We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Aman Dembe. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Aman below.
Aman, looking forward to learning from your journey. You’ve got an amazing story and before we dive into that, let’s start with an important building block. Where do you get your work ethic from?
My work ethic came from watching my parents when I was still a kid and believe it or not, Sunday Bible school. I’d see them work hard to provide for the family but also try to be present in our lives. I think the best thing I learnt from that is the ability to balance your work and life responsibilities. People with good work ethics do not have difficulty balancing the two because they have a strong set of boundaries on when to work and when not to. In general, I attribute my discipline to my parents and the Bible.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
I currently work as a Client Engagement Manager and HCI practitioner. For those who are unaware, HCI stands for Human-Computer Interaction, and it’s a much more expansive field than what people may think as they only know the UX aspect of it. As an HCI practitioner, I look at digital trends and the future of how we will interact with machines a few years from now. For instance, with the current trend of everything having a chatbot or being tied to AI, we started looking at how AI can be used as a tool to make our lives easier and not cripple us by being over-reliant on emerging technology.
Apart from that, I also have a small up-and-coming creative studio called Duxedraft Studios and our focus there is purely on ethically designing for the user. We work on a range of projects but we will eventually streamline and focus on a specific niche. In the future, we plan on having several initiatives where we partner up with other creatives with whom we share the same goals and values on specific projects. For example, we have partnered with a creative storytelling agency called StoriFlani for a game concept.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
The three qualities I have that are also the values Duxedraft Studios is built on are Passion, Ambition and Consistency. Passion is the fire that has always fueled my ambitions, ambition is the compass that has guided my journey over the years, and consistency is the path that will eventually lead me to success.
These three qualities help in keeping me grounded and focused on the journey ahead. My advice to others is you need to make a sacrifice somewhere. Life if you truly want to succeed, a sacrifice has to be made somewhere in your life. It could be toiling in your 20s to relax in your 40s, having no social life now to succeed later or even missing out on special events. Sacrificing something will make sure you work hard for it to not be in vain. Also, read as much as you can and be knowledgable on different topics.
How would you spend the next decade if you somehow knew that it was your last?
A particular challenge I’m currently facing is scaling the studio and getting more clients and partners. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m busy with work and grad school or if the market has been tough lately. Regardless, God will help me sort it out eventually. I’m not worried about it.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://duxedraft.com
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amandembe
