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  • People. Planet. Purpose

  • Making the Future.

  • Marieke Hart. Co-funder of shareyourmeal.net The power of sharing

  • I believe in the power of sharing.

  • And I would like to share with you why.

  • My story begins with our next door neighbor, Genelva, who loves to cook.

  • At least, that's what we assumed based on the delicious scent coming from her kitchen whenever she was cooking.

  • Now meet my husband, Jan Thij, who loves to eat.

  • Often he looked at me regretfully when he saw what I had prepared for him on his plate

  • while smelling whatever was simmering in Genelva's kitchen next door.

  • So we went and asked Genelva if she would share her meals with us.

  • It was a little awkward at first standing there

  • but luckily for us she reacted with great enthusiasm.

  • So the next Saturday, we walked up to her front door with few Euros in our hands and some plates

  • and after a nice chat we returned home with some delicious pumpkin soup.

  • We discovered several great benefits of sharing.

  • First of course that homemade meal and that you maybe could not have made yourself.

  • But second, sharing is a great way to get to know your neighbors.

  • And third, cooking for more people is more efficient and so less food has to be wasted.

  • From that moment on Genelva cooked for us on a regular basis.

  • And we were so passionate about sharing that we decided to build an online platform

  • to enable people from all over the Netherlands and abroad to do it.

  • That was a year ago.

  • Now, over forty thousand people share food with their neighbors through our platform.

  • Every evening around four hundred strangers stand in the kitchen of one of their neighbors to share food.

  • Sharing is contagious.

  • Since we started sharing food, I noticed opportunities for sharing everywhere.

  • And I believe you all have a lot to share as well.

  • Let's see hands

  • to the cars.

  • Who of you owns a car?

  • OK. Almost everybody right?

  • Did you know that on average a car sits idle twenty three hours a day.

  • Why not share it?

  • I don't love my car as much as the prior speakers do.

  • So why not share it?

  • Another question. Who of you has a book at home that you've already enjoyed and probably won't read again?

  • Hands.

  • I guess everybody.

  • I have tons of those lying around the house.

  • Probably those books still have value to someone else.

  • Why not swap them?

  • Last question. Who owns a ladder? Hands again.

  • Take a second to think back how often you used your ladder in the last year.

  • I used ours only twice.

  • Why not just borrow one from one of your neighbors?

  • We all have a lot to share. That's clear.

  • There's even an entire sharing economy going on.

  • One of the beauties of sharing economy is that access trumps ownership.

  • You don't need to own everything yourself that you want to use.

  • Sharing is not new.

  • We've been sharing since the beginning of mankind.

  • But now sharing is taking place on a much larger scale.

  • And this sharing economy is stimulated by some key drivers.

  • Of course, economic depression.

  • People have less trust in big companies.

  • There's an increasing awareness of environmental concerns.

  • And there's a renewed need for local community, more of "we" and less "me", "me", "me".

  • And of course, there is online technology

  • which enables trust between strangers

  • and matches supply and demand with an efficiency never before encountered in history.

  • These are all important factors to explain the growth of the sharing economy.

  • But I believe there's more to the power of sharing.

  • Even when the economy picks up,

  • and hopefully the planet is saved,

  • sharing will still be big.

  • There's a count...there's a psychology behind sharing that so counter-intuitive we tend to forget.

  • Are you ready?

  • Sharing makes you happy.

  • The mere act of sharing can really brighten your day.

  • In the case of our home cooks,

  • being able to contribute something meaningful to someone else by sharing your passion for cooking

  • the satisfaction you get from all the thank-yous

  • the unexpected meetings of new people

  • and of course for our foodies being able to eat the delicious meal without having to cook yourself.

  • One of our cooks home cooks, Kim, sent me an email.

  • She says, "Sharing food guarantees a positive day."

  • I cook for my neighbors once a week

  • and I now even beforehand that that evening I will go to bed feeling happy.

  • Or Stefan, another home cook.

  • He says, "when neighbors come for their food, my kids, Jano and Luka,

  • can't wait to open the door and invite the neighbors into our kitchen."'

  • I'm very proud of my kids when I see how much they enjoy being hospitable towards our neighbors.

  • And then there is Elana

  • a Russian home cook

  • living in the Netherlands for thirteen years.

  • She says to me, for the first time I feel at home here

  • because I can contribute to community

  • and get to know people living in my neighborhood.

  • She was able to reduce her antidepressant of her cooking for neighbors for only two months.

  • Woh, talk about the power of sharing.

  • Sharing makes you happy.

  • I will go one step further.

  • Even "thinking" about sharing makes you happy.

  • Well thinking about sharing,

  • the reward system center in your brain's activated

  • and the lovely chemical dopamine is released

  • the same stuff your body creates when you are having sex.

  • So, if we all spend the next minute thinking about all the things that we will share this coming week

  • and it can be everything

  • we will all leave this room with a big smile on our faces

  • Thank you very much.

People. Planet. Purpose

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