36. Joy, Identity, and Innovation: An Engaging Conversation with Ecy Femi King

In this episode of ABWilson's Heart of the Matter, host Aderonke Bademosi Wilson welcomes 23 year old Ecy Femi King, a multifaceted creative who shares insights into her journey as an author, coder, and musician. The conversation explores the intersection of creativity and technology, the process behind Ecy's educational comic book, and the importance of identity and community. 

Ecy identifies as a Scottish-born Sierra Leonean American, with a family history in education. Ecy is passionate about Pan-Africanism and exploring joy and resilience in culture. She discusses the broad spectrum of her creativity, including writing, music, and design. 

Ecy shares details about her educational comic book, Bit by Bit, which introduces computer science concepts using a unique visual method called fractal gridding. Ecy explains fractal gridding as a visual thinking method that enhances understanding through structured layouts. Ecy also shares her experience in coding, including personal projects and software development, and discusses winning a Fast Company Award for Student Innovation for Bit by Bit, highlighting its significance in representing their community.

Ecy recounts a touching story from a coding camp in Jamaica where she surprised a student with a book that brought him joy. Reflecting on personal challenges during the pandemic, Ecy emphasizes the importance of pursuing passion projects like writing her comic book.

The episode concludes with reflections on rejection as redirection and the value of pursuing joy and opportunity.

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Transcript

Aderonke (00:01.1)
Welcome to another edition of AB Wilson's Heart of the Matter, a podcast that uses overwhelmingly positive questions to learn about our guests, where every episode uncovers extraordinary stories of triumph, growth, and empowerment. Hi, I'm Adoroke Bademosi Wilson and my guest on today's show is A.C. A.C. is creative author, coder. Welcome to the show, Ecy.

Ecy (00:32.702)
Thank you for having me at Aderonke! Excited to be here!

Aderonke (00:36.526)
And so Acie, lets start. Youre creative, youre an author, you're a coder. Take me through that.
What do you do in those areas?

Ecy (00:47.602)
Yeah, so I feel like creative is this blanket term because my creativity manifests in so many different ways. Its hard to just use one label. within that, I love being creative through writing words. So like I like to write. love I used to be a choir kid and I play the ukulele and so I love music. I love designing things like whether its opening up something and putting different things on a page in different ways, or I love doodling. And so, like, rather than say Im a doodler, Im a musician, which I dont really consider myself to be those things, I just seem like Im a creative and that manifests in so many different ways. As for the other ones with coding, like a code and then author, I wrote a book.

Aderonke (01:37.314)
Tell me about the book.

Ecy (01:39.314)
Yeah, so the book. So I wrote and illustrated, I guess, an educational comic called Bit by Bit. And this educational comic book is based upon Stanford's introductory computer science curriculum. But its in general a graphic introduction to computer science comics. It uses this medium called fractal gridding and is based upon the curriculum that I taught as a longtime
student TA.

Aderonke (02:10.062)
So, okay, I just wanna unpack a little bit of what youve said there. Okay, you mentioned fractal gritting. And so I guess at this point we should mention that Rod King is your dad and I interviewed him some time ago and he did talk in detail about fractal gritting. But for those who may not have heard that interview, tell me what fractal gritting is.

Ecy (02:13.78)
That was cool.

Ecy (02:27.102)
Yes.

Ecy (02:38.556)
Yeah, so Id fractal gridding is a visual thinking method. You can kind of maybe anchor it in this idea of mind mapping or a tic-tac-toe. And the structure of it is its this like tic-tac-toe like structure, which has a bolded middle. Its outlined on the outside. And in the middle, you have the sun, which is the main topic. And then surrounding those, you have the planet. And each one of those planets can become its own fractal gridded like that tic-tac-toe structure with the bolded center. So that can kind of expand for infinity and beyond and thats been really cool to explore.

Aderonke (03:16.84)
And your book, how did your book use fractl gridding?

Ecy (03:22.196)
So as mentioned, right, its this visual structure and bit by bit is a comic book. So nearly every single page has that structure where the main topic, maybe you have, you know, a character, fabulous function is in the middle and then surrounding that you have explanations of what fabulous function does, what return versus print is. And so as youre flipping through it, you can kind of very easily see, hey, like this page is about, you know, linked lists and then go around and see what linked lists might be about.

Aderonke (03:55.072)
And how can people find your book?

Ecy (03:57.744)
Yeah, you can find it in a lot of different places where books are sold. Its on Amazon, Barnes and Noble. People have been telling me they found it in their local bookstores. So thats been cool. But if you're anywhere in the world, I think Amazon works.

Aderonke (04:13.998)
Indeed it does. What do you code? You mentioned being a coder.

Ecy (04:21.8)
Yeah, so I do have a degree in computer science. The things that I like to code though, which are on the side, I guess, are like softwares, websites, like I coded up my personal website, I coded up a fractal gridding software, and I also like to code projects in Python very occasionally.

Aderonke (04:42.963)
and watch your website.

Ecy (04:45.5)
My website is cogsplat.vercell.app. Its a little bit of an interesting name. Ill have to work on the hosting for that. yeah, cogsplat, C-O-G, splat.vercl.app.

Aderonke (05:04.544)
Okay, and when I post this interview on my website, I'll be sure to have your website listed so that people can find you. All right, well, and okay, so I just want to ask you another question.

We havent even gotten into the questions yet, and were still on your descriptors. How old are you?

Ecy (05:31.124)
23.

Aderonke (05:33.326)
and youve already written a book, youre very creative and youre a coder. Congratulations, thats wonderful. That is absolutely wonderful. So, Acie, I would like our listeners to learn a little bit more about you. Please share three interesting things about yourself that our listeners may not know and your friends will be surprised to learn.

Ecy (05:41.374)
Thank you.

Ecy (05:58.952)
three things. So one is that I identify as a Scottish-born Sierra Leonean American, and I know thats a bit of a handful, but after a few, you know, identity crises, I comfortably identify as that and acknowledge the superpowers that perspective allows me to have. People know I was born in Scotland. Well, some people that Im friends with know I was born in Scotland. Im Sierra Leonean, my family is from Freetown, and I was raised in Fresno and Clovis, California, but a lot of people dont know how those identities interact with like me and how I think of myself in the world. And so that is one thing that my friends might be surprised to
know and listeners might be interested to hear about. The second one is that I absolutely love computer science education. And although that is no secret,
A lot of people dont know that theres actually a history of teaching in my family that Im really, really proud of and think of sometimes as Im teaching or doing teaching related stuff. My grandma was a teacher, my mom was a teacher at some point, my aunt's currently a teacher, my dad used to be a lecturer. And so all of that teaching energy, I sometimes, you know, try to channel to make the ancestors proud or my family. Happy.

Ecy (07:25.832)
And then the third thing, I would consider myself to be a Pan-African who absolutely loves to explore joy and resilience in the world, be it in the past, present and future. I used to write articles for the Stanford Daily about romanticizing Afrocentric features. There are books I like to read and there are problems I'm constantly thinking about.

Aderonke (07:26.176)
And yeah.
Good.

Ecy (07:53.106)
And people tend not to know how passionate I am about that because I oftentimes read about those things on the side, but I love that type of content and identify as a Pan-Africanist.

Aderonke (08:10.902)
Tell me what a Pan-Africanist is. Explain that to me.

Ecy (08:15.272)
I think there are lots of different definitions out there. But for me, I think of it as someone who is just vested and interested in the African continent, its diaspora and the power that is in the potential of how we can relate to each other. And so for me, as someone who is Sierra Leonean American, but also whose ancestors came from all different places to find freedom in Freetown, I consider just how we can connect to each other and the similarities and also beautiful differences we have to be a core part of just that pan-African-ness, just that joy of, like, look at
what we can be if we are together, if we look at our differences and take those and just be like, yeah, we are similar and different and beautiful and can do so much with that.

Aderonke (09:12.046)
Acy, thank you. Thank you for that. Thank you for that explanation. Thank you for your wisdom around being a Pan-Africanist. So thank you. Can you tell us about a recent accomplishment or success that youre particularly proud of? 

Ecy (09:36.498)
Yeah, so recently I was in New York, bit by bit the book which I talked about won a Fast Company Award for Student Innovation. So that was super duper cool, but it was super duper cool for a couple of reasons. So I think it represented like this culmination of efforts to bring fractal gridding to the world. So that was very satisfying. It also acknowledged the labor of love and design effort that that book was. But it was also a chance to represent communities that were really meaningful to me, including the Stanford community, which I deeply enjoyed. And also the CS education community, as I was a TA for a long time, I instructed, I did head TA stuff. And so just getting to bring those communities, that representation, even my family, like we went to New York for this Innovation Festival. That was particularly meaningful and I;m proud of all that that entailed.

Aderonke (10:38.232)
Thank you. And do you talk about your award on your website? Where can people find out more about this?

Ecy (10:45.624)
Ooh, so there is a website that has it listed. Its not on my website right now, I dont think, because I havent updated it with that information. But there is a link available if people are curious to read about the award on the Fast Company website.

Aderonke (11:05.472)
Okay, excellent. Thank you and congratulations. Thats a huge win.

Ecy (11:08.744)
Thank you.

Aderonke (11:14.278)
And please tell us about a time when you made a difference in anothers life. What were the circumstances? Paint a picture for me.

Ecy (11:23.23)
Yeah, so when talking about a difference, I love what you said from an earlier conversation about, you even if theres one person, even if, you know, it makes a difference. And so I was thinking back to I was in Jamaica this summer for a coding camp. I was a teaching assistant for high school students. And one of the teaching assistants was a high school student himself who had just did the program two years ago, came back, was one of the smartest computer science people I have met and he was so young. But one of the things I really
appreciated about him was that he wasnt just interested in computer science, he was also very interested in the history of Jamaica. So we were in the bookstore of the university we were staying at and he saw this textbook on this historical figure and he really wanted to get it. He was like, man, like, you know, its this much? Like, do I get it? Do I not? And I dissuaded him to get it. I was like, you know,
Like you can just, dont give into temptation. And then I got somebody to distract him. I got the book. And then when we were back in the dorms, I used some of my dads magic tactics to place it in a strategic location, like in his room. And so then all of a sudden I hear, wait, what?
And hes going around asking people, hes like, did you do this? Did you do this?
And he actually thought that he had stolen the book because he really wanted it. And somehow it magically appeared in his room. And it wasnt until he was going out for a walk trying to figure out how this book got there that I was like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Like, I got you this book.
And he was like, my gosh. And there happened to be a hurricane in Jamaica. And during that hurricane, he was reading it like religiously, he was enjoying it. And so I like to think that thats a time that brought, you know, just a little bit of joy to somebody in a surprising way.

Aderonke (13:13.99)
Thats a wonderful story. That's wonderful. And so you mentioned a little bit of magic. Can you, and I know your father talked about the magic that he does. Can you do magic?

Ecy (13:27.23)
So I cannot do magic in that way, but I like to incorporate a little surprise, a little psychology. So if something appears somewhere and you werent perceptive to when someone placed it there, its almost like magic, right? Without doing a magic trick in the sense that my dad often does. So little things like that I like to incorporate in my life.

Aderonke (13:53.126)
That is really cool. And its a wonderful story. And you gave a book which will last forever. You gave knowledge. So thats wonderful. What were the key strengths and qualities you relied on to make a difference?

Ecy (14:14.796)
I would say theres this principle in my family of bringing joy in very subtle ways. So Im an only child, its just me, my mom and my dad. And its very precious but also delicate family dynamic.
And so, you know, when one of us is upset, that affects the whole family dynamic. And so we try to cheer each other up. But also when were all content, we like to surprise each other in little ways.
I kind of like taking that mentality of, you can make others, you can make yourself happy by making others happy to other people. So that mentality from my family is kind of leaked. So whether its friends or people Im working with, bringing, you know, little joy and in mischievous ways has proved very fun and exciting.

Aderonke (15:03.52)
and what mischievous things have you done?

Ecy (15:06.536)
mischievous things. I like to think the example of the book was pretty mischievous. Sometimes with friends, you know, maybe you get a little chocolate or like candy bar or like sneak it, know, sneaking things somewhere and then someone being like, where did this come from? What? I think also sometimes surprising people, I like to tap on the opposite side of the shoulder when Im saying hi to friends. So little things like that.
Im a little bit goofy.

Aderonke (15:36.302)
Ecy, can you recall a situation where you overcame a challenge that led to personal growth?
What did you learn from that experience?

Ecy (15:51.452)
Yeah, so the pandemic was rough. There was a certain part during the pandemic era. My mom was a nurse that was weighing down on me. I lost two of my grandparents. I got two big internship rejections. And as a Stanford student, oftentimes when you have an internship, maybe you do an internship the next summer, and then after that it leads to a full-time conversion, which leads to a job, which leads to disability. And I had just lost that perceived benefit in my mind.
And on top of that, I couldn't really find it in myself to apply for things. And so I ended up just being like, you know, life is really, really precious and it's really important to do things that youre passionate about. And so I ended up applying for just one summer opportunity and that summer opportunity was a grant to do this educational computer science comic called Bit by Bit. And so...
Its interesting how those things played out, but essentially that kind of rough era, I was all alone in my room in this apartment style dorm, which didnt have too much community, ended up in me doing this educational comic that has changed my life quite frankly. So I learned a lot from that experience, but to invest in joy and opportunity when you can.

 Aderonke (17:23.682)
Thank you. And as you will recall, the pandemic was tough for many, many, many people.
For some, got to do things that they otherwise wouldnt have done. And it sounds as though even though the rejections hurt, you were able to get something equal or better as a result of those rejections.

Ecy (17:55.346)
Yeah, one of my favorite quotes, rejection is redirection. And it really has been in my life. appreciate the lessons that it teaches me always.

Aderonke (18:06.644)
Rejection is redirection. I like that. Im highlighting that because thats a really, really great way to think about it.

Aderonke (18:22.35)
So before I go to the break, I want to ask you about your master's degree, because when we were talking off air, you mentioned it. And I really want to learn what it is and what it means. So tell me about the masters degree that youve completed.

Ecy (18:42.897)
So my masters degree is in computer science, not my undergrad, just to clarify, because people sometimes are like, you did CS for undergrad? Im like, no. So its in this field of computer science called human-computer interaction, and its very interdisciplinary. It combines psychology, design, and computer science. And so oftentimes youre looking at how people interact with the screen. So for instance,
usually when youre going to look through your files, right, you have little file icons and you can drag them and stuff like that. But before you used to have to type all of that stuff, right? And so its kind of showing how, hey, differences in different interfaces can have different results in how we interact with something, right? Like the psychology of how we interact with images is very different than text. And so how might we explore this relationship between how things are presented or the interface and how that makes information more accessible to us.

Aderonke (19:46.872)
How does this interact with how we use AI right now?

Ecy (19:57.272)
its very important, right? So, because the way that the information is presented, right?
Whether its a prompt and different things about that, right? Changes how effective we might be communicating with AI or interfacing with AI, right? Chat GPT right now are different LLMs or large language models. Some of them now have voice inputs. They have maybe, you know, drawing inputs and those different inputs are different ways of interfacing with AI. So that is all the rage.
My dad and I have brainstormed a lot of stuff about how fractal gridding as an interface might help to talk to quote unquote AI tools. And so that is a huge brands like the intersection of artificial intelligence and human computer interaction because how we interface with AI is often through computers.

Aderonke (20:51.502)
So fractal gridding, AI, chat, GPT, and how we communicate, it sounds as though theres a space in there for a different way of thinking and different way of being. Would that be accurate?

Ecy (21:14.0)
Exactly. Yeah, there is huge intersection, right? My dad has been plugging in some diagrams of fractal gridding into ChatGPT. The results of those have been really interesting. In the software I created, I worked on a prototype feature where you can put AI information in the form of a fractal grid. And so its been really interesting seeing how Like I put information into maybe like an LLM or chat GPT and it shows up linearly, right? Versus when I put that information into the fractal gridding software, right? It shows up what one might call radially. And so how I perceive that information, right? If Im reading the information that the AI generates versus like looking at it and from this focal point that branches out, those can be very different experiences. So theyre very much linked.
Theres so much interesting learning psychology I would want to explore behind that.

Aderonke (22:10.242)
Well, I will be honest, I am eagerly looking forward to what you and your dad create. And I will keep my eye on both of you as you move forward in this amazing new space that can lead to almost anywhere.

Aderonke (22:35.18)
You are listening to A.B. Wilsons Heart of the Matter podcast.

Aderonke (22:42.082)
Welcome back to Heart of the Matter. My guest today is Ecy. Ecy I am absolutely been fascinated by our conversation so far. So as a young person, what self-care practices or strategies help you to sustain your energy and motivation while navigating your journey?

Ecy (23:02.964)
who I love self care. But so a lot of people see me as someone who is extroverted. Like I was a class president for three years. I was this section leader teaching people and my personality is very outgoing, but my tendencies are really introverted. I have this rich inner world that I love to cultivate. And so when I think about self care and caring for myself, oftentimes that involves
the mind, body and spirit. or my dad sometimes says pi as like the physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual. But when it comes to the mind, I think that I love doing different things that includes doodling things that might be on my mind. I journal weekly. Sometimes I really need inspiration and so Ill just come up with random ideas for things and sometimes revisit them, sometimes not
revisit them, but the idea of ideating and...

Being able to create something in the world is just inspiring in and of itself and a chance for me to kind of recuperate. And sometimes I'll just treat myself to a meal by myself and be like, you know, Im enjoying my me time and this meal.

Aderonke (24:16.184)
So let's explore that a little further. Taking yourself for a meal. How do you do that? I know that even older people may have trepidation and saying, OK, Im going out. Im going to be by myself. Im going to have this space. How are you able to create that for yourself?

Ecy (24:40.12)
I think a lot of that Ability comes from experiences I had my senior year, senior year of high school, where I spent a lot of time by myself. so during lunch, we were allowed to go, you know, off campus as seniors.
And so I often found myself spending a lot of time just to myself. And I would go on these quote unquote dates with Debussy. I would like go somewhere and I would play this artist called Debussy. And so I got used to kind of just enjoying my own company a lot in addition to being an only child that manifested later on and me being like, wow, you know, it's nice to just sit down and reflect
sometimes. And so maybe I go, maybe I stay in my apartment. Maybe I go somewhere, just eat, detach from devices, people watch, you know, and enjoy and revel in my own company and just the beauty that can exist in the world. And I think a lot of joy and happiness is derived from the small things in life. And I think
that experience really helps when you just sit back and look at all the little small things amalgamating into this big thing that is our life experience or the day or the moment.

Aderonke (25:53.967)
And detached from devices. I have to force myself to do it. I will say, OK, I'm not going to look at my phone or my watch. Because you can kind of sneak looking at your watch if you have like an Apple watch or an equivalent. And people may not know that youre really checking your
WhatsApp messages or seeing what email came in.

Ecy (26:18.836)
Thank you.

Aderonke (26:21.59)
Are you able to detach fully or do you sometimes just sneak glances?

Ecy (26:29.428)
At times I'm able to detach fully, like I will put my phone physically in a place where it&s difficult to get so I will have to engage with the present moment. At times it's a little bit more mixed, know, sometimes Ill be scrolling on my phone. Sometimes I try to mindfully scroll on my phone.

Ill be like, okay, like five minutes. like, okay, I am going on this Instagram account that brings me joy and inspiration. So I think that one, detaching, and then sometimes attaching to things I know can bring me inspiring experiences is something I try to do. But yeah, detachment fully can be hard in this day and age.

Aderonke (27:11.022)
Thank you for sharing that. And how might sharing your experiences of success and growth create a positive ripple effect in your family, community, the world?

Ecy (27:23.966)
Yeah, so those are three very cool and also very different levels. I think with my family, it deals with bringing our dreams to life and the world, right? Fractal gridding is an invention of my dads. My mom is now a huge cheerleader. And when she started using it, I was like, wow, like this thing can help people because she can be sometimes slow to adopt different technology things.
And I think, my parents are now like the elders. And so I hope that that can bring them mental peace and ability to relax and retire and enjoy knowing that some of those things have been shared with the world. I think when it comes to community, successes from me can serve as a source of representation, joy, and I can eventually be a resource for peoples opportunities because theres this wonderful quote, "talent is equally distributed but opportunity is not". And when I went to Stanford, I saw how there are so many amazing resources there, so many amazing people and how I could take that experience and help others and help to spread that wealth was something that I am constantly thinking about. And then I think to the world, I would love to bring novel ways of thinking, dreaming and interfacing with information. I think that fractal gridding is great for managing information overload and fragmentation. with AI and everything, right, theres just so much information everywhere. And so I look forward to the
cognitive effects and joy that that could potentially bring to the entire globe.

Aderonke (29:07.662)
Thank you. Wow, thats really...

Aderonke (29:14.338)
Thats really powerful. And so based on that, what exciting opportunities do you see on the horizon and how do these opportunities align with your passions and aspirations?

Ecy (29:28.894)
Yeah, so maybe Ill start with the alignment. Im very passionate about fractal gridding and visual thinking methodologies and people exploring ways that they can take notes or digest things in brain-friendly ways. And there have been some opportunities that have popped up from that. We recently created an all things fractal gridding LinkedIn group and different people have been showing interest in fractal gridding that be like, And whats this fractal gridding? Ill be like, fractal gridding. And then I think people have also shown interest in the comics. I recently wrote this other one called Unakusha, which means like, welcome everybody in Creole, the lingua franca of Sierra Leone. And that was used in the
computer science section leading training curriculum. So that was really exciting. I think that fractal gridding comics are a cool way of sharing information.
with the world and different opportunities through conferences, from so many different angles and chances to share are emerging. So I look forward to exploring those.

Aderonke (30:37.39)
And so Im gonna ask you a question that I asked your dad in preparing for this interview. Did you use fractal gritting?

Ecy (30:45.586)
Yeah, I gritted it. I did everything.

Aderonke (30:47.438)
And so that is very cool. so you&ve written a book and what book recommendations do you have? It could be a book that youve read recently or something that has stayed with you over the years.

Ecy (31:09.246)
Yeah, so book recommendations. So one is called the Humanity Archive by Jermaine Fowler. I read this not this summer, this past summer, but two summers ago. And wow, its about humanity through the lens of different things that have happened in African American history.
It touches upon joy, resilience, but also just these frameworks of how to think and perceive history. So that is one. African fractals by Ron.
Eglash is a beautiful one that talks about how different African societies have used fractals to organize information and I think is relevant to fractal gridding in a very interesting way. And then theres the fractal gridding suite of stuff. think bit by bit is a cool read even if you arent into computer science, but theres also a paper, a case study done about fractal griddings use in Sierra Leone. And then also,
Unakusha, which I wrote, but has ties to Sierra Leone through virtue of the name, but also Ghana through virtue of the Odinqus symbols it uses to convey its concepts. So lots of Pan-African fractals, African diaspora reading recs, but I think that theyre universal in terms of the lessons that they offer.

Aderonke (32:32.384)
I enjoyed our conversation. I appreciate your... your joy, your enthusiasm, your intellect. Is there anything else that you would like to add? Do
you have any final thoughts?

Ecy (32:50.638)
I think there's one interesting quote by Wayne Dyer who says like, are not human beings living a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings living a human experience. And so I hope that everybody is enjoying that experience in different ways and that you can find joy in your day to day somehow, even if its in very subtle ways or provide that joy to other people.

Aderonke (33:16.984)
Thank you. And I want to recap three appreciation nuggets that struck me as you were talking and the deep wisdom that you have shared. And one of them is you can make yourself happy by making others happy. And another nugget, when you talked about the opportunity to write your book and you said that rejection is redirection. I love that. I absolutely love that. And then the third one.
which resonates deeply with me is talent is equally distributed, but opportunity is not. And you are wise beyond your years. AC King, thank you so much. I've thoroughly enjoyed, Ive enjoyed this space with you and I...

Ecy (34:15.688)
Thank you.

Aderonke (34:25.772)
will continue to look for your successes. I look forward to hearing how you grow in this new world using fractal gridding, using the technology and computer tools that you have at your disposal to begin to change and to begin and continue to change the world.

Ecy (34:48.628)
I appreciate this awesome exchange.

Aderonke (34:52.437)
Thank you so much.

Ecy (34:55.176)
Thank you for having me, Aderonke.

Aderonke (35:11.98)
I appreciate you taking the time to join me on A.B. Wilsons Heart of the Matter, a podcast dedicated to asking overwhelmingly positive questions as we uncover incredible stories of people you may know.