Hussein Mesharafa, founder of Seasplit: Each week, My Morning Routine looks at how a successful member of the community starts their day — and then throws in a couple of random business questions just for fun. Speaking to us this week is Hussein Mesharafa (LinkedIn), the founder of robotics company Seasplit and UAE-based offshore wind farm developer Seasplit Wind. Edited excerpts from our conversation:

My name is Hussein Mesharafa. I studied engineering and I’ve always worked as an entrepreneur. I built my business from scratch without any formal business training. My career has taken me down a winding road, starting with environmental safety and occupational health before moving on to the oil and gas industry. Now I’m investing in robotics and artificial intelligence for the offshore industry.

I founded Seasplit in 2021 after the industry started shifting towards AI, robotics, and renewables. Robots that operate in subsea oil and gas fields are limited by several constraints in terms of design and function, so I started thinking of new modules that can be fitted on to enhance their performance. These ideas eventually yielded our ADSCOM and Remora software systems. The former enables robotics to communicate subsea acoustically, while the latter enables certain types of robotics to recharge others underwater. We’ve secured an intellectual property patent and will begin trials with two prototypes in November to prove our concepts.

I was lucky enough to find a group of brilliant, young Egyptian engineers to bring these inventions to life. There is a team of six people, all in their 20s and 30s, who produced the prototypes. The project was spearheaded by engineer Aya Hallouda, the robotics and mechatronics team was led by Dr. Abdel Rahman El Maradni, and the embedded systems team was led by engineer Ibrahim Habib. These kids are self-made and self-educated and that is what makes them really innovative.

My kids and I discovered a sunken Greek vessel, with the help of a local fisherman, while vacationing in Sahel in 2019. We reported it to the Antiquities Ministry and started thinking of ways the company could help out. We’re now signing a protocol with the ministry that will see Seasplit debut its first trials on the vessel. We'll use our technology to scan the area and provide the ministry with a digital 3D model of the vessel as a gift. The model can then be showcased for recreational diving at the site.

I usually try to get eight hours of sleep. I wake up around 7:30 am and have to be out of the house by 8 am, which is when my wife kicks me out. That gives me about half an hour to do everything: brush my teeth, have breakfast, get dressed, and leave. After that, I work from wherever; in a coffee shop, at the office, or even in the car sometimes. I try to keep my work schedule as digital and flexible as possible. I read Enterprise every morning. When I banked with CIB many years ago, I asked them whether they had a business briefing, and they recommended Enterprise.

My day is governed by a few milestones, the most important of which is the three o'clock milestone: Work has to be wrapped up and I have to be home for lunch with my family. Around 7 pm, I do sports. I did triathlon training over the past 10 years but I'm taking a break now.

I'm currently reading a book about negotiation called Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss, who is a former FBI hostage negotiator. It's a really good book that explores new approaches to negotiation that underscore the importance of empathy. The premise is that whoever you're negotiating with is just another human being. My next read is IntelligentDecarbonisation, which explores how AI can be leveraged to decarbonise the energy sector and reduce carbon emissions.

The most important self-management tip I could give is something I learned from a character called Zorba. He’s the protagonist in the movie Zorba the Greek, and he kept a black notebook in which he wrote all his musings. I don’t remember; I write. Ever since I was 19, I’ve been writing everything down in a notebook; I have hundreds of them at this point. Every evening, I spend 15 minutes jotting down my plan for the next day. I set my weekly plan on Sundays and plan for the year ahead on my annual two-month period of remote work in Sahel. If I’m worried about something, I write it down and go on about my life.

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