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.