Dr. Robert Muggah TLP

Cyber Security Expert

About

For the past two decades Dr. Robert Muggah TLP has tracked gun smugglers in the Horn of Africa and the Middle East, counted cadavers in Colombia and Haiti, and studied warlords from Congo to Papua New Guinea.

Dr. Robert Muggah TLP (Legacy Project)

To better understand these issues – including ways to disrupt them – Robert started experimenting with new data visualization tools. In the past few years he has worked with Google Ideas and other groups to design award-winning arms mapping globes, homicide monitoring platforms, social media dashboards to track gangs and money laundering.

He has discussed these and other tools at Google, TED Global and the Web Summit in 2014.

Robert currently oversees research at the Brazil-based Igarapé Institute, a think and do tank working at the interface of security and development.

Contact Us at WeSpeak Global and follow us on Facebook

Interview Questions

Success is the process of contributing to something greater than one’s own self. It is not a noun, but a verb. It is something to be striven for and probably never fully actualized. Owing in large part to the way I was raised, success to me was never indexed to the amount of money earned or the size of my reputation.

Over the years, I’ve also learned that success is rarely (if ever) achieved by me alone. It has many mothers and fathers – we can live and act successfully because of the sacrifices and contributions others have made alongside us. While we all should strive for success, we also need to be humble in pursuing it.

What drives Dr. Robert Muggah is the desire for people everywhere to feel a minimum level of safety and security. This sense is a necessary precondition of living one´s life to its full potential. I was given an extraordinary opportunity by being born into a family, a neighborhood, city and a country that ensured security was a public good.

For the first decade and a half of my life I took this for granted. My choices and opportunities were never mediated by insecurity. It was only later in my teenage and early adulthood years I came to realize what my experience was the exception, not the rule.

The highlights of my life and career are fairly easy to pinpoint. On the one hand, the arrival of my daughter – Yasmin Zoe – is clearly a high-water mark. Nothing puts one´s existence into perspective like having a child. All the clichés are true.

I am more resolved than ever to fight harder to make the world a safer and healthier place for her, but also her generation. As for my career, there are a few moments that stand out, but mostly because they played a formative role in shaping my professional trajectory. They taught me how life is a winding road, and that we need to keep mindful of, and open to, forks in the road.

There are several big highlights – all important because they changed my view of the world. My first emerged when working as a kind of undercover human rights monitor (and worker-teacher) with migrant Latin American laborers in farms across southern Canada.

As an adolescent, I learned first-hand about social injustice and poverty in one of the wealthiest societies on earth. The second occurred in my twenties as a researcher and practitioner in Africa, Asia and Latin America – and disrupted by understandings of the Global South. During my thirties, I helped set-up new organizations devoted to public security from Brazil to Canada and Switzerland and earned a doctorate at the University of Oxford. These experiences taught me I could start helping to affect real change.

One of my strengths is optimism. This is not so much a naïve expectation that everything will turn out well, but rather an imperative to always try working toward a positive outcome. This means treating complex problem sets not as intractable obstacles, but as opportunities and puzzles to be solved.

It also implies taking on constructive criticism and extracting from it the necessary insights and lessons. What also helps is seeing in people their strengths and weaknesses, but building on the former rather than exploiting the latter. Stepping back even further, when I´m confronted with setbacks (and there have been many!), I also see these as part of life´s journey.

All people have exceptional talents and success often emerges on uncovering them. In my case, I was never an especially high-achiever academically. That said, through a process of trial and error (and supportive parental/teaching support) I began to recognize what I was good at, and what I was not.

In addition to keeping positive and optimistic, some of the characteristics that I found especially important in retrospect include discipline/perseverance, confidence/risk-taking, curiosity/adventurousness, diversifying options, and pursuing what you feel passionately about rather than that which is expected. Each of these can be nurtured, but it helps to recognize what they are in order to consciously build them.

My principles and values were banged into me early and have endured over the past four decades. I believe strongly in acting both globally and locally rather than one or the other. We are all citizens of the world, as much as we are connected to our nation and neighborhoods.

I´m strongly committed to investing in the public good as opposed to the private interests. We are stronger when we build goods for all, rather than carve up what we can for our own. I am a big believer in diversity, especially of opinion, and believe that a mosaic of perspectives makes us stronger. More prosaically, I´m also a devotee of evidence (as opposed to ideology) as one of the key basis for action.

There are at least three basic insights that I´ve learned over the past few years. First, stubborn commitment and perseverance can reap big rewards. Some people call this the “10,000-hour rule”. It takes time, but its’s possible to achieve great success with the right dose of discipline.

Second, the successful life is one that embraces change and adaptation. Life is (or at least does not have to be) linear: sometimes the unexpected opportunity is a game-changer. Do not be afraid to take the road less traveled. Third, never measure your personal worth by money or the success of your peers. Of course, a modicum of both is worth striving for, but these are means not ends to the successful life.

Some measure of self-doubt and negativity are healthy emotions. They help us recognize our boundaries, but also offer a kind of baseline. Such feelings are entirely human. Frankly, without them, we are sociopaths. The challenge is not to let them dominate or inhibit our aspirations.

At every stage of Dr. Robert Muggah life and career I have rubbed against these old bugbears. Yet it was only by lunging or plunging forward that I was able to reset the parameters of my fears and doubts. They will never, nor should they ever, be fully vanquished. They are what make us human, and through which we are able to express our essential vulnerabilities.

There is, in Dr. Robert Muggah opinion, no ultimate or a priori meaning of life. After all, we are infinitesimally small creatures living on a tiny planet orbiting a small star, in a modest solar system, within an average sized galaxy in an ever expanding universe. What there is, however, is meaning we can ascribe to our short lives.

This is shaped by previous generations, our own families and communities, and ultimately what we ourselves bring to the table. At least one “meaning” of life is to recognize the awe-inspiring gift that is to be alive. Another is to give other people the opportunity to also witness and experience the full potential of their lives, whatever it is they ultimately decide to do with it.

Monty Pythons’ Life of Brian: “Always look on the sunny-side of life”.

Interview Date

  • 2015-05-27

Country

  • Brazil

Gallery

[everest_form id="26923"]

View further interviews.

The Legacy Project

Brian Biro can be described as one of today’s most sought-after professional speakers, but he is so much more. He is also a Teambuilding Speaker, a Motivational Speaker, and a Leadership Speaker with the skills, knowledge and experience to truly deliver exceptional results. Companies and organizations who are truly committed to bringing out the best […]

Clive Butkow

Here Clive Butkow shares his journey from humble beginnings, through a remarkable career, leading from the front and investing and growing human capital. He advises on investment in self development, being always willing to learn but also being willing to teach. Clive Butkow | Legacy Project Tackling the job generation challenge currently facing South Africa, […]

  • South Africa
  • Business
The Legacy Project

Runa Khan is the founder and Executive Director of Friendship, a value-based organization in Bangladesh. Additionally, she is a Founder and Chairman of Friendship International based out of Luxembourg. Although currently her work is firmly rooted in the development sector, her interests and experiences are varied, resulting in an organization which approaches development innovatively for […]

The Legacy Project

Swaady Martin, is an Ivorian entrepreneur, prides herself as a custodian of Africa’s rich culture and history. And she preserves it with style. After an eventful, high-flying 11-year career at GE, where she held leadership positions in several divisions across the world (including acting as the Director for Sub-Saharan Africa of GE Transportation and acting-CEO […]

The Legacy Project

Shashi Naidoo is a South African actress, television presenter and model best known for co-hosting the e.tv magazine show 20Something. She also co-hosted the nation-wide MTV VJ search. She has been a part of various South African soapies, and has partaken in a plethora of TV commercials. She is also the sole owner of model […]

The Legacy Project

David M. Dye works with leaders who want to build energized teams and get more done. In his motivational leadership speaking, consulting, and coaching David shares twenty years experience in the public and nonprofit sectors including service as an elected official and nonprofit executive. Prior to starting Trailblaze, David served as Chief Operating Officer for […]

The Legacy Project

Stefan Antoni is South Africa’s very own “Howard Roarke” – creatively brilliant, outlandishly bold and prolific. He is today, without doubt, one of the most formidable and most decorated architects that South Africa has produced in recent times. Together with his partners and colleagues at SAOTA, he has continued to stretch the boundaries of creative […]

Brad Sugars Legacy Project

Brad Sugars Legacy Project came from humble beginnings and is a self-made multi-millionaire most famous for his global business coaching franchise Action Coach. Along with his family, one of the biggest influences in his life is Jim Rohn. Brad often tells audiences the tale of how as a teenager he scrimped and saved his allowance […]

  • United States
  • Keynote Speaker
Disclaimer
The profiles and images embedded on these pages are from various interviews conducted by The Legacy Project.

These remain the property of its owner and are not affiliated with or endorsed by WeSpeak Global.

Our Mission

We are your partner creating memorable and engaging experiences that go beyond the event itself.

© All rights reserved 2025. Created using VOXEL THEME