co-founder and trustee for Robin odami
i’ve also co-founded another startup
called press play
but today obviously you know we will
talk about Robin Hood so Robin out is a
volunteer driven organization what we do
is very very simple we collect excess
food from restaurants and we try and
distribute it to people to
underprivileged people so we realize
that you know the problem that’s
entually the problem that we were trying
we are trying to solve is of hunger
right doesn’t we realize that there are
so many people out there who don’t know
where their next meal is coming from
and so that’s what we have taken the
first step towards you know trying to
sort of solve that problem we are now
you know we started two years back we
are now in ten countries
me and my co-founder started it and now
we have more than seven thousand
volunteers across these ten countries so
it’s been a good ride it’s only been two
years and obviously we are learning as
we go but it’s been a good ride so
today’s topic right ignite when I was
just trying to sort of prepare for my
speech I try to remember you know how I
went back in time two years back in time
I was just trying to remember how things
came together for us and I I realized
that you know most of us here including
myself we’ve had a very privileged sort
of upbringing right doesn’t beef never
had to worry about stuff like here at oh
honey my gammy leg hockey in the
Himalaya
nobody ever obviously you know we have
been lucky enough to have our parents
sort of support us through the journey
but the during this upbringing also what
about I realized you know now now I’m
crying 9 now when I look back at my
younger years I I sort of realized that
there was always this layer of society
which coexisted with us right or people
who are living on the streets of people
who living under the flyovers but
somehow we just never chose chose to you
know booze anything about it we we were
sort of coexisting but very
indifferently right as if there is
nothing much that at least while growing
up in my this thing there was nothing
much that I did not contribute in any
way so and also then I thought that why
is that right as and why why is it that
we we were just talking about the sort
of gap which is widening between the
rich and the poor
in India and why is it that we have not
been able to do anything and then the
usual usual sort of reasons came to mind
which are not excuses by the way right
those are genuine justified reasons that
we all have crazy working arse we have
relationships to manage we have 10,000
things going on in our lives but
unfortunately just not able to take out
time for stuff a lot of fast people
donate some money which is obviously
great but not easy to take out time you
know to actually help someone as such so
we’ve all seen people you know we’ve all
seen kids begging on the roads people
living under flyover as people sometimes
dying you know of accidents of drunken
driving with people living or dying on
the roads but as I said unfortunately
just not have been able to take out the
time so how it all started was that you
know couple of years not couple of years
actually now now seven years back when I
was in my first job that’s when I met my
Robin Hood co-founder Neil and a very
simple writers and so what so we had
both just quit our jobs and there was a
tradition in the team that you know the
team will buy you a farewell gift so
they all pulled in some money and
ultimately the Ostrowski I’ve gone again
or what do you guys want and so I
thought of the usual things right and I
thought of a watch wallet maybe tickets
to go out and all of that all of the
usual suspects sort of came to my mind
but I don’t know how or what sort of
took over us but we decided that let’s
use that money and take some kids for a
movie write a very simple sort of idea
so what we did was you know so this this
is a seven year old picture oh that’s my
profound O’Neill in green and I’m the
one in yellow so we just took out we
took six kids two for a simple movie and
a meal so what happened that day
actually I think you know changed our
lives quite a bit right and that was our
aha moment we must do we must act so
what we realized was the lot of things
that we actually take for granted that
as for something as simple as our next
meal right but it’s a luxury for all
these guys and for a lot of people in
India so so we will be thought kay I’m
at the beam we must do something we must
you know take out whatever time that we
can and try and make a difference so
this this actually you know III saw this
on social media a few days back and just
made
or sense you back you guess it’s a good
quote but if you just take out two
seconds to actually think about it it
made a lot of sense to me that there are
actually people who would love to have
our bad days right and we we crib and we
cry about a lot of things but they might
a lot of people will actually treasure
that as well so yeah so also coming to
the problem right and so what is the
problem that we are trying to solve when
we talk about hunger yes there are
millions of things that are on the
millions of people who are sort of going
without a meal but these are just some
you know stats that I actually threw in
this so that we can actually understand
the gravity of the problem that we are
trying to solve
so there are 795 million people across
the globe which are undernourished out
of which a myth out of which almost
hundred I think number is missing out
which almost 150 million comes from
India so it’s a huge huge chunk right
and hunger kills more people each year
than AIDS malaria and tuberculosis
combined so even that’s a pretty
staggering fact now the problem is that
the problem food production has such a
lot a problem right doesn’t we have we
have so much wastage which happens
everywhere all around us even inside our
homes the problem as such is that the
the you know the food was not reaching
the poor what we did was we started
dreaming right doesn’t be we realized
that there’s a huge problem that needs
to be solved there are millions of
people who are who don’t know where the
next meal is coming from so we started
dreaming and we thought that you know we
actually wanted to make a difference so
this is again this is a two-year-old
picture this is how it all started for
the Robin Hood I mean we you know what
we did Neil and I what we did was we
called a fifteen of our friends back in
August 2014 and we planned like a
get-together where we’ll all come and
we’ll pull in some money and we know we
buy put and then we will just go to and
distribute that to people living under
fly overs so five people out of the 15
showed up right and and you can see
there’s there’s some food in the boot of
my car so so we we drove around near
Green Park IIT all those areas in Delhi
and we started distributing food so we
realized that so after that the problem
another problem came in was that we
started the even our close friends right
not and not everyone started showing up
people started losing motivation
he has some people at least hearted
blaming us that we are making the needy
dependent on us so we should empower
them with you know education and all of
that so a lot of these sort of debates
started happening but then we realized
that you know we have we have a
challenge in front of us which you know
money or even more food actually could
not solve and now I’m talking about
motivation so we then we stumbled upon
something which which you know again
looking back which I call passion right
which is great and by that I mean that I
actually just never giving up not taking
no for an answer and not giving up in
the time you actually hit your goal so
what we did was very simple we actually
thought we let’s reach out to more
people right that’s what social media is
it has enabled us to do so we started we
started recently measuring everyone that
we knew in our in our networks that you
know please let’s just get together and
do something so the group became
slightly bigger now we had more food
coming in so all of that started
happening we got some media attention as
well we people we had a few events
around Independence Day around the
valley I mean an eminent personalities
came forward so now all of this came
together and suddenly the whole thing
exploded right so last this is almost
twelve months back when I think we were
I think twelve months back when we were
just in Delhi but I think within a span
of you know a couple of months you were
there in ten cities in India we had
volunteer requests coming from all
across the country and still it so it
was we never had any formalized channel
as such I really it was just again a
Facebook page that we had which we
actually you know which we created so
that we could mobilize for support so
then we actually stumbled on our next
sort of you know point aside which is
belief so no we started dreaming we
started working hard we didn’t give up
in the middle and then when all of when
all of when everything’s aren’t coming
together but then we actually started
believing that yes you know we are weak
even though it the movement started
small and we had our struggles but we
can actually make a difference and this
I think not only in the social space
even though I’m talking about you know
Robin up today but even when we went
whatever career that we choose or in
life I think this is this holds key
right I think we must believe that we
can make a difference even if we start
to very very small so now all of this is
combined and now we are we just launched
Mexico a couple of days back
latest country and now we are in tenth
sort of ten countries across the globe
so these are the sort of four or five
points I have a very short talk but
these are the four or five points and I
want to leave you guys with that you
know what started off as a simple movie
and a meal for six underprivileged kids
in you know seven years back has
actually turned into a movement today
which is spread across 10 countries and
in terms of just another stat we on an
average now serve 100,000 people per
week which is a huge number right as in
so and another very interesting this
thing is that the Robin out army is
actually when I keep saying I keep
saying the tributing is right it’s
volunteer-driven so there you will not
find any rules no degradation in order
to all nothing like that in fact no one
actually does full-time I have a
full-time job my co-founder has a
full-time job it’s only that couple of
hours on a Sunday that we can take out
which initially be used to paper out a
bit we are timing here you know we’re
extremely tired we work five six days a
week but now that we have more support
we have more people so we have actually
been able to make a difference and
obviously when one of these when all of
these points come together then you know
we experience magic right as and that’s
when that’s when everything becomes
worth it all the struggle becomes worth
it and in our case it’s you know it’s
sort of these smiles and happy faces
that make it work for us and of course
the love also is very very important
thank you [Applause]