Introduction
At ten years old, Chib Nwokonkor built his own computer from parts bought at weekend computer fairs. It outperformed the machines his father's employer supplied, and it was silent, cooled by a desktop refrigerator, a dry cleaning duct and a lot of black masking tape, so his mum would not hear him playing games.
Solutions like that did not appear commercially for roughly another 25 years. In this episode of Everyday Leadership, Sope Agbelusi traces the line from that bedroom experiment, through a paper on deforestation sent to the Kyoto summit at twelve, through years as a Metropolitan Police officer, to a company building computers that use a fraction of the electricity of the big brands. The thread holding it together is a definition of leadership that starts with service.
A curiosity that would not be redirected
Chib grew up in an African household where computers were not seen as a path to success; his mother wanted a doctor. His teachers, seeing a young Black boy who was quick on the track, steered him towards athletics, which he recognises now as their idea of an accessible route to success for someone like him.
His parents held their hopes but never blocked his curiosity. His mother bought every book he asked for, on the coefficient of drag, thermodynamic engineering, military aircraft, feeding what he calls a voracious appetite for learning while still hoping for medicine. The lesson he draws for parents, teachers and guardians: give people the opportunity to find their own path, and give yourself the same permission at any age.
Ideas that waited twenty years
At twelve, Chib submitted a paper to the Kyoto climate summit on mass agriculture and deforestation. It was acknowledged, kindly, and set aside because he was twelve. But the two childhood threads, cooling computers efficiently and caring about the environment, eventually fused into his company \[CHECK: name spelling\], founded roughly twenty years later.
The company builds computers he says use around 90 per cent less electricity than comparable machines while outperforming them, made from recyclable metal and glass rather than plastic, and runs what he describes as the world's first zero carbon data centre, in Southend, largely battery-run. In one third-party trial, a local council department \[CHECK: transcript suggests Newham or Havering council\] cut its IT electricity spend from around £50,000 a year to under £5,000 with the same number of computers.
His ambition is Tesla-shaped: not to own the space forever, but to force the industry to make efficiency the norm. And he is impatient with greenwashing: companies buying carbon offsets while a little searching shows they are spouting hot air. His company's cumulative carbon emissions over twelve years, he says, have never exceeded 100 tonnes.
Voting with your wallet
Chib's challenge to leaders is that sustainability conversations do not have to stay theoretical. You do not have to wait for government directives. Whether you run one computer at home or 30,000 across a company, you can make the decision now and vote with your wallet.
He also points out where adoption is actually happening: the emerging world. Just as mobile payments were ubiquitous in Africa years before the UK caught up, young, motivated markets are embracing efficient technology faster than the West. His company has equipped a hospital in West Africa with computers powered entirely by solar-charged batteries, so efficient that the surplus charges phones and torches, upgrading not just work but life.
What the police taught him about leadership
Before founding his company, Chib worked in IT across the London College of Fashion, the Metropolitan Police and the Ministry of Justice, and served as a police officer, following a military lineage through his father and grandfather. Nobody approaches a police officer for a laugh; they come because they need help, sometimes with their life at stake. Serving complete strangers, acting on the word of someone met thirty seconds ago, taught him the core of his leadership philosophy.
It also taught him about fear. Having dealt with the hardest situations, he concluded there is nothing on earth he cannot deal with: I might not win, but I'll always give it the best shot I possibly can, and I'll always learn from it. That understanding does not delete fear; it demotes it from being the limiting factor. The only limiting factor is you.
And it taught him about expectations. People carry expectations of police officers, of Black men, formed long before they meet you. You have to see them for what they are, and you do not have to conform to them. He changed expectations not by bludgeoning people into acceptance, but by demonstrating his abilities as a human being. In his years of service he never drew his weapon in anger; the best tool we have, he says, is our voice and our words.
Nurturing the spark alongside the day job
For anyone whose dream is being squeezed by the need to earn, Chib's advice is practical. Nobody works 24 hours a day. If you have time to stream a film, you have time to feed your passion. Learn in the evenings, freelance or volunteer at weekends to get exposure to the industry you want, use remote work to get deeply involved from anywhere. The opportunities exist; the question is how badly you want them.
The alternative is the thing he fears most: reaching 60, 70, 80 and saying, I never really tried that thing I was passionate about, never knowing it could have taken your life on an entirely different trajectory.
Leadership, defined
The most important characteristic of a good leader is the ability to serve. If you go into every experience with the same intention, to learn, to serve and to act, then you can be a great leader.
