Imagine growing up on an island which has a population of a million. Imagine heading to the beach every day. Imagine the dreams one would dream in this small little world. Growing up, Sheen Gurrib knew there was no escape from studies. That may have had something to do with the fact that Sheen’s father had to drop out of university because his parents (her grandparents) passed away and as a result, he always believed there was no substitute for education.

Sheen, who traces her family’s roots to five generations, was brilliant in studies. And yet, Oxford and Cambridge seemed to be distant dreams. “In Mauritius, we have a system called laureateship, which means by the end of our A levels, all students are ranked. I had been studying science and hoping to secure a place in top seven so that I could receive a fully funded scholarship. I got 14th rank, which was not bad but it meant that I was not receiving that scholarship.”

Sheen’s sister, who had already been studying in the UK, encouraged her to apply at Oxford. And history was made. Today, Dr Sheen Gurrib is the first Mauritian to have studied at both Oxford and Cambridge. She studied material sciences at Oxford (“It’s the science that precedes engineering; to put it simply, engineers build what material scientists have discovered,” she says) and did her PhD on how back pain originates in the spine (“from the material side of what bone looks like”).

“I became a bit of a poster girl,” she says. “Not everyone in Mauritius has had access to the kind of education I have. Which is why I started a few funded projects to educate refugees. I had also been doing a lot of work with women in STEM.”

But what truly stands out in Dr Gurrib’s journey is how, despite the academic accomplishments, she chose to break away from the standard of what the career of an Ivy Leaguer should look like.

Right after her PhD, she joined Oliver Wyman as a consultant, a job that brought her to Dubai, but after a year, she decided to take up content creation. “My job had me working 18-20 hours a day when I met Emirati content creator Khalid Al Ameri and he convinced me to quit my job and help him start his media company. I ended up joining him as a COO.”

Sheen may have stayed in that job for only six months, but what helped her was to come to terms with the fact that her true calling had been content creation.

Today, you only have to scroll through Instagram or TikTok to come across profiles identifying themselves as content creators. You might want to believe that in the age of the Internet, everyone is a content creator. But dig a little deeper and you know that it is as much of a creative job as any other and what distinguishes one content creator from the other is in what they have to say and how they have to say it.

Take, for example, a small clip of Sheen’s from her now-famous podcast Dream, Girl that has had 20 million views. In it, Sheen can be seen narrating an anecdote from Michelle and Barack Obama’s tour, when they decided to break away from the set itinerary and eat at a restaurant that was not overcrowded. They found one and dined there. At the end of the lunch, the waiter came and told Michelle Obama that the chef was keen on meeting her. Upon returning, she told Barack Obama that the restaurant was actually run by her high school boyfriend and that it was crazy they had to meet like this after all these years. “Barack Obama said, ‘Imagine if your life had turned out to be a bit different, you would have been the owner of this beautiful restaurant.’ To which, Michelle Obama said, ‘Had my life turned out to be a bit different, my ex-boyfriend would have turned out to be the president of the United States’.”

This small anecdote not only gives us pearls of wisdom on gender and opportunities, it also offers insights into the mind of the person narrating it. And this is exactly what differentiates one content creator from the other, one podcaster from the other. You speak to the world only when you have something to say, and you have something to say when you are not only well read but are also a deep thinker.

“It was a very difficult decision to break away from a well-paying job because my parents had invested so much. I had invested so much through my Oxbridge (Oxford + Cambridge) education. It would have been silly to throw all that away,” she recalls. “It was a friend of mine who had degrees from Oxford, Cambridge and Harvard who asked me what could the worst scenario be, that I could still go back to a full-time employment, she says, adding that the linear career is a thing of the past now. “It was in May that Oxford flew me out to speak to students during a graduation ceremony about my non-linear path because the way the world is going, no one is going to stick to the same job. The statistic that has come out of Dell Tech is that in the year 2030, 80 per cent of the jobs that will exist in the market are ones that do not exist today. That is six years away. So, what are we training for? The best thing you can learn is to be adaptable.”

KT Photos: Neeraj Murali

Sheen cites the concept of squiggly career, which essentially means you try different things. That, she says, is the future of work. What does it mean for women who struggle even in linear career arcs owing to a ticking biological clock? “In corporate world, there is something they call the mummy ladder, where they say the women who do not necessarily climb the corporate ladder climb the mummy ladder. The new order will help women. Covid showed us we can work remotely. I had this guest on my podcast who started a business in Bali three years ago and has now turned it into a seven-figure business. All these things mean that women can now work from home. And now with artificial intelligence coming, the digital world is opening up to us.”

Our relationship with artificial intelligence (AI) is yet to be fully established. While it is intended to push the limits of human skills, it is feared that AI might also take many jobs away. Sheen, who also teaches ethics of technology at Middlesex University, says, “We cannot predict what is going to happen. Will AI take some jobs away? Yes. If you look at the creative industry, AI has already infiltrated it. Someone can use ChatGPT to write a script. But it’s still not at the same level as the human brain. It does not possess creativity or that ‘human’ factor. That’s why people are now leaning towards these kinds of skills,” she says. “AI will also create a lot of jobs; it will be about how we use it. We need to understand the ethics of AI and how it infringes on human rights.”

This also points to the fact that individual accomplishment will be more important than ever. Which, in turn, makes personal branding the need of the hour. “I encourage people to think of personal branding. So if you are in a corporate job, having a great network on LinkedIn helps,” she says, adding that social media is also not for everyone. “A lot of people have concerns about sharing their personal lives with everyone. But if you are aspiring to build an incredible business, having a personal brand matters and an active social media makes it easier. It is your social currency. The way the world is moving is changing constantly because of the ways in which people consume content today. Now people will not even care to see a billboard as long as their favourite influencer is doing an ad.”

KT Photos: Neeraj Murali

Even then, it is not about the quantity, but quality. Sheen cites the time she was chosen by the Bill Gates Foundation to showcase women’s empowerment. She was flown to Kenya where she interacted with women farmers, and this was a video that was shown during Cop28. “They picked me because my audience is highly engaged. I do not have a million followers but the ones I have are invested in the issue of women’s empowerment. So, it is about companies and brands learning about the importance of engagement.”

From dreaming big to living the big dream, Sheen has come far. Having chosen a completely different career path (she says her father jokes that she quit four jobs in three years while he has been in one job for over four decades), when reflecting back on her academic highs, she says those have only helped her reach where she has. “The credibility that Oxbridge gives me is different,” she says. “It has given me the personality, the ability to speak and think differently.” Not to mention, a sense of self that refuses to be boxed in.

anamika@khaleejtimes.com

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