Transcriber: Elise LECAMP Reviewer: Sara Brunacci
Hello everyone.
Beautiful to have you here!
My name is Raphael Fellmer,
and I lived for five years without using money.
But, today, I'm not here to tell you how I did it;
I'm going to tell you why I did it.
Do you think that everything is perfect in this world,
or would you like to change something?
I believe all of us would like to see change,
but sometimes we feel lonely with this big challenge,
or we don't know where to start.
But we all know
that if everyone in the world lived like us in Europe,
we would need at least three other planets.
And there are no backup planets around.
Today, I'm here to tell you
how you can live the change you wish to see in the world.
I discovered that one of the biggest problems
is that humans often don't know the consequences
of their way of living on the animals, on nature,
and on our fellow brothers and sisters.
But I believe humans are not acting with bad intentions,
and that everyone has a good heart.
I discovered this when I stepped out of my comfort zone.
It was in 2009, when I was studying here in the Netherlands,
when I received two wedding invitations to Mexico.
And even if I love to fly,
I knew that just the return ticket would cause twice as much carbon emissions
as a human is supposed to emit per year
in order not to pass the 1.5 °C temperature increase.
But for every problem there is at least one solution.
So together with my friends, Benjamin and Nicola,
we were considering an alternative.
In January 2010, we embarked on the biggest journey of our life.
We wanted to hitchhike and boathike without using money to Mexico.
We wanted to break free of our conditioned mindset
and discover the beauty of humanity.
We wanted to show that everything is possible if you believe in it.
So I left the Netherlands without keys, mobile phone or credit card,
but with an open heart and the will to make it to Mexico.
We managed to get quickly through Europe,
and when we arrived in Africa something special happened.
It was our first night in Morocco, looking for a place to sleep,
when we met Raphael.
And Raphael helped us to find a place to sleep.
And when we arrived in the room,
it was 12 o'clock, midnight, the birthday of Nicola,
and Raphael shared an inspiring story with us,
which is as follows:
A traveler comes into a village and asks two men,
"How are the people here in your village?"
And the wise man standing next to the well said,
"Tell me, how are the people in your village?"
And the traveler said,
"The people are ignorant, selfish and close-minded."
The traveler passes by,
and another traveler comes 10 minutes later.
And the traveler asks again the same question
to the wise man at the well,
"How are the people here in your village?"
"Tell me, how are the people where you come from?"
And the traveler said,
"In my village the people are loving and caring and kind."
And the old man said,
"In our village you will also find loving, caring and kind people."
So the traveler passes by,
and the old man witnessing the situation
asks the wise man,
"But how can you tell two different stories about our village?"
And the wise man said,
"I told both of them the truth,
because they will find what they have inside of them."
With this inspiring story we continued our journey,
and we made it to the Canary Islands,
where we were stuck for three-and-a-half weeks
looking for a boat to cross the Atlantic Ocean.
But one day, we found a backpack with two flags.
One which was from Panama, and another one which was from Mexico.
It was like a sign for us,
and the next day we went more energetic and motivated than ever before
to the harbor,
and, indeed, there was a new boat looking for crew.
The problem was that the two Italian captains
were looking for two women instead of three male hippies.
(Laughter)
But after talking to them,
they decided they wanted to make our dream come true
and take us to Brazil.
So, while crossing the Atlantic Ocean,
we had time to reflect on all the beauty of mutual trust
which we encountered wherever we came to,
the beauty of hospitality which we never experienced before.
But when we arrived in Brazil,
we had to face the hardest time of our journey.
Nicola left us and returned to Europe,
and our energy was low, and our mood was down.
But we tried to hitchhike, anyway, out of the city,
but we were not successful.
For three days we had been waiting,
and, on the third morning,
Benjamin woke up, and all his belongings had been stolen.
We reached the lowest point of our journey.
And, after recovering, we tried again at another gas station.
And this time we waited for five days -
unsuccessfully.
We were completely exhausted, and we almost lost faith.
But then a wonderful human, called Angel, gave us the longest ride of our journey
and took us 1,200 km up North.
It was in this moment I realized that our thoughts
define our reality much more than we often believe.
And when my beautiful wife, Nieves, joined the journey,
hitchhiking became even easier.
And, after 11 months, we made it to Mexico.
Everything was perfect,
despite being 6 months too late for the weddings!
(Laughter)
A month earlier I took a step closer
to my vision of treating others like I want to be treated,
and I adapted a vegan diet.
I knew that today the animal agriculture
is the most destructive industry in the world,
accounting for 51% of all greenhouse gas emissions combined
caused by humans.
That is more than the exhaust
from all cars, ships, airplanes and trains.
I realized that the animal industry
is today the leading cause for climate change,
deforestation, water dead zones,
and the largest species extinction in 65 million years.
But besides environmental concerns and compassion with the animals,
I knew that 800 million people
are going to bed starving, hungry, every night.
And at the same time we produce so much food
that we could feed twice as many people living on the planet today,
but that most of this food is to feed the animals,
the 60 billion animals which we kill every year.
Even in the last 50 years,
we humans have shifted the face of the earth
more than all generations before us.
I knew it's too late to wait for others,
to wait for the politicians to fix the world,
and that we have to stand up
and be the change we want to see in the world.
So, after 15 months, 500 vehicles,
thousands of people who helped us during the journey,
and more than 24,000 km on the road,
we returned to Europe,
because we were expecting a baby, the biggest gift of life itself.
The moneyless journey turned into a money strike,
and I wanted to continue to dumpster dive to show the madness of our system,
where it's allowed to throw all this food away,
while it's forbidden to even take one banana out of the bin.
I knew I had to do something
to enable other people to save the resources which are there,
to save the food which is thrown away everyday.
So I managed to convince
the CEO of the biggest organic supermarket chain in Berlin,
and he allowed us to save the food
before the employees throw it into the bin,
what they couldn't sell anymore.
So the bread which was too old,
the bananas which were too brown,
or the product passed the best before date.
It was the beginning of the foodsaving movement.
And after -
after that I was busy 60-70 hours per week,
enabling more people to join the foodsaving movement.
And I felt I came to a limit,
because I was organizing everything with Google Maps and Excel sheets.
But since the money strike,
I had the honor to give a lot of interviews,
take part in TV shows, documentaries, and hold lectures and keynotes.
And one presentation was organized by Raphael Wintrich,
a brilliant mind,
who has the ability to write code which enables people to change.
So at the same time I was busy promoting foodsharing,
a platform where people can share their private surplus food with others.
And two months later,
Raphael and me, we were sitting at a table,
and while I was writing my book,
he was passionately developing the platform
which gave wings to the foodsharing movement.
I wanted to establish a flat structure,
a non-bureaucratical way,
to enable others to save the food
which supermarkets, bakeries, markets and other places throw away.
So, with Raphael, something else connected me from the beginning.
We were dreaming of a world
where everyone is sharing his or her skills unconditionally
and acting as if money was no object.
So today, thanks to more than 600,000 hours
of voluntary contribution of people, the foodsavers,
the 12,000 which we have gathered in Germany, Austria and Switzerland,
we could save more than 3 million kilos of food
from 2,300 stores which we are collaborating with.
And while foodsharing was flourishing, our second child was born,
and it became more difficult for us as a family
to find a stable and appropriate home.
But thanks to my wonderful, beautiful, inspiring, always supportive wife,
I freed myself after five-and-a-half years,
and I ended the money strike.
Today I'm here to tell you what I learned the most.
I learned to be humble
and to appreciate what we often take for granted, like:
the gift of life itself,
enough food to eat, a place to live,
our family and friends,
a peaceful environment,
and the privilege to act as if money was no object
and to do what I love to do.
I wanted to continue to raise awareness and empower others
to experience the beauty of unconditional giving and receiving.
After years of dreaming, 4 months ago,
together with an international team
of highly motivated people from all over the world,
we started to create yunity,
an open-source, ad-free, non-commercial, multisharing and saving platform
which enables the people to embrace their vision for a better world.
With yunity we will not only provide the groundbreaking tools and knowledge
to make the foodsharing success story global,
but to make everyone able to save resources
which are about to be thrown away, or which are unused,
from companies, organizations and people.
With yunity we will unite sharing communities and ideas
into one unique platform,
and let new communities emerge.
With yunity we want to enable the people to live their dreams
and to connect with other people to make them reality.
Therefore, we invented an innovative crowdsourcing feature
which will connect people and projects with the ones who can help,
either with their skills, their items or rooms.
Furthermore, everyone will be able to map and access
public fruit trees, WiFi spots, gift boxes -
and to share.
To share yoga classes, language classes; bike, garden or couch-sharing.
To make yunity reality,
we are still looking for more passionate developers and designers
who want to contribute,
as well as everybody else who wants to contribute with their vocation.
I believe every human has an inner light.
And like when we share friendship, love or happiness,
we can share our light, like a candle, with thousands of other candles
without shining less, but just spreading more light around us.
So listen to your heart.
Live the dream you want to live
and change the world [to] how you would like to see this world.
Thank you very much.
(Applause)