DiversifyHER

EP 49: The Scholar Who Serves with Wilhem Hector

• Raven Heyward • Season 4 • Episode 10

Share episode

Listen as Raven Heyward, founder and host of DiversifyHER, converses with  Wilhem Hector, born and raised in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, graduated Summa Cum Laude from MIT with a degree in Mechanical Engineering and made history as the first Haitian national awarded a Global Rhodes Scholarship. He will pursue a PhD in energy systems at Oxford, aiming to pioneer Haiti’s renewable energy infrastructure and expand hands-on learning in the national curriculum.

Connect with Hector!

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wilhem-hector/


SPEAKER_00:

Hello everyone and welcome back to Diversified Heart Podcast. I'm your host, Raymond Hayward, and today I'm honored to have Willem Hector. He's born and raised in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, graduated Silicon Lodge from MIT with a degree in mechanical engineering and made history as the first Haitian national awarded a global roads scholarship. He will pursue a PhD in energy systems at Oxford, aiming to pioneer Haiti's renewable energy infrastructure and expand hands-on learning in national curriculum. Beyond academics, he leads the Hector Foundation, raising over$100,000 to support educational opportunities, including building project minutes for Haiti's first open-use energy engineering making space. His passion for energy grew through research at MIC Howland Lab, where he studied wind power uncertainty and the MIC Renewable Energy Clinic, where he explored opposition to U.S. energy projects. He also contributed to the computational wind farming modeling through internships in Radio Incorporation and DTU Wind Energy Systems, recognized with over eight awards, including the Susan Berger Award for Future Global Leaders and the National Society of Black Engineers Award for Academic Excellence. He also chaired MIT's largest event planning group, the Student Events Board. And prior to MIT, he studied at the institution St. Louis doing can you pronounce that?

SPEAKER_02:

Sorry, Kozak.

SPEAKER_00:

In Haiti and the UWC Red Gross, Nordic in Norway. Hector, thank you so much for joining me. This has been a long-awaited episode. I really appreciate it. How are you doing today?

SPEAKER_01:

I'm doing good. Um, thanks, thanks for hosting me, Raymond. I've been a big, big fan of the podcast. Um, so it's a pleasure um to be in uh on today's episode.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, I'm glad. So I want to get us started with you've had such a unique journey growing up in Haiti and studying in Norway, and now becoming the first Haitian road scholar. Can you just walk us through what experiences and influences led you to where you are today?

SPEAKER_02:

That's a good question. Yeah, I mean, um, I was born and raised in Haiti, lived there um my whole life basically, uh in a small and vivid neighborhood um called Monnaza in in the middle of the capital. Um and I was always very um passionate about learning, about education in general. Um so at a very early age, um I recognized that education was not just, you know, school itself was just not a space where I could learn things. It was my ticket to life. It was basically some sort of like space that could channel me through opportunities that will then help my family sort of uh get get some better future someday. Um so I took school very seriously, I took my education very seriously. Um and at a very early age I sort of sought scholarships and ways um to alleviate the financial burden on my parents um back, but also ways to just leave Haiti to pursue more advanced opportunities. So that's why at the end of my high school, I got a scholarship to um pursue the international baccalaureate program in Norway. I moved there, um, spent two years there, some of the best two years of my life. And from Norway applied to MIT, got in, um, spent some great years at MIT as well. And then now I'm heading to Oxford um for another two to four years. So I think when I think about influences, um a lot of it comes from my family. I think I I come from um a family uh who understood the value of education and its power um to um sort of create different narratives for us as a group. Um, but I also come from a family who understood public service as a need in one's life. Um so very early on, I remember very vividly my mom, you know, making food uh on the 1st of January, which is kind of like our biggest um celebration. And and you know, we do the pumpkin soup and all the neighbors do pumpkin soup. But I should wake up so early to make a huge ton, a ton of pumpkin soup, and share it with the rest of the people. And and I grew up with values of public service very early on, and that's why today public service kind of remained uh a core aspect of my life, and that was one of the biggest trends in my life over the years. And I think that's also something that has allowed people to not only appreciate me as a as a you know as a worker, but also just as a human being. Um, so that's one influence I think that was very, very important. Um, and the last but not least is really sort of an influence that put, you know, influences that that put people first. Um wherever I go, I try to create community. And by creating community, you you receive love. And that one of my favorite sayings is that you know, it is in giving that you receive love back. Um so whenever, wherever I go, I pour a lot of love in the community and I receive a lot of love back. And as a result, there's tons of people that are ready to sort of like put their things aside to support me in areas that I may not be as good at, you know, when I'm alone. And those things have been extremely influential to kind of helping me move through spaces.

SPEAKER_00:

I really love that. And like with the aspect of servant leadership, I feel like my parents have definitely instilled those same values in me as well, and just the importance of having empathy and as you said, like giving back to others because you it's important to constantly core pour into the community that's also pouring into you. And so I also want to know what motivated you to want to pursue mechanical engineering and the leadership in your focus towards renewable energy systems and the work that you're doing in Haiti. What was their like what was a defining moment where you realized that this was your passion? Like, is there a certain event that happened and you were like, this is what I want to do? Or was it just you doing trial and error and figuring out different things? Like, how did you know that that was your niche?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, that's a good question. I think one of the biggest flaws of the Haitian education system is the lack of um practical opportunities. So as as as you grow up in Haiti, you're told that there are paths that will set you up for success. You can become a doctor, you can become a lawyer, you can become an engineer. Just those are kind of things that you know. But there is not enough practical experiences such that you can actually be niche, you can actually find a path like energy that's something as something that would be interesting to you. However, growing up in Haiti, I also struggle a lot with like um load shedding. Um so we didn't have electricity. Uh so I would go to school um like eight and come back like 5 p.m. Um and I would have to study. And and oftentimes we wouldn't have power in the house, like basic power, like we know it today, as a commodity that we take for granted. There are places where we we are in darkness, we're using um kind of um uh natural gas lamps um and other types of you know battery-powered lights and whatnot to study. Um so very early on, I knew that the energy space was something that was troublesome for me. Um, and I wanted to do something in the energy sector. But it wasn't until I got to Norway um where I entered I started interacting with renewable energy because up until I moved to Norway in 2019, I didn't know what renewable energy was. Um and I saw Norway had 80, 98% of their power coming from hydropower and wind. And and I was like, wow, we can you can actually have constant power, but you can also do it in a very clean fashion. Um so that's that was the spark for me, I think. Oh, renewable energy is something that I'm interested in because I was already interested in the power sector. Um, so I wanted to dive deeper into that space of you know building efficient energy systems around the world, especially in countries like Haiti, where we can sort of like face that load shedding um problem. And I think now that passion was there when I got to MIT, mechanical engineering just made sense. Um there wasn't any particular reason why I chose mechanical engineering, kind of made sense in terms of like what I wanted to do, and then that's that was the that was the path from there.

SPEAKER_00:

Wow, that's incredible. So with you having that specific major and with you doing those things at MIT, and especially with you just being from Haiti and you mentioning Norway and then now coming to the United States, like how have you seen maybe the education systems like differ? And through that, like how have you been able to adapt? Because I can only imagine like how difficult that may have been, if even difficult for you at all. But could you just explain more about your experiences with those things?

SPEAKER_02:

That is a very, very good question. Um, and and uh every single chapter of my life so far, I guess of my educational journey has been like kind of stark difference. Um, as I mentioned initially, Haiti is a theory-driven country. We follow the French education model where we memorize things and we go split it on the exam sheet. Um so that was that was, I would say, formative years where I had to, I think I build up a lot of you know theor, like fundamental principle theories in my head. Um, but I things that I could never apply. Like I would, I could recite the periodic table for you without knowing what are the differences between the two, between two elements, like how would they react if they were, you know. Um, so it was a lot of theories, which I'm grateful for these years because I I managed to gather a ton of, you know, practical knowledge, not practical, I guess, fundamental knowledge, which then kind of allowed me to maybe flourish more in the other spaces that I went. And when I went to Norway now, Norway was a striking difference first because I the number of classes you had to take was extremely low. Like I was taking six classes. I discovered the idea of like choosing your track, choosing your classes in Norway. This thing doesn't exist in Haiti. In Haiti, you have 18 subjects to watch your entire life. You have to do all of them. You have to do math, you have to do religion, you have to do geography, history, everything. But then I got to Norway, they're like, pick what you like. And I did, huh? I'm like, I'm a science guy, so I'm gonna do math, I'll do physics, um, and I'll do languages and econ. And that was six, my six classes. Um, so that education um was different from that perspective where I now started specializing, maybe not specializing from the perspective of choosing a field, but taking the skills that I already had and starting to deepen them. Um, that was those years, those two years in Norway. And the education in Norway was also not just focused on academics, it was a global education. We did the IB, the international baccalaureate as our kind of educational, like as our day-to-day studies. But then the UWC as a whole is a hub to create leaders that understand the value of diversity and and understand how we in general as people are stronger when we are together. So we were living on a campus with 200 students from like over 85 nations. So we were learning from each other beyond, outside of the classroom through extracurriculars, um doing projects-based learning activities. Um, and those things, again, they helped me, I would say, become the global citizen that I think I am today. Um, because I know I feel very confident that I can engage and flourish in any community in regard, regardless of the country in which it is. And those those years for sure have come from Norway. When I then moved to MIT, well, MIT as we know it, it's to me the best institution to study science in the entire world. Um, it's it's it's like the education is just top-notch. So when I MIT made me an engineer, MIT gave me the um confidence in my ability to build anything, the confidence in my ability to solve anything. Um and that is just kind of from the rigor of you know of MIT, you know, diving into lots of fundamental theoretical things, but also having a breadth of um practical experiences. At MIT, there are these things called makerspaces, um, which inspired Project Manus, because there is a Project Manus at MIT where they build those makerspaces all around campus, where you can just go and build things. Makerspaces don't just allow you to build things, it empowers you to think that you can build anything. Um, and I think those those were crucial during my time at MIT, getting that confidence in my competence, if you if you would call it like that. So these three have been different. I'm hoping that my time at Oxford is gonna be a different chapter, different kind of like from the other three as well.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so what are you looking forward to with going to Oxford? That was I'm glad you mentioned that. That's a good segue because through you know your three different education experiences that you've had thus far, what are you looking forward to with this next chapter at Oxford?

SPEAKER_02:

That's a good question. I think, you know, I I I haven't taken much time to think about that. Maybe I should. Um but I would say at Oxford one of the main things that I'm looking forward to right now is like I've I've been very much like a generalist over the past years. Like I've done, I do a lot of things. Um I study mechanical engineering, but I I teach myself things in energy, so that's what my focus is. I do robotics, I do all kinds of things. Yeah, um, I do all kinds of things. Um, but then I know that you know my future is in the energy systems. I want to build energy systems in the Caribbean region. That's my goal. Um, and I think Oxford is gonna play the most important role in that, in helping me grow closer to that future. Um, so at Oxford, I really want to specialize in energy systems. I don't want to do anything without the intention of becoming somebody who will be more efficient at creating those um systems. Um, because I don't want to sign up to random clubs and and you know, I I want to really focus. So I think Oxford is gonna be the actual specialization years where I'm I become an expert at the field of energy systems. Um, and then again, Oxford is also at near London, which is sort of like a you know cultural corner of the world with people coming from all over the place. Um, I'm also looking forward to just you know enhancing my understanding of cultures and people um and also helping them get you know a better sense of what Haiti is through some of the stories that I will that I will be counting them.

SPEAKER_00:

I love that. So I'm glad that you mentioned the different culture aspects because I want to ask with you navigating these different spaces that you've been in and being proud of where you're from and your heritage and you know, representing your family name well. For my listeners who may be trying to navigate their own spaces and trying to figure out how they can make their own impact and have the confidence to kind of just make the first move. What would be your advice or what has helped you to still stay true to yourself even in these different spaces and make a name for yourself?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, that's a good, that's a good question. I I think I'm trying to think about, you know, when I left Haiti for the first time, you know, when I was moving to Norway, it was a big shift. It was, you know, I'm leaving, I'm leaving my family while I'm still young to go to a some country I'd never heard of, never seen snow in my life, and I'm like, okay, I'm going to the Nordic region. Um so I guess at that moment I don't necessarily know what I was thinking about, but as I try to reason through times and and and I'm trying to think of what could I be thinking about, I think one of those things was first of all kind of telling myself that there are reasons to live for that are bigger bigger than oneself. So you're living, you're leaving your country and you're gonna live somewhere else. Um and there are a lot of things that you can do to make yourself the greatest, you know, pursue the best opportunities, doing things, connecting with people that are gonna advance your career and whatnot. But then ultimately a lot of these things are for you. They are for yourself. The things that are bigger than yourself are things like your family, your your culture, your heritage. You know, when you think of a country like Haiti that has so much negative narratives around it, um, I have a responsibility if I can get to those spaces and break some of these narratives and show that, you know, there are there is excellence, there is you know greatness that can come out of Haiti. It's a responsibility on me. It's not just something that I should contemplate. This is something that I need to be doing. Um so I think recognizing that like I was not only living for myself, but also the people that I represent was very sort of like fueling for me when I got to those spaces because then I remember that like there are things that I need to be doing for myself, but there are also other things that I need to be doing, such that people of Haiti, my family, can be proud and they can know that I'm bearing the flag as I should, as I as I as I should. Um the other thing, I guess, that's more like when you're leaving the your your hometown. But when you get there, I would say it's very important to take space. You know, like it's uh these spaces could be intimidating, especially if you're traveling, you go on a scholarship, or maybe you're just traveling, you go against your community that's unknown. These things can create a lot of anxiety. Like if you're on a scholarship, you're around a bunch of other kids who think they've been the thing for their entire life. And then you get there, you're like, oh, maybe I've thought that I've been the thing too, but like maybe not. Um all of these things create a lot of anxiety, or you move to a new place and you're seeing everything is so different from things that you've been comfortable with, things that you've you've known as truth. So it's hard to kind of it's easy to kind of put yourself in the your shell and be like, okay, yeah, I'm just gonna do my thing here, like doing that, do I what I need to do. But I think it's also important to challenge some of these thoughts to be like, huh, what if I actually decided to not share myself? What what are the possibilities and what is the worst thing that can happen? The worst thing that can happen oftentimes not that bad. Um so I think taking space in those things, signing up for those clubs, signing up for these leadership roles that you may have doubted yourself to be able to do before, um, you know, is important because then it allows you to sort of like in the same, you know, alley of representing your country, but it's it allows you to gain the skills that in at some point in your career will be extremely useful, um, that can sort of be put at at some other to some other use as well.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. I think that's really good advice. And, you know, it keeps you humble, it keeps you grounded to just always remember that there is something bigger than you and you have something that you're always working towards, but just keeping the bigger picture in mind. And you mentioning, you know, representing your country well and wearing the flag with pride, but I want to now talk about your foundation, the Hector Foundation. So I mentioned that you've raised over$100,000 and you even built Haiti's first open use engineering makerspace. Was that through MIT where you were able to do that, or you did that before?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, so what I the the yeah, so the Hector Foundation itself is a is a nonprofit that I co-founded in 2019. As soon as I left Haiti, I in my first week in OE, actually. Um I I texted my best friend and tell him, told him, hey man, like I'm around, I'm seeing all these kids, everybody wanna be a leader, everybody wants to do things. I'm like, we kind of have to do something too. And we we started it as a project, we wanted to do a summer program, and that summer program ended up being successful. It's become our flagship program now, and we said, okay, we're gonna turn this into an organization. And we've been working on this since for the past six years. And what the Ectora Foundation does today is sort of create advanced educational opportunities for young Haitians in Haiti, regardless of their social class, we try to create free opportunities, um, whether it is Flower Store Program or, as you mentioned, the makerspace. So that makerspace is our second flagship project. Um I started designing it in 2022 while I was still at MIT. And the inspiration came from MIT because, as I said, MIT has those makerspaces that allowed me to be that engineer that I think I am today, to have confidence in my ability to solve things just by being in this space, building things, and I'm like, wow, this is very, very empowering. So I wanted to create something similar for Haitian students that have been where they have a uh like a national curriculum that is so focused on theory. People don't go in spaces and try to make things. Um so I started designing the space in 2022. Um, I raised funds throughout MIT, to project competition. I think we raised about 32,000 um between 2022 and 2023 um to build a space. Um and then I I did the whole mock-up, the whole design of the space, bought the tools, then flew to Haiti and then built a space uh in August of 2023, and we inaugurated the space then. So what the space is right now is basically a hub for engineering. We have a bunch of tools and we offer free robotics training camps um for every weekend for students um across the capital. And we've we've empowered quite a few students already. We we have over 200 alumni who've come to the space, learned the tools, and kind of done different robotics programs that we that we have. Um so the space right now is is that hub. We are hoping that it's gonna continue to grow, it's gonna continue to inspire more practical opportunities in the Haitian educational curriculum. Um, and and hopefully we can have those spaces all around the country at some point in the future.

SPEAKER_00:

That's amazing. Like I think it truly is incredible the opportunities that you're able to create for those children. And I want to know what has been the most rewarding part of the Hector Foundation and all the hard work that your best friend and you have put into it, what's been the most important thing?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I think I think the most rewarding part for me is recognizing that through the Hector Foundation we are ensuring that him and I we are no, we are not exceptions. You know, I I I went to school in Haiti my entire life. My family was very modest family. We didn't have a lot, but as I said, through education, I got scholarships. Like I I went on and lived in over 13 countries, and not a single one of these countries have paid a single buck. I've always been on scholarships, people paying me to be there as a result of some educational program. My friend also had a similar journey. We sat on the same bench in Haiti. Uh, when I went to Norway, he got the same scholarship he went to Germany. And then from Germany, he went to Princeton University. And after Princeton, he joined the Board of Trustees of Princeton and became the first Haitian national to win the Knight Hennessy Scholarship at Stanford. So he is currently at Stanford doing his thing. Um and as much as we hate to say, we are exception of the systems. Most people don't go through these spheres, hence uh hence why we are the first doing XYZ. We are the first of whatever. Um it's cool to say you're the first, but then it's even cooler to say that you will not be the first for long enough. So I think the most rewarding thing for us is really making sure that we are not exceptions. With the Hector Foundation, we've created these programs as a way to create pathways for other kids to benefit from the opportunities that we once benefited. We want more kids to uh get admitted to UWC. Um we want more kids to get admitted to these prestigious universities, we want more kids to win roads night hennesty scholarships. And that's what we are working towards. And I think when we see our students get UWC scholarships after they participated in our summer program, um get admitted to universities. There's one girl who just got uh admitted to UPEN, she's now studying finance there, um, and she's a product of our of our of our foundation. I think those are the most rewarding thing because we are making sure that like those, you know, however lucky we were to get those things, we're making sure that other people can also be lucky. And I and I think that there is no there there's no greater value than that.

SPEAKER_00:

That is truly amazing. That's what it's all about. And I'm sure that that's what you envisioned, or if even if you didn't envision, I'm sure like that's what you continue to hope and wish for for all the students who go through your program. And I love how you said, you know, even though y'all are the first, like you don't want to be the first for long. And I think that that just goes along with kind of the way I envision things, with you know, as you're creating these opportunities and you're climbing up the ladder, making sure to reach back to bring others up with you as well. And like if you open a door, leave it open so that others can follow you and walk through that. So I just want to thank you so much. This has been such a great interview so far. I've loved hearing about your story. I can't wait to see what you do in Oxford. You know, I'll be here to support you along the way. And I'm sure that my listeners will now also be a part of your support system hearing you on and can't wait to see you do amazing things. And so as I come to the end of the episode, I have a signature question that I ask, which is what's one piece of advice you would give Gen Z to go out and diversify themselves? So, not just in career choices, but like in a mindset. So, like networks and opportunities basically to make their greatest impact on the world.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. That's a good question. I think, I think um the big piece of advice I would say, you know, is for everybody to recognize that their authenticity is their greatest weapon, it's their greatest strength. Um you want to remain true to who you are, um, and you need to be confident that there are people who are interested in knowing and engaging with who you are. Um so be confident in your heritage, be confident in the stories that your family, your you know, your life experiences have given you, um, and tell those stories. Tell them not just through you know, you know, talking to people, but tell them through your actions, in the way that you behave, in the way that you interact with you know systems and communities in which you go. And all of these things, like you know, the type of clubs, the type of initiative you start, they continue telling the stories that make you you. So be confident in your stories, be confident in your in your heritage, on who you are, um, and and go out there, share it with with with others through actions and also through through the verb.

SPEAKER_00:

I love that. Thank you again so much. I think you dropped some great golden nuggets, pieces of advice, and just through your mindset and like us kind of getting to look into your brain and the way that you think about things, you know, it definitely opened up my perspective and I learned a lot. And I hope the listeners learned a lot too. And I'll be sure to have your LinkedIn in the bio below so that if anyone wants to connect with you or ask follow-up questions or learn more about your foundation, they can reach out to you. Um, thank you again for the interview. Thank you, everyone, listening, and I'll catch you next time on that.