sure that they’re telling their story in the right way – even if they only have a minute or 30 seconds to do so. I draw on everything I learnt during my time debating, and also on my own experiences of pitching to investors. I think I did 114 investor meetings in two weeks – and so the pressure to maintain your energy and passion while still managing to think on your feet and express yourself clearly is huge.
I understand you also invited other ESU members to help? Tell me more.
Yes, Simon Bucknall and Eleanor Winton (an alumna of our debate tour) who both work a lot with public speaking and with entrepreneurs, came to Ashridge to help train the teams. I first came across Simon while I was on a judging panel at one of the ESU’s competitions. He subsequently invited me to moderate an episode of the Speechless podcast he does with Maryam Pasha, Director of TedxLondon, and I got to know him a bit better. He helped me with my own pitch to investors and I knew he and Eleanor would be the perfect people to help the Hult Prize applicants.
I believe there’s another ESU connection too?
One of my main responsibilities is to lead on a networking and panel discussion day, all based around successful pitching, which Dartmouth House kindly agreed to host earlier this year. I think the ESU and the Hult Prize have similar values in terms of collaboration, social impact, and cross-cultural communication and storytelling and so I thought it would be the perfect venue. Also, I know from my time on the speech and debate committee that the house has such a nice atmosphere – it is professional without being corporate and everyone feels special being there. I think that’s the thing about the ESU, it’s a place where you can connect not just with people, but with bold ideas and unique opportunities.
Tell us about some of the teams who impressed you most.
All the teams who made it to the final 16 at Ashridge House impressed me but in terms of public speaking it was Lothgha from Mansoura University in Egypt. ‘Lothgha’ means ‘stutter’ in Arabic and one of the founders – Humza Abu-Alkhair – created this solution to help with his own stutter, and now, with co-founder Ahmed Elshireef, has turned it into a remote speech therapy app for Arabic speakers – they already have over 50,000 users.
English is Hamza’s second language and he’d never really spoken much of it, much less had to pitch in it, and seeing him grow in confidence and skill as the competition went on was just so incredible. In the end, they made it to the final six and presented to hundreds of people. To see someone who has lived with a speech disorder for most of their lives making a really powerful pitch in English was just magical – it brought tears to my eyes.
And what would you do with $1million?
I think I’d split it between investing in new companies focused on solving real problems, and on a cause that is close to my heart which is unifying the South Asian diaspora. I want to build a social impact fund to support initiatives in the area. It’s still early days but I think many of us who live abroad have a strong identity to our culture and there should be ways of supporting young companies there that are trying to change the world.
Zain will be a guest at our alumni networking evening on Tuesday, 12 November at Dartmouth House. Book your tickets here.
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