Real Industry Engineers

Shawn Cowdrey (00:05)
So if you asked me one year out of engineering was it worth it I would have probably said no.

If you are somebody that's studying at a university that does engineering, and you're part of the Washington Accord, ⁓

anything similar, this will give you different access to different visas and work rights in different countries. Nobody ever explains this to you until you go and look it up.

yeah, sales engineering is a very interesting path. So if you're an outgoing kind of person that's interested in business but also want to do engineering, it's a fantastic

Too often people think that decisions are black and white. I have the information I have. They have the information they have. I am probably the engineer, so they should trust me ⁓ because I know more than them, and therefore this is the right thing to do. It just doesn't work.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (00:45)
Mm.

Mm.

Shawn Cowdrey (00:55)
Yeah, OK, so right now today, like after this call, I will go do a pick and place application with a collaborative robot ⁓ where a humanoid, what's called a G1, a ⁓ unitary G1, will be collecting boxes from that collaborative robot.

And something that I'm really interested in is the 5G and 6G networks and the latency that we can now get out of ⁓ our industrial networks ⁓ and possibly linking ⁓ places like Europe and Africa together in

to allow physical work to be done in Europe, but by people that are in other countries.

Nyasha (01:39)
Welcome back to the Real Industry Engineers podcast, where I get to talk to real engineers out in the field doing the work. If you're new here, my name is Nyasha and I'm your host. So here's something that I've been thinking about over the last few weeks. Engineering isn't just about technical skills. It's about how you think. It's about how you communicate, how you figure things out as you go. And that's exactly what today's episode is about.

In today's episode, I'm joined by Shawn Cowdery, whose career has taken him from South Africa to Australia and now to Germany, where he's working on some really exciting stuff in robotics and automation. And honestly, his journey is not straightforward at all. From studying mechatronics at Stellenbosch to working in the electrical and automation space to starting a business in the medical field.

to moving across continents and building a career from scratch, and now working on humanoid robotics and software-driven automation. But what really stood out to me in this conversation wasn't just the technical side, ⁓ it was the way he thinks. We get to talk about things like why university doesn't really prepare you in the way that you expect, how communication and sales ended up being one of his biggest advantages.

what it actually looks like to move countries and to start over and where robotics and AI is heading. So this episode is really about resilience, adaptability and what it actually means to build a career in engineering today. So if you're trying to understand what it actually takes to build a career in engineering beyond just the theory, then this conversation is for you. All right, let's get into

Nyasha Pawandiwa (03:36)
Awesome. Well, thanks again for taking the time

meet up and have a quick discussion. Welcome to the real industry engineers podcast where I get to talk to real engineers in the field doing the work. And today I've

Shawn, I think we met.

around 2019, I think it was. At the time, I you're working at Omron. I was working at Capstone. You were working for a vendor. I was working for an OEM and you guys were doing a really great job at supporting us. And of course, many, many years later, I have since left Capstone. You've left Omron and we've sort of gone on these different career journeys and really great catching up. So thanks so much for coming through.

Shawn Cowdrey (03:55)
Yeah.

Yeah man, thanks for having me. ⁓ When you first told me about this I was super excited because it's something that I've also been thinking of. There's just not enough information out there for people, especially like us, that coming.

say a different country and then moving to a bigger country and not being able to interact with people that already in the industry. there's definitely, when you say engineer, I mean, when you study, there's the term engineer, which is like the professional term where you can become a professional engineer, but it gets used for so many other terms as well. You can add engineer to anything to make it sound technical. So there's no clear career path, that's for sure. So it's good to have something like this and yeah, thanks for having me.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (04:50)
Yep. Yeah.

Yep.

Awesome.

Awesome. Well, before we start, maybe let's jump in quickly. Who is Shawn and sort of why engineering and like sort of what piqued your interest into the field of engineering.

Shawn Cowdrey (05:16)
Yeah, sure. So ⁓ I think like many engineers, the origin story of engineering was parents saying, you want to do something, you have to choose between being a doctor, being an engineer, being a lawyer. And picked one of those. And there was an old Dilbert skit, old video, which talked about having the

Nyasha Pawandiwa (05:28)
Yep. ⁓

Shawn Cowdrey (05:37)
⁓ And definitely.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (05:38)
Mm.

Shawn Cowdrey (05:40)
anybody around me said, yeah, Shawn's got the knack. You should be an engineer.

So that was the original thing of like, go study at university. But at that stage, you don't really know what an

or what it is that you're to be doing. But yeah, that's how I got into it. I studied at Stellenbosch University. ⁓ And then my story diverges quite a bit from that point. as you mentioned, we met in Australia, where I was working for Omron. Before Omron, I was working at a lighting company, so in home automation, similar. ⁓

Nyasha Pawandiwa (06:13)
Mmm.

Mmm, yep.

Shawn Cowdrey (06:35)
moved to Omron for industrial automation because I very interested in robotics. now I live in Dresden in Germany working for a company called Wunderbots ⁓ where we develop an agnostic operating system for industrial robotics.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (06:50)
Wow. looks like you've had a lot of experience in sort of different areas as you've progressed. Have you felt like ⁓ uni prepared you for industry or you felt like there was a bit of a gap when you left?

Shawn Cowdrey (06:59)
for sure.

Yeah, it's interesting. I'm part of a mentorship program back at Stanibosh where we talk with ⁓ first years, third years, second years, just around where it is that they're heading and why are they doing engineering and what does it actually mean to have a career. And this is one of the questions that also comes up, like, do you learn enough? And ⁓ oddly enough, as soon as I left university, the number one thing that I learned from my engineering career that I used the most was the accounting part.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (07:15)
Mm.

Mmm, yep.

Shawn Cowdrey (07:41)
got into a business with my mom trying to do import exports and yeah that was like the most useful part of engineering. So if you asked me one year out of engineering was it worth it I would have probably said no. ⁓ However since then ⁓ the way that you think and the challenges that you get given and being able to document and understand and really

set out problems in a way that you can solve them, that is super valuable. And also the networking and the community that you create when you're at university. That's definitely helpful. I started to become more of a leader at university. My four-year degree took like six years, not because I was just failing, but because I was involved a lot in the leadership organization. ⁓

And that process of understanding how society works and how to act inside board meetings and how to ⁓ communicate with people, that was super valuable. ⁓ So yeah, in a way, yes, it does prepare you, but not the way that you think when you're doing studies.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (08:29)
Mmm.

Yeah,

because I think a lot of us ⁓

A lot of us, when we're going through uni, think that the technical side is going to be pretty much perfect fit for industry. So you're sort of thinking, I'm learning all this. In my case, I did electronics. I think you did mechatronics, right? Yeah. So, you know, I was thinking to myself, you know, I'm going to do embedded systems or telecommunications or, you know, control systems or whatever it is I'm doing, you know, it's going to be

Shawn Cowdrey (09:06)
Yeah, I did mechatronics, yeah.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (09:20)
As soon as I get into industry, I would need to know how to do this. And that is all I'm going to be doing. But you mentioned leadership in uni. And I think ⁓ for a lot of guys who are in uni, it's all the other modules because they're the core modules. But you find that the other modules are the ones you sort of use the most in industry. And yeah, that was my experience as well. So what sort of leadership societies and

sort of stuff we're doing in uni.

Shawn Cowdrey (09:51)
Yeah, OK. So at Stellenbosch, I was the head of Olympus, which was like a, I'm trying to think of this on an international level.

a frat, guess, a fraternity. ⁓ In South Africa, we call it primarius of the house. So it became primarius of Olympus House. ⁓ And for us, it was quite interesting because we were a sort of new sideline organization that tried to incorporate more of the people that weren't already involved in this ecosystem. And the university does an incredible job of creating a welcoming program. So everybody that's from first year, nobody knows each other.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (10:04)
Okay? Yep.

Mm.

Shawn Cowdrey (10:33)
going on so they try to get people to naturally ⁓ come together and meet regularly and interact in different ways so that you can build those friendships that you need to get through university.

We started this organization because there was a need for it. And the university said, look, we've got more people. Can you take on, say, like 100 students? ⁓ We created our Harkar House, is what you call the organization of leaders. It's a of leaders. It's kind of like a small business where you have your accounting, your marketing, and your CEO.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (10:50)
Mmm.

Wow.

Shawn Cowdrey (11:08)
that whole structure ⁓

Nyasha Pawandiwa (11:09)
Yep.

Shawn Cowdrey (11:10)
and then you run it like it's a business but with the intention of firstly welcoming students, connecting second years and third years with first years and then creating.

throughout the year or two years, a structure to make sure people come back. We weren't limited to traditions and the things that were there before. So from the first year, we kind of went from 50 people to by the third year, we were given a whole building to manage with about 400 students, ⁓ which was quite an experience because trying to do engineering and then trying to.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (11:32)
Mmm.

Wow. Jeez

Shawn Cowdrey (11:48)
Like, how does this work? How do you create structure inside of a ⁓ digs, ⁓ that never existed before? ⁓ And we were actively trying to work against the old mindsets of, ⁓ know, Stellenbosch, for those that don't know, is quite an older Afrikaans university. And so diversity was a bit of an issue back when I

Nyasha Pawandiwa (11:50)
Yeah.

Shawn Cowdrey (12:11)
was there after the whole apartheid thing. It's changed quite a bit since then. And for us, was a lot about inclusion and ⁓ understanding of different people and where they come from. ⁓ So completely different way of working, but it took off. It really did quite well. And like I said, that, ⁓ we needed to raise funds. So one of the things was that ⁓ the university only has a certain budget. And you,

Nyasha Pawandiwa (12:12)
Yep. Yep.

Mmm.

Shawn Cowdrey (12:39)
with that budget, but I found that there was a huge market for first years and people that were interested in things. And there was a bunch of services in the standard market that didn't have access to those people. And I was like, well, can we sell this? So we then

Nyasha Pawandiwa (12:53)
Mmm.

Shawn Cowdrey (12:55)
partnered with a whole bunch of companies that were interested, so like the banks and ⁓ some soft drink sales companies and merchandise companies, and brought them all and put them in contact with the first year students. And there, we kind of built a business model that allowed us to have more funds to then do more things for the students. And that's how it could grow so quickly.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (13:06)
Yep, Yep.

Shawn Cowdrey (13:22)
So yeah, I don't know if that answered your question, but that was sort of my leadership journey in the Stellenbosch days.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (13:28)
see a lot of value that can come out of ⁓ organizing something like that. The communication skills you need to develop, organizing people, and on top of that, managing your time ⁓ with studies and all these programs and activities happening as well. And I think that that sort of directly ⁓

Shawn Cowdrey (13:36)
you

Nyasha Pawandiwa (13:51)
played to your strengths as well, you know, and developed other areas outside engineering as you were getting ready for the real world. Let's maybe fast forward a little bit into post uni. And ⁓ you mentioned a little bit about starting a business and that not going too well, maybe talk us through that and how you feel sort of engineering played a role in that journey.

Shawn Cowdrey (14:00)
I sure.

Thanks

Yeah, sure. the starting a business thing was kind of a necessity thing. My mom was working for a company that helped her start importing products that she'd

Nobody else had imported before and then they let her go. And when they let her go, still had the relationship with the supplier. So I said to her, hey look, we've got this relationship, why don't we take on that business ourselves? So we registered everything and we went through the whole process of starting up a business. And this is where the leadership stuff helped because I understood a lot of the documentation and the paperwork that had to be done.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (14:33)
Mmm.

Hmm.

Shawn Cowdrey (14:54)
had some of that experience, so that was quite helpful. And then, like I said, the accounting part. When you're starting a business, you really ought to make a tough decision of where does the finance come from? Somebody's got to finance this thing. And I was able to negotiate a pretty good deal with our supplier in that they own part of the business, and that way,

they supply us goods, then we pay for them after we sell the product. So that helped with the cash flow thing. ⁓ And yeah, we kicked that off. ⁓ To answer your question about engineering, how that helped, ⁓ the products that we were selling were in sort of a

medical field but in more specifically like ⁓ if you're replacing bones and if you're trying to screw and do a lot of like woodworking stuff that they do in your body which for me was fascinating but I had no idea and that process of like being given a problem that you've never seen before and just a bunch of books and things and saying go work it out. ⁓

Nyasha Pawandiwa (15:44)
Yep, yep.

Shawn Cowdrey (15:57)
With engineering, you do a lot of that. That's a lot of cycles that you're doing. So I was able to very

Nyasha Pawandiwa (15:59)
Yep. Yep.

Shawn Cowdrey (16:03)
adapt and understand what it was we were selling, who needed it, why they needed it, and really getting into the technical side of the differences between our product. We were selling a German premium product at four times the price versus something that a lot of that.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (16:16)
Mm.

Shawn Cowdrey (16:18)
coming out of Pakistan and the material sciences was quite important. they both say stainless steel, but what type of stainless steel? How can they be cleaned? The process of the, you know, there was a lot of that sort of stuff that sort of helped in that process. ⁓ And then also there's a huge lack of services in the medical field in South Africa. that.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (16:28)
Hmm.

Shawn Cowdrey (16:42)
international companies supply products to government hospitals, but then nobody's willing to maintain them. And the cost to fly somebody from there to South Africa to maintain these things is exorbitant. ⁓ Because I had engineering, I could go in quite confidently and say, I don't know what I'm doing. But for the hospital beds not working and the lights are not coming on, it's probably the battery. Or if you need to install a proper light and a

Nyasha Pawandiwa (16:52)
Yeah. ⁓

Mmm, yep, yep.

Shawn Cowdrey (17:10)
surgical lights, ⁓ sure, I can go do the exam, make sure that I'm certified, and then I'd be able to maintain it and whatever. But like I said, that failed. ⁓ That was a very difficult one, and a lot of it has to do with just bad, bad accounts.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (17:18)
Yep, yep.

Yeah, yeah, but I mean, yeah,

I mean, you can say it failed, by the sounds of it, I think it was a huge success in your own personal career in terms of, you know, giving you the skills, the exposure, you know, to be able to, you know, talk to suppliers and all of that and being able to leverage off your engineering background as well. Being able to figure things out. And I think that's a big part of engineering where you when you get the problem, you don't even know what the problem is.

You know, you just like, this is the problem. I need to work it out. I need to scope it out. What do I need to do? And I think that experience really prepared you for the future, which was probably the time you decided to move to Australia. And ⁓ tell me about that. Like, what was the motivation behind leaving South Africa? It sounds like that's where your family's based. That's where everything that's where you grew up. That's where everything is. And that.

Shawn Cowdrey (18:02)
Yeah.

you

Yep.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (18:29)
journey and yeah, what was the thought process behind that?

Shawn Cowdrey (18:33)
Yeah, it's a good question. And I hope I do this answer justice, because it's a long story. ⁓ essentially, and OK, this is the part that's helpful for the listeners. If you are somebody that's studying at a university that does engineering, and you're part of the Washington Accord, ⁓

anything similar, this will give you different access to different visas and work rights in different countries. Nobody ever explains this to you until you go and look it up. for me, my sister had gone to New York and ⁓ she was working there briefly and it was at that stage where the company really wasn't doing so well and I was struggling a bit. ⁓

Nyasha Pawandiwa (19:16)
Mmm.

Shawn Cowdrey (19:18)
at like my sister who hadn't studied going to the US and I thought you know I didn't even know that was possible like how is that even you know an option and so I started looking like where would I be allowed to work and the two options was Canada and Australia and because of the Washington Accord if you have finished your studies within two years I think it's two years or three years ⁓ you can then apply for a visa in Australia which is like a ⁓

Nyasha Pawandiwa (19:33)
Mmm.

Yep. Yep. Yep.

Shawn Cowdrey (19:51)
think it was 18 months or you get a certain period where you can work, yeah.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (19:53)
Yeah.

Yeah, I think

it was 18 months. I think it was a skilled graduate visa or something. Yeah. Same visa, same visa. That's the same one. So as you're describing this, I'm like, Jeez that sounds familiar. Yeah.

Shawn Cowdrey (20:00)
That's it. Were you on the same ⁓ one? Okay. Okay. Yeah.

Ha

Yeah. So for me, um, we'd obviously been at this business for a while. So it was a year and a half. So I had, when I found out about it, was like, I've got six months. Like this isn't really a choice thing. This is more a apply. And if I don't get it, then I didn't, you know, I didn't get it. But if I get it, then great. Um, and, and it came through and that's when everybody I knew and my family were like, Hey man, whatever you do go. And I was like, I don't, I don't have any money, you know, this business in the whole, I don't know what to do. They were like, just sell, just sell everything you've got.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (20:12)
Yep.

Yep. Yep.

Nice.

Yeah.

Shawn Cowdrey (20:38)
go try. So yeah I pitched up in Australia with I think $2,000 which to me at the time was like a lot. I I'll be fine I didn't realize $2,000 wouldn't last like a week. And from the grace of some really nice people in Perth and in Melbourne so friends of friends and friends

Nyasha Pawandiwa (20:39)
Mmm.

Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yeah.

Shawn Cowdrey (21:07)
to sleep on couches and find my way around until I found this job at a lighting company, a company called Bright Green. Such a cool vibe, really great group of people. And at the time, they did LED lighting and they wanted to get into home automation. So for me, that fitted perfectly. I was interested in that kind of stuff. And so we worked towards creating a home automation market for LED lights.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (21:12)
Yep. Yep.

Mmm.

Shawn Cowdrey (21:36)
Yeah, so that's a bit of how I got into Australia. ⁓ And after that, I just kept working until I got my permanent residency. With my permanent residency, you get a bit more freedom around where you can work.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (21:48)
Mmm. Yeah, yep.

Shawn Cowdrey (21:51)
And

so then I decided I want to get into anything to do with robotics. That was my goal. And that year Omron had bought over a company called Adept Robotics from America. And they were also looking for salespeople. So I thought, great. It a great intro. Let's try it. And I was there for four and a half years doing sales. And that's where we met. And not doing robotics, doing PLCs.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (22:03)
Gotcha.

Wow. Yep. That's, yep. That's what we, yep.

That's exactly right. Geez, that's an interesting ⁓ transition. And it sounds like that's not an easy path, like moving from one country to another is not easy. ⁓ But something else that's not easy is engineering. ⁓ I think, I mean, when I started engineering, it's probably the hardest thing I did in my life.

You know, it was just, it was just so difficult. I actually failed in my third year and I had to redo my third year. So it was actually, I actually found it quite challenging. And when, similar to you, when I moved to Australia, I felt like, yeah, I had quite thick skin because of what I had gone through in engineering. You know what I mean? Like even when life was sort of throwing stuff at me, I felt like, geez, I can work it out. I would look at each challenge like,

Shawn Cowdrey (22:44)
you

Okay. Okay.

Yep.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (23:11)
an engineering problem and be like, subconsciously being like, how can I solve this problem? What's the actual problem? What can I do? Did you find your engineering background, your way of thinking, which I think engineering really shapes? Did you find that sort of ⁓ helped you navigate the complexities of moving into a different country?

Shawn Cowdrey (23:13)
that.

Thanks for watching.

For sure, yeah. Resilience is something that you learn, just how to deal with difficult situations, 100%. ⁓ If you don't mind, I'm going to jump to a bit of a university story, just that you mentioned something. And for me, I failed my second year. I failed on first year really easy because I'd done a lot of additional mathematics in high school. So basically started with a lot of the engineering mathematics of first year and was able to do quite well in first year.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (23:45)
Are you?

Mmm.

Shawn Cowdrey (24:03)
And then by second year I was cruising too much so I started to fail. And I failed enough subjects in second year that I ended up in the dean's office and I can't remember his name but I'm so grateful for the conversation that I had with him because he sat me down and he said, look, looking at the statistics, the number of points you need to get from the second year to the third year is very unlikely and for you to actually finish your degree in the right

Nyasha Pawandiwa (24:06)
Mmm.

Shawn Cowdrey (24:32)
you will not. So you could save your parents a lot of money if you just go find a job. Like give up on the engineering, maybe try something else. ⁓ But he kind of showed me and ⁓ if you are in engineering, especially if you're in Stellenbosch or if you're in anything where there's a point-based system to go from one year to the next year, do yourself a favor and draw up a diagram. Show like...

Nyasha Pawandiwa (24:33)
Hmm.

Jeez. Yep.

Mmm.

Shawn Cowdrey (24:58)
this course in order to do this one, complete this one in order to that one, and it will give you a very good idea of how many and what is the most important subjects to in this branch actually finish. And I had to do that. And ⁓ that is where I learned my most resilience. I told you about meteorology and how it helped me in the company that I was in. ⁓ I think that was third year when we were doing material sciences and...

Nyasha Pawandiwa (25:16)
Yeah.

Yep, yep.

Mmm.

Shawn Cowdrey (25:28)
In that year, I failed the final exam. I got, think it was 23 or 25%. And at Stanelmosh, you get what's called a fail scatum. So if you fail, you can write a second exam, and then they average out the exams. So with 25 to get a pass, I'll get 75 on the next exam to pass.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (25:35)
Mmm. ⁓

Yep, Gotcha. Cheese, yep, yep.

Shawn Cowdrey (25:53)
I was like, okay. But because of that diagram, I knew that if I didn't pass the subject, like that was it, game over. So yeah, I got over 80 % in the second exam. And you got to know it's like a couple months from each other. And it's that kind of resilience of just applying yourself and say, okay, I need to commit now. There's nothing else that's more important than this right now. Forget everything else and just focus on doing that thing.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (25:59)
Mmm. Yeah. Yep.

Wow, yeah.

Mmm... yeah.

Yep, yep.

Shawn Cowdrey (26:19)
And yeah, when you move in countries, it's the same thing. ⁓ I think the hardest thing is also compartmentalizing, because life tends to throw a lot of things at you all at once. And being able to pick what's the most important thing and then focusing on it, that's one of the things engineering teaches you. Just one problem at a time.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (26:37)
Yeah,

That's so good. Let's fast forward a little bit to your time at Omron. Of course, that's the time we sort of met, but you mentioned that you were doing sales engineering. What is sales engineering? That was something I first heard. I think the first time I heard it, I heard it from you actually, when you like, I'm the sales engineer. don't know, what the heck is sales engineering?

Shawn Cowdrey (26:49)
Thank

you

Really?

Yeah.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (27:01)
What is sales

in the context of engineering? Is sales important for someone who's ⁓ interested in that sort of area?

Shawn Cowdrey (27:05)
Yep. Yep.

Sure, this is funny because ⁓ I also hadn't heard of it until a friend of mine, he finished before I did. And we were hanging out just after university and he went, Shawn, you are the, no, you should be a sales engineer. You you fit it perfectly. And I was like, what are you talking about? Sales, that doesn't make sense.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (27:25)
You

Shawn Cowdrey (27:30)
And essentially a sales engineer is somebody that ideally has an engineering degree, understands the company, the OEM's products really well, understands what their benefits are and then how they get applied into a specific field or a specific industry. And then your main role is to build relationships and communicate with potential clients or existing clients, a bit like a, what do call it?

key account management. ⁓ But the biggest part is that you're supposed to go in and help solve their problems, ⁓ ideally using the products that the company sells. And what's nice about it is that you get a very diverse ⁓ understanding of what people are doing with different products and what it is that's actually possible. In my case, ⁓ the bread and butter and all.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (27:59)
Mmm.

Mmm.

Shawn Cowdrey (28:24)
sensors and PLCs. So I had to go and do a whole bunch of research and this is before Chat GPT days. This is old school, look up the data sheets, understand which part numbers relate to what field of rank is, which industries and that sort of thing and then also understanding.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (28:26)
Yeah, yep.

Yep.

Mmm.

Shawn Cowdrey (28:47)
the different markets. you have markets, you have different products for different industries. So whether they're like resilient to heat or resilient to chemicals or ⁓ that sort of stuff. yeah, sales engineering is a very interesting path. So if you're an outgoing kind of person that's interested in business but also want to do engineering, it's a fantastic opportunity. The only drawback is that as soon as it gets difficult, like dirty,

gets ready technical, that's the part where you gotta hop over to your team. ⁓

engineers that are paid to full-time focus on solving difficult problems. ⁓ So yeah, that's why for me at least a big part of my drive after ⁓ Omron has just been how do I get back onto the tools? How do I get back into the actual working and solving problems part of it? ⁓ Which is part of why I ended up in Germany.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (29:29)
Yep, yep.

Mmm. Yep.

Yep, yep.

Shawn Cowdrey (29:49)
But the real reason is ⁓ I met a wonderful ⁓ woman, Katja, she's my partner, and she's from Germany. She got an opportunity to move.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (29:54)
Mm.

Nice.

Shawn Cowdrey (30:00)
This was over the, just after the COVID period. And we realized that if we want to be close to our parents, her parents obviously are in Germany and mine are in South Africa. So we thought, look, let's go and I'll see if I can find something. And I got extremely lucky to find this company, Wondelbots, that gave me the opportunity to first lead a group of engineers and now actually work with the robots directly. So yeah, I'm at the moment.

Nyasha (30:31)
Hey, a quick pause here. If you're getting any value out of this episode, please consider subscribing to the channel or following the podcast. It really helps the show reach more engineers and professionals who might benefit from these discussions.

All right, let's jump back in.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (30:48)
do you think ⁓ having worked as a sales engineer and your what you've learned in that, do you think that has helped sort of your career, even though you're not directly in sales anymore? How is sales as a skill ⁓ sort of important for engineers? Is this something that

engineers need to look into or they can just focus on, you know, doing the tasks, doing the calculations, doing the simulations, building the product or where does sales come in or something we shouldn't worry about as engineers in general.

Shawn Cowdrey (31:24)
That's a fantastic question. Because I passionately believe that not just engineers, but mean if you are an engineer, you have an edge on everybody else. But doing sales, doing anything that's difficult in trying to essentially convince someone of your opinion is imperative. Everything in life revolves around being able to communicate with others, building rapport.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (31:43)
Mmm.

Shawn Cowdrey (31:53)
understanding their side of the story, understanding your side of the story, and then finding a happy medium ⁓ that both people walk away feeling like they've won from the situation. Too often people think that decisions are black and white. I have the information I have. They have the information they have. I am probably the engineer, so they should trust me ⁓ because I know more than them, and therefore this is the right thing to do. It just doesn't work.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (32:03)
Yep. Yep.

Mm.

Mm.

Mmm.

Shawn Cowdrey (32:23)
If you understand value propositions and how to approach people and how to communicate and how to build relationships, everything else in your life gets easier. You start to pick up patterns and learn when ⁓ somebody's on board with you and moving in the same direction and when you can just let go and say, okay, we have a difference of opinion, I respect your opinion, but I'm no longer gonna work in this direction.

So yeah, I would say if you are an engineer that's studying at the moment, get yourself a job in sales. Like let somebody else do your learning and it doesn't have to be engineering sales.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (32:58)
Mmm.

Shawn Cowdrey (33:05)
just selling small trinkets or going to a market and selling your own paintings or just anything where you interact with a customer where you are the supplier and they are the customer to build that experience of understanding how to deal with people, not just customers but people in general.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (33:09)
Yep. Hmm.

Yep. I think, I think it's spot on. And I think as engineers, we struggle a little bit on the soft, softer skills, I guess, you know, being communication. And I think sales uses a lot of, think communication is the main thing and communication I get is broad in that it involves being a good listener, being a good communicator and being able to find that middle ground and navigate conversations.

⁓ Because in an organization, I think you've got people on different layers. You know, you've got people in corporate, you've got people in product management, you've got project managers, you've got technical people, and you need to have different conversations with different people and can be a bit challenging. I think I find that challenge now. I'm working in a bigger organization at the moment. You know, I've got people from different, different, you know, and one presentation works for one group of people.

and won't necessarily work for a different group of people because they're not worried about the technical aspects. Maybe they want to know ⁓ how this thing looks, you know, and how the customer feels when they're using this product, or they're worried about how much they can save. You know, it's different. And knowing what's really important to the different stakeholders is really important. In each communication, seems like sales, it's a form of sales, even though you're not selling in the in

Shawn Cowdrey (34:29)
Yeah.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (34:49)
traditional sense, but you're selling an idea. You're selling a concept. So,

Shawn Cowdrey (34:56)
Unfortunately, I think ⁓ that term sales has been tainted. ⁓ It's maybe not the right term. So if somebody is completely opposed to sales or their parents were salespeople, they've had bad experiences with salespeople, that's fine. I think what we're talking about here is exactly same, communication. It's about different communication techniques ⁓ and how to bring across your idea. ⁓ I'm interested from your perspective just now that you're in a bigger area.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (35:00)
Mmm.

Shawn Cowdrey (35:25)
Like, have you found that over time, like, your communication has ⁓ improved and then you've been able to progress and do things faster and quicker and easier? ⁓

Nyasha Pawandiwa (35:35)
Well, I found that ⁓ while moving from a smaller organization to a bigger organization, in the smaller organization, there wasn't that much of a demand on my communication skills. All so I didn't have the need to really improve and to really harness the power of communication. But now having to navigate different stakeholders, you know, to get because, know, geez.

I'm working on something now that I need to get alignment within the organization from different stakeholders. Right. So there's a lot of navigation, navigating and talking to people. All right. And that has forced me to really take a step back and be like, how do I get this idea across the line? You know, I need to get a tick from this guy. I need to get a tick from this guy. I need to get a tick for this guy. And then I can progress with the rest of my work. So it definitely has pushed me.

Shawn Cowdrey (36:11)
Right.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (36:34)
to take a step back and to actually start researching on how I can communicate more effectively, ⁓ come across clearer, make sure people don't feel like I'm wasting their time. When you're talking to someone, they wanna feel like they're benefiting from that conversation as well. And you're coming to the same place that you both want to be. So it has been a learning curve. It's

been, yeah, it has been a lot of learning, but it has been good. Been using a lot of resources from Engineers Australia webinars, you know, talking to people because I realized the landscape has changed being in a bigger organization. So I need more tools to be able to really excel in that sort of environment. So that's that's sort of in my my journey over the last year. It's been a lot of learning.

Shawn Cowdrey (37:07)
That was nice.

Yeah, awesome. think

for the listeners, it's really cool to hear how it applies later on in your career as well. something that I've also experienced here, we deal with a lot of universities. And ⁓ when students are doing their papers and writing papers, it's sort of just done because they feel like they have to. You you have to produce papers. But once you get to doctoral level or anywhere where you want to get a bit further,

Nyasha Pawandiwa (37:30)
Mmm.

Shawn Cowdrey (37:50)
This communication skill "Sales" becomes also super important because people need to read your stuff and citations and being able to actually read and use.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (37:53)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Shawn Cowdrey (38:04)
and so forth is just around being able to explain what your idea is. And especially when it comes to much more outlandish ⁓ concepts that people haven't dealt with before, if you can't explain it in a way that others will understand it, it's not relevant. ⁓ And in Europe, there's a lot of funding ⁓ for new ideas in engineering. And I think in South Africa, there is also, I know, a bit of funding around that kind of stuff. ⁓

Nyasha Pawandiwa (38:15)
Mmm.

Shawn Cowdrey (38:31)
And it comes down to can you sell your idea? Can you get people to understand the value of what it is that you're doing? yeah, fantastic question around that.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (38:38)
Hmm.

Yeah,

that's that's awesome. Well, I will fast forward a little bit more into your time in Germany. You talked a little bit around the motivations behind, you know, I sort of look at Germany and feel like there's a bit of a language barrier. I've got a few friends in Germany and I'm just like, how how do you go to Germany? Like, I mean, I would I just look at that and be like, you know, I'm going to go to it English speaking.

country where I'm going to be comfortable and just, you know, excel in that sort of environment. But it seems talking to you, you've done really well ⁓ in that sort of space. How has it been moving from Australia to Germany? How did you land your first opportunity there? And maybe walk us through how that was like.

Shawn Cowdrey (39:33)
Okay, maybe we'll stick with the ⁓ sales part and then tie in later. So, something that was valuable for me as a salesperson at Omron ⁓ was the pandemic forced us not to be able to see people. And when people touch and feel things, they get a much better understanding. So, tactile and being present with people helps communicate. So when you don't have that, you have to find alternatives. And you could be very good at writing words. I'm not.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (39:47)
Mmm.

Shawn Cowdrey (40:02)
So I learned how to record videos. And recording videos made it much easier to communicate with people. And also there was an added benefit which I didn't realize was if I send a recording to somebody, they don't have to reiterate what I said. They don't have to summarize and change it and paraphrase and whatever when they pass it on or pass it up or.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (40:05)
Mmm.

Gotcha.

Shawn Cowdrey (40:22)
get a second opinion. ⁓ that really helped me in ⁓ sales when I was in Omron, but then when I was looking for a job in Germany. So I quit my job and we traveled Australia and then came to Germany and looked for, I looked for a job. So I didn't have something when I was going there, but I applied for several jobs online and like anything, if you want one, yes, you probably have to send out a hundred resumes. So.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (40:51)
Yep, Yep,

Shawn Cowdrey (40:52)
It's a full-time job, you know, like if you're gonna

Nyasha Pawandiwa (40:54)
yep.

Shawn Cowdrey (40:55)
earn commit. But then the silver bullet for me was videos, video content, because I could create content that was specific to the company that I was applying for, that related to what their problem was and how I could solve their problem. And it gives them an immediate understanding of like, who is this person? How do they feel? Could we get along with them? That sort of thing.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (41:11)
guys.

Shawn Cowdrey (41:18)
And also immediately, because nobody does this, it gets passed on. It gets pushed to everybody else in the company going, even if they're laughing at you, it doesn't matter. It gets passed on. And so yeah, I would say that's probably how I secured this role. Because when I came to the company, they were looking for many people, but nothing in a role that suited me. And because of the video, the meeting I had with the engineering manager at the time was, we will find a role for you.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (41:22)
Mmm.

Mmm.

Wow.

Shawn Cowdrey (41:46)
fit into this company really well, we'll find something for you. So yeah, that was probably the easy part of it, but then when it comes to the language stuff, I still struggle today. ⁓ I'm so grateful for my girlfriend, Katja. ⁓ Her English is incredible and ⁓ she also speaks Spanish and German and she's very ⁓ easygoing and really polite and really nice to... ⁓

Nyasha Pawandiwa (41:59)
Hmm.

Yep.

Shawn Cowdrey (42:13)
She communicates really well with people. So she's made that whole process a lot easier. I think I wouldn't have been able to do it without it. But then when you are coming into a technical field, ⁓ is a tendency for companies to fall back onto English.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (42:18)
a lot easier. Yep.

Shawn Cowdrey (42:31)
the standard because anything that's international needs to you need to be able to communicate internationally so Being able to speak German is definitely helpful. It would make a lot of processes easier ⁓ But I don't think it's necessary the hardest thing is the is the legal stuff Germany loves paperwork and Everything has to be done So then if if you don't have somebody that's near you that speaks German, I would say ⁓

Nyasha Pawandiwa (42:31)
Mmm.

Hmm

Okay, yep. Yep.

Shawn Cowdrey (43:01)
try get a hold of somebody that can help you out or a translation service or somebody that knows what's going on or there's communities everywhere. ⁓ That's probably the hardest part. Like knowing how to get your driver's license, knowing how to get your visa. ⁓ Visas in Europe are pretty easy. Like for an engineer, you can get a blue card. Australia was a nightmare. ⁓ We expo-ed about it a little bit and the cost is pretty high. think that's crazy. I think I probably paid $10.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (43:13)
Mmm.

⁓ yeah.

Yeah, yeah, it's crazy. Yeah, yeah,

Shawn Cowdrey (43:31)
grand on it just to just to be allowed to work.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (43:32)
yeah, yep.

Shawn Cowdrey (43:35)
Europe I think it was 75 euros and it took less than a month. So if you if you have a job and you have an engineering degree you can just go to the government, your local government, say hey this is where I live I would like to keep working and they say sure here's what's called a They give you an identity and off you go.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (43:37)
Mmm... Yep.

Yep. Yep.

Shawn Cowdrey (43:56)
So yeah, that's a bit about what it's like to move to Germany. ⁓ If anybody's interested, please feel free to reach out. If you want to come to Germany, I think it's a great place. It's wonderful. But yeah. Yeah.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (44:05)
Yeah. Awesome. Now

that's good to know.

But I'm glad to know that, you know, ⁓ if you've got your engineering degree, it sounds like and you may correct me, it sounds like engineering is a big part of the German economy, you know, and it sounds like engineering is a big thing over there in Germany.

And I think there's a general impression that, you know, if something is German, it's really good quality, it's really good. Have you seen that sort of narrative and is engineering different in Germany? Does it feel like it's more, you know, ⁓ it's better or it's just they managed to push that narrative?

Shawn Cowdrey (44:56)
Yeah, interesting. They don't intentionally push that narrative. I think made in Germany is something that's just come up because the quality of products are really good here. And it's to the detriment of the economy.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (45:09)
Okay.

Shawn Cowdrey (45:11)
The way in which engineering is done in Germany is a little bit different to how we're used to it. So you can take two paths. So you can become an engineer like we did, where you become like, you get your doctorate or your bachelor's, and most people here would do their master's as a minimum.

And then you would move into something nearer to management quite quickly. So you're not necessarily into the tools or into the design part as much. And then you also have what's called, I think, Fachschule. I might be saying that wrong, so if anybody's out there, apologies, but yes. ⁓ And this is more of a hands-on thing. It's a bit more like a trade school in Australia.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (45:49)
Gotcha

Shawn Cowdrey (45:53)
but it's trade school with heavy engineering requirements. And you're hands on getting involved in whatever it is you're studying at the time. ⁓ Both of these paths lead to good jobs in good stable companies. Many companies in Australia are, sorry, many companies in Germany are family owned or privately owned. ⁓ And so they don't have to.

aim for shareholder happiness. They just aim for let's make the best quality products or let's make our customers as happy as we can. And so there isn't this incentive to make it cheaper, make it faster, make more money. There's an incentive of we have a legacy that we want to maintain and we need to make it that people use.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (46:33)
Mmm...

Yep.

Shawn Cowdrey (46:38)
is that they do move slower. So if you're buying something that's German, maybe it doesn't have the latest technology, but you know it's going to last you a lifetime. And that's where that narrative that we're used to in Australia of like German made must be really good and same in South Africa, because generally that is the truth. ⁓ That is how it is. However, there is a growing industry here, especially when it comes to software.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (46:40)
Yeah, yep.

Mmm.

Shawn Cowdrey (47:06)
some smaller startups that are trying to keep up with the US style. ⁓ And I guess that's something else that also makes a big difference is the economy here is giant. Like in comparison to Australia, Australia is equivalent to one month's ⁓ earnings for a company. ⁓ It's really that small. ⁓

Nyasha Pawandiwa (47:11)
Yeah.

Really?

Wow.

Shawn Cowdrey (47:30)
So the Australian market is, especially in our industry, like in the engineering sort of food and beverage, pharmaceutical, there is some business, but it's not anywhere near what Germany does. ⁓ Even locally, and then a lot of German products, a lot of machinery gets exported. So as far as engineering ⁓ infrastructure and the kind of engineering jobs that you've been looking for, like Germany's a fantastic place to be because there just are a lot more opportunities.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (47:37)
Yeah.

Yeah, that's good. I think from what you've said, from the sounds of it, if you're a graduate and you want a place to go to do engineering, sounds like Germany is a great place, sounds like engineering, there's a lot of opportunities from the sounds of it. ⁓ Let's talk a little bit about what you're doing now, right? At the minute, what's exciting you now? ⁓ Where do you think industry is going? But let's start off with what you're doing now.

Shawn Cowdrey (48:15)
for sure.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (48:29)
What's really exciting you at the minute?

Shawn Cowdrey (48:32)
Yeah, OK, so right now today, like after this call, I will go do a pick and place application with a collaborative robot ⁓ where a humanoid, what's called a G1, a ⁓ unitary G1, look it up if you're interested, will be collecting boxes from that collaborative robot. ⁓ so the collaborative robot does the assembly of a part, and then the humanoid does the carrying and moving around.

What's nice is that it can work in any terrain. So it's kind of drop-in solution. So if you wanted to have this work in any factory, you don't have to change anything in the factory. You just drop it in, and it starts working. So that's really exciting, mostly because a lot of it is around machine learning. So when you're teaching a humanoid to balance the, let's say, control system logic of

Nyasha Pawandiwa (49:08)
Mmm.

Mmm.

Shawn Cowdrey (49:28)
input, process, output. That's not really how it works with machine learning. It's kind of ⁓ input, ⁓ calculation, and then presumed output, and then cycles back in. So it's slightly different way of thinking. But yeah, there's a lot of machine learning which is involved, which is quite cool. And it's bringing together.

So a humanoid is essentially four industrial robots connected by a central point. ⁓ And then they all work together to then maintain balance or stand upright. So that's what I'm working on at the minute. ⁓ But I think the interesting part of my transition from being in sales in South Africa, in selling

Nyasha Pawandiwa (50:03)
Mmm.

⁓

Shawn Cowdrey (50:16)
selling medical equipment to going into PLCs and sensors and now going into robotics is that my engineering has applied across all of them in different ways and even now this company is more of a software company so we focus mostly on software.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (50:33)
Mmm.

Shawn Cowdrey (50:35)
And I had to then catch up after 10 years of not knowing what's going on and have to really get back into software to understand how it works. And again, that resilience of if you don't know it, work it out ⁓ has helped tremendously. So I now spend quite a bit of time using ⁓ Claude and ChatGPT to write code ⁓ to then actually get robots to move.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (50:51)
Hmm.

Shawn Cowdrey (51:01)
What's most interesting for me is that the way robots are done before, so a bit like PLC, Ladder Logic. ⁓

I think it's going to disappear soon. There ⁓ is a general use cycle for robots, which is about 10 years. So you can get usefulness out of an industrial robot for about 10 years, and then there's a lot of maintenance and things that have to happen, and generally they get replaced. But I think we're coming to the end of a few 10-year cycles, and the next iteration will be software-defined robotics. So it's going to be moving towards. ⁓

Nyasha Pawandiwa (51:18)
Mmm, okay.

Hmm.

Shawn Cowdrey (51:44)
having the software determine how the robot does all of its motion and the type of robot that you use, so the brand, is going to become less relevant. It's more going to be about getting the task done. So what is it that you need

getting that thing done, not picking the right machinery to then fit into your system. So yeah, for me, that's quite interesting at the moment.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (52:08)
Wow, do you think, I mean, there's this whole narrative around industrial automation and robotics taking over and around employment and, I mean, this has been, I guess with each age of development, there's been concerns. mean, we talk about AI today and there's already concerns around jobs and things like that.

field specifically, what are your sentiments? How do you feel about employment and this rise in, I guess, an increased use of these tools in industry, robotics, humanoids, that sort of thing. What do you have to say around that?

Shawn Cowdrey (52:53)
Yeah, that's a very important question because I'm quite passionate about automation in this industry. ⁓ when I was working for Omron, I got to go to a lot of factories and see how a lot of things are done, especially in food and beverage. And one of the things I noticed is that there's a lot of people who are employed to do mundane, continuous things. ⁓

Nyasha Pawandiwa (53:07)
Mmm.

Shawn Cowdrey (53:17)
the saddest thing I saw was a lady that just did sewing. And I know back in the day this was very common, we had it everywhere, but to see one person just sewing the same seam every day consistently for, you know, I'd been working at the company for four years, every time I visited she was the same place doing the same thing. And I just don't think that's necessary. You know, we now, we have the technology. We can, we can give her,

Nyasha Pawandiwa (53:31)
Mmm.

Yep, yep.

Shawn Cowdrey (53:47)
tools to let something else do it and she could prove it because of all the experience that she has. And then at the same time she could go be doing something else or helping in driving the... ⁓

When it comes to physical AI, this something that this company is heavily involved in. ⁓ I see the concern of AI taking over, ⁓ but I don't think it's necessarily going to happen. or at least not in the way that people think, ⁓ there is a huge issue with physical people. There's just not enough people in Europe or in places like America to do dirty jobs, things that people don't want to do.

So there is a big need, right? And the only solution that's existed up until now is immigration. Bring people in from different countries where there are abundance of people, cheap labor. I mean, we are, I think, key example of exactly that. Fully capable individuals that are coming from places that just don't have the opportunities. However, governments can't keep up with that. And it doesn't always work out positively.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (54:49)
Yep, yep.

Mmm.

Shawn Cowdrey (55:00)
And so there is this ongoing lack of labor, ⁓ especially in Europe. And physical AI is going to be something that I think will change that. And something that I'm really interested in is the 5G and 6G networks and the latency that we can now get out of ⁓ our industrial networks ⁓ and possibly linking ⁓ places like Europe and Africa together in

to allow physical work to be done in Europe, but by people that are in other countries. So in order to train a robot to do something autonomously, you have to have a lot of data. And that data just doesn't exist at the moment.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (55:34)
Mm.

Shawn Cowdrey (55:44)
So what I perceive ⁓ is that someone, and hopefully it's us, will at a point come up with this ⁓ connection and then start building the data by linking these humanoids or...

robots, industrial robots to operators that are in different places, bit like they do in the medical field, surgical things, and then start collecting that data. And what will happen is, at the beginning it will be expensive, so only the really big companies will be able to do it, but eventually we'll have enough data that it will become accessible to everybody, anyone that wants to start a business.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (56:21)
Hmm.

Yep.

Shawn Cowdrey (56:23)
And then I think AI is going to create more opportunity because at the moment we talk ⁓ about industry reducing the complexity in a product to make sure that it reduces costs. But we're moving towards an era where you can go into a store and buy something that's fully customized to you.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (56:45)
Mm.

Shawn Cowdrey (56:47)
example so when you're when you're buying coffee you go to a cafe and you order like a flat white and the barista who's skilled goes and makes you that flat white to the needs of like the beans and how the beans are roasted and whatever right there in front of you but a large majority of the process gets done beforehand which is the growing and the picking and the roasting and whatever but the customization part happens right at the

Nyasha Pawandiwa (57:14)
rather than yep.

Shawn Cowdrey (57:15)
With all of these tools, ⁓ think that smaller businesses in the country itself are going to be able to modify and supply better quality products that fit the market that they need instead of this over-globalization of like no matter where you travel in the world you get exactly the same product.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (57:34)
Hmm.

That's really interesting. And I think that's really deep as well. ⁓ I think is it I think we're heading to exciting times. I guess no one really knows what the future holds for us. But definitely things are changing. And I think we're definitely sensing the tides of change at the moment. So well, thanks so much, ⁓ Shawn, for this time. Before I let you go, I've got a few fire questions, actually just two of them. The first one being.

Shawn Cowdrey (58:00)
Cool.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (58:02)
One piece of advice you wish you had gotten earlier in your career.

Shawn Cowdrey (58:11)
Learn to do finances and taxes and understand money early on. I think that would have been really helpful.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (58:23)
Awesome. And if you weren't in engineering, what would you be doing?

Shawn Cowdrey (58:29)
I have no idea because since the beginning I've always, that's what I've wanted, since I decided I'd be in that. But honestly I think I would be a serial entrepreneur, be somebody that's trying to find small solutions and starting up companies and failing a lot. That's probably what I would be doing, but I'd be hiring engineers anyway.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (58:46)
Yeah. Which is. Yeah,

I mean, that's that sounds like engineering to me, but now that's that's pretty good. Awesome. Well, thanks so much for your time. Shawn has been really awesome pleasure having you. Before we go, if we've got listeners who are interested in getting a hold of you, getting in touch, discussing some of these topics in more depth, of course, we just scratched.

Shawn Cowdrey (58:53)
Basically,

Nyasha Pawandiwa (59:14)
So probably 100 surfaces and never really got into real depth. But if anyone wants to get in touch with you, what's the best way they can get in touch with you? And are you open to discussing these sort of topics with people?

Shawn Cowdrey (59:27)
Yeah sure, that's a difficult question. I guess my email address is probably the best way to go. So it's my full name Shawn, Shawn Cowdery at I guess my company Wondelbots. So Shawn.Cowdery at Wondelbots. probably the easiest way. I do have a pretty dormant YouTube channel which I think has one or two videos on it. So if you want to post in there or DM me from there somehow, ⁓ that could also work.

But yeah, I'm not too much of ⁓ a public figure, so I'm not that easy to get a hold of, but feel free to email me.

Nyasha Pawandiwa (59:58)
Yeah,

awesome. Well, I'll put all that information. put a link to YouTube as well so that people can have a look at some of the videos you've done as well. Awesome. Well, thanks so much, Shawn. This has been this has been really, really great. Great catching up. It's been it's been a minute since ⁓ we've had a chat. I was definitely genuinely curious on how things are going in Germany. And I know when you said, I'm leaving for Germany, I was kind of like, ⁓ Jeez what's going to happen? Because you are

Shawn Cowdrey (1:00:13)
Yeah.

Yeah, man.

You

Nyasha Pawandiwa (1:00:28)
You are sort of doing a lot for us at Capstone Industries at the time and definitely giving really great support. But I'm glad it looks like you have, you know, found your feet and definitely making really good career strides in Germany. So, yeah, I'm really excited about that. Yeah, yeah.

Shawn Cowdrey (1:00:44)
Thanks man. Thanks.

I'm really glad to, really happy to catch up as well. It looks like you're doing very well as well.