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If you think that this is impossible today, you’re...
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You’ve probably heard about a space ship hitting badly Venus or Mars, I don’t remember, because of miscalculations, right? Well, that’s everywhere. When you do your taxes, when you calculate your retirement or when you receive an inheritance. All are miscalculation errors. In construction, there are everywhere. In 1970, during the construction of the Kadena Air Base Bridge in Okinawa, Japan, engineers made a slight miscalculation. As usual… Two teams started building from opposite sides of the river, expecting to meet perfectly in the middle. But when they finally got close... one side was 2 meters higher than the other! I mean… not 1 cm, not 2 cm, not 10 cm… just 2 meters. The error? One team had used metric measurements, while the other worked in imperial units. If you think that this is impossible today, you’re absolutely wrong. If you don’t believe me, check this list of lessons learnt from my last project.
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Vicente Valencia
I talk about Personal Growth, Management, Infrastructure and More | 👇JOIN +2k readers 👇
“I’m a PPP freak.” That’s what I told a client last week. Then I killed the deal in 30 minutes. “But this is not a PPP project.” No model. No workshops. No 200-page reports. Just experience. Because after you’ve seen enough projects, the disasters, the political theatre, the “too good to be true” bids… you start seeing patterns. Fast. You don’t need months. You need clarity. 30 minutes is enough to know: if a project is bankable… or dead on arrival if the contract creates value… or prints...
2012 Kenya. Elections coming. Security concerns rising. Investors… nervous. And still… The Lake Turkana Wind Power Project pushed toward financial close. 310 MW. One of the largest wind farms in Africa. Remote. Very remote. No proper roads. Weak grid. Logistics… borderline insane. Ideas such as domesticate zebras on the table… This wasn’t a project. This was a bet. And the closing? Just what I love… Pure tension. Lenders asking for more guarantees. Sponsors juggling political risk. Government...
That’s how many countries approach infrastructure. Big pipeline. Big announcements. Zero learning. Norway did the opposite. Smart those guys. In the early 2000s, they tested PPPs with just three projects: E39 Klett–Bårdshaug (opened 2005) E39 Lyngdal–Flekkefjord (opened 2006) E18 Grimstad–Kristiansand (opened 2009) That’s it. Three shots. Not fifteen. Not a political fireworks show. A controlled experiment. Same model. Same timeframe. Comparable results. And guess what? They delivered. On...