Part of the Qatar Green Building Council, Hamoda Youssef is also a member of the USGBC. An architect by heart, his journey in sustainable building started upon pursuing a European education. Now a proud member (and leader) of the LEED movement in his region, Hamoda shares with us how sustainability has become an integral part of his career. Sustainability in Education and Career Hamoda grew up in Cairo, Egypt, where he studied architectural engineering at Cairo University. His early career was spent as an interior design architect before he moved to an architectural engineering multidisciplinary consultancy firm. Somewhere down the road he took up environmental planning for his graduate studies in Italy, which exposed him to the (USGBC's) LEED movement through an internship. This is when it became clear that sustainability was a path that he could take, when back in college it was mostly a concept attached to loads of coursework. LEED Held The Answers Earlier in his career, Hamoda met a lot of people who advocated for sustainable building which allowed him to see how groundbreaking the LEED movement was for the built environment. Before LEED, there was no framework to validate sustainability designs. There was no way to convert designs into actual, usable (and recognized) products in the marketplace. "It's not about technology advancement but how smartly [we] combine things and integrate them together from a multidisciplinary approach to enhance our overall design and products." - Hamoda Youssef LEED gave the answers. There was no skyrocketing upgrade of technology involved, but a genius understanding of how best to approach the ultimate goals of the sustainability movement. Challenge as a Mentor Stereotypes dictated that architects must possess excellent freehand sketching skills and handwriting. Hamoda had neither, so he took it upon himself to fill in the niche of computer design and 3D software. This first challenger, he said, was also his first mentor. "If I have a good imagination, I can be a good architect. It's a matter of finding a right tool to represent." - Hamoda Yousef From there on, he had several mentors, in the form of (growth) challenges and people. To hear more about Hamoda's journey as a LEED expert, educator, and project manager from Egypt to Qater, download and listen to the episode! Learn more about Hamoda Youssef: USGBC Profile QGBC Website Follow him on Twitter Connect with Charlie Cichetti and GBES: Charlie on LinkedIn Green Building Educational Services GBES on Twitter Connect on LinkedIn Like on Facebook Google+ GBES Pinterest Pins GBES on Instagram Don't forget to leave a positive rating and review on iTunes if you truly enjoyed the show. We have prepared more episodes for the upcoming weeks, so come by again next week! Thank you for tuning in to the Green Building Matters Podcast!