Aisha Ibrahim’s experiences as a panellist on the “Future Leaders Forum” at GHGT17

Aisha Ibrahim (University of Sheffield) was one of the panellists on the “Future Leaders Forum” at IEAGHG’s GHGT17 conference. We spoke to her to find out what that experience was like and the impact it’s had.

Hi Aisha, thanks for your time today!  Did you have a good time at the conference as a whole?

Yes, it was really interesting to see what everybody’s doing.  Sometimes you feel like you can’t see anybody else doing what you’re doing in the UK but then, when you look at the whole globe, you see everybody doing it. That means I must be doing something right, right? It’s also good to see that although a lot of places are further ahead than the UK, there are also a lot of places who are trying to catch up as well. So, it makes you realize that the UK is doing something well, they’re doing a lot to be honest.

The whole conference was really interesting, with so much conversation and so much to learn. There was a lot of knowledge being shared, but it was also a bit tiring because it was four days long and there were so many sessions. And it was huge, really huge, a lot of people.

What were you part of at the conference, and how did that come about?

I was part of what was called the “Future Leaders Forum”. It was the last panel of the conference and the most interesting panel, I would say! It was essentially young people in the CCS space – six women and one man, which is unusual for a lot of these conferences but great! We represented a number of different perspectives, mostly academics like myself, but people from core industries like cement and lime as well. Because I’m also from Nigeria, and I work for the regulatory body for Nigeria, that gave a different perspective from developing countries too.

I got involved through Carys Blunt [the UKCCSRC’s Centre and Finance Manager] – she’d been contacted by IEAGHG, then emailed me and asked if I’d be interested. I then spoke to Abdul’Aziz Aliyu, the organizer from IEAGHG, and checked what he expected from us, because as early career researchers, there’s a limit to our experience. He put my mind at ease and said that one of the conference themes was young voices in CCS, so it was just having young people speak their mind, their opinions about certain topics, etc.

And then my supervisor, Jon Gibbins [also UKCCSRC Director], said I should definitely do it and emphasised the point of having a developing country represented and being in the conversation. So, I was like, okay!

Did you get much support in preparing for it?

Yes, they prepared us really well.  We had a meeting in advance with everybody who was going to speak on the panel. The moderator of the panel, Alex Cruz from Baker Hughes, gave us three questions and just asked us to speak about them. That gave him a sense of where everybody’s expertise was, and what everybody’s opinion would be with regards to certain things. Then we had a 30-minute meeting the day before, just to go through questions and to check if anyone felt uncomfortable about certain questions, perhaps because some of them are from industry and might not be allowed to speak about everything, etc.

Then in the session, the way Alex did it was like the primaries of the American Presidential election. He would ask a question, say, “do you think policy or regulation would impede CCS growth?” and then certain panellists would raise their hands. Some of us would say no, and then he’d ask questions tailored to someone’s experiences and find out why they’re saying no. Because I’ve come up from a regulatory background, he would ask me questions about regulations, and how we are faring in developing countries like Nigeria, what they’re looking at with respect to regulation and things like that. At the end we had 15 minutes for audience questions.

How was it when it went to audience questions? Were you a bit nervous at that moment?

Oh, yes, I was so nervous, I think that was the only thing that made me nervous, what to expect from the audience, because you never know. But the good thing about it was most of the questions were general questions and a lot of them just wanted our opinion. There wasn’t much pressure to say what’s right, what’s wrong, more like, “what’s your opinion about this?” Early career researchers do have plenty of opinions about certain things, but a lot of the time we don’t get to take part in conferences.

How important are opportunities like this for an ECR? What impact does it have for you now and in the future?

A lot! One of the things was obviously networking, because we were a group of people from different places, coming together and having thought-provoking conversations. From that, you can see lots of collaboration, people saying, “let’s meet once every six months to discuss what we are doing”. We always see collaboration happening between industry and academia, so seeing younger people already discussing this was a plus for us.

Another thing for me was putting myself out there. After the conference, I had a lot of people saying, “hey, that was such a good statement you made” or “that resonated with me”. That was a booster, it helped me think, “okay, I’m doing the right thing”. So, it was good and it definitely goes on my resume. You also see the impact you’re making because a lot of people from Nigeria linked up with me, saying, “I never knew there were women in this space” or “I didn’t even know Nigeria was doing anything”. There’s so much I’ve benefited from this, it was incredible. And I’ve already had a couple of people who have said, “do you want to come work for us in Abu Dhabi?” – I was like, I’m only in my second year of PhD, you know! I’m so glad I did it, especially because at first I was really scared.

It sounds like there have been so many amazing things about that experience. What would you say the one best thing about it was?

I would definitely say establishing my network. Everybody says your network is your net worth, which really is true.  Establishing that is very important for me, building those connections with other young professionals across the world. But the whole conference was a great experience, and I would definitely do it all again.