poverty hunger education access to clean
water and sanitation we all know the
biggest issues facing our world today
and like many of you sitting out there
today I want to help make a difference
don’t we want to live in a world where
people no longer have to live sleep on
the streets in the middle of a freezing
cold winter and where children around
the world are no longer starving well
I’ve got the next 17 minutes or so to
talk to you guys about how we can help
to build this better future how I’m
working on sustainable solutions to help
women in rural Africa and how you guys
can be a part of creating innovative
solutions to some of the world’s
greatest problems now one of the ways to
help out is through charity and I’ve had
the pleasure of working with many
amazing people who have dedicated their
lives in the service of others and this
has led me to not only meet some
phenomenal people but I’ve also got to
work with some remarkable charities but
the current models that many charities
work on are flawed and we need new
models for social change and this is
because there’s a darker side to charity
that most people don’t see one where
many charities are going out business or
barely keeping their heads above water
or creating massive power imbalances
that lead to some pretty horrific things
imagine going up to a group of veterans
and telling them that the work
experience that they need can no longer
continue because you didn’t fundraise
enough that month or going up to a group
of disabled kids and telling the weekly
sessions you run they give them some
semblance of normality in their lives
can no longer continue but you didn’t
get a government grant that you needed
you know many of us gives to charity
but what happens when hard times hit and
people can no longer give well it’s the
people who really need help that miss
out and these are all real conversations
that people have had to have and it
showed me that if we want to make any
kind of meaningful and real change in
the world we have to do it in a way
that’s sustainable both environmentally
socially and most importantly
financially now this idea is not new and
it’s not novel around three years ago
world leaders came together the United
Nations created the sustainable
development goals with number of targets
spread across 17 aspirational global
goals and this was all done in order to
and I quote shift the world onto a path
of inclusive sustainable and resilient
development now when I first found out
about this I knew it was something I
want to be a part of and I’d honestly
thought that by using this model of
sustainability which found the way to
make a real difference in the world and
we found the right models of social
change but the truth is this was up
until I met one guy from Malawi who came
up to me and he said kyon the projects
are running are amazing but the issue of
people in third-world countries because
I essentially told him that the
philosophy we work on is that if you
give someone a fish then you feed them
for a day but if you teach someone to
fish and you feed them for a lifetime
they came up to me and he said the
projects are incredible we’ve got to
change the narrative the issue with
people in third-world countries
isn’t that they don’t know how to fish
because they do
the issue is that they don’t have the
resources the infrastructure or even the
basic tools to be able to fish for
themselves and this really opened my
eyes the fact that if we want to make
meaningful change we have to go one step
further we have to put change into the
hands of the people who really need it
by giving them the tools and the
training to be able to improve their own
lives and here’s an example of how we do
it I want you all to join me on a
journey out to meet a community in
Rwanda that our team has been working
with over the last few years now to
better understand the community I first
want to introduce you to console a she
is an incredible woman and lives in a
cooperative in Rwanda called Eva Tanguay
she is the sole provider in carer for
her four daughters and is a single mum
because her husband and all of her sons
were killed during the Rwandan genocide
she works hard every single day to
provide food and everything for her
daughters but her struggle is made worse
by the fact that she doesn’t have access
to affordable menstrual care this means
that once consulate is on her period or
week of shame as it’s sometimes referred
to out there she doesn’t go to work her
daughters don’t really have access to
her and while her daughters are on their
periods they don’t go to school and this
means that it’s harder for constantly to
provide for her family and that her
daughters eventually end up dropping out
of school now you might be thinking well
why don’t they just buy some sanitary
pads or some tampons or something but
the problem is is that the currently
available imported pads that they have
access to cost as much as an hour
which farmers daily wage now if we
really think about that for a second
here in the UK that would be like
spending a hundred and five pounds per
packet of Sancho Panza or 150 u.s.
dollars and what this means that the
only option that consular and her
daughters have is to use unhygenic rags
and cloths that lead to infections and a
loss of health what’s worse is the fact
that it’s not just constantly that has
the issues her story is similar to
millions of women around the world and
around we were human out there we found
that 75 percent of women and girls would
miss school and work whilst on their
periods and this means that over the
course of their lifetime they’re losing
now her community was also donated three
thousand banana trees in an effort to
help them and this was an incredible
idea and an incredible step because it
meant that they could use the bananas to
make food and even been on a whiskey but
the problem with banana trees is that
they only grow fruit once in their
lifetime this means if you want more
bananas you have to grow new banana
trees and the stems of these banana
trees are thought to be useless and so
every single year they have 3,000 banana
trees they get cut down and thrown on
the side of the road left to rot but our
team found these banana trees and these
banana stems were not useless
we found that they could be used to make
the sanitary pads that these women so
desperately needed and so here’s a video
of one of our student engineers out in
Rwanda teaching some of the women one of
the steps in that process first they
stripped the core of the tree into
stringy fibers
once you’ve got two there is the dried
mark in the Sun then they mix paper and
water to make a paste the paper means
the final product will be white and more
attractive the fibers are added so that
it can eventually go rigid it’s then
cooked to make it pure and dried in the
Sun the result a highly absorbent pads
that can be used in nappies and sanitary
towels we thought that console a story
was too important to ignore and so we
came back to the UK and have worked with
lecturers one of which is dr. Greek
who’s saying this room today as well as
business executives and our university
in order to develop this process further
and create and find a way to turn these
banana trees into sanitary pads there
will be a hundred percent biodegradable
we currently have two machines in the
final stages of development in order to
both make and sterilize the pads and
we’ll be going out to Rwanda in summer
of this year and working with consulate
and Tara Fein another lady in the
community whose story is very similar to
Consulate’s
and we’ll be working with them to help
empower them to provide access to
accessible and affordable sanitary pads
at a fraction of the current price
here’s what consul a what tariff in
Surrey had to say about our projects
since all ladies have a menstrual cycle
this will really help us instead of
spending the money in the shop where
we’ve been buying them we are going to
make them and teach auditors to the cost
will be cut we could even make plenty of
them and begin a business what’s more is
that it’s not just this corporate ofthat
we can help
we’ve already had interest about our
projects from areas of other areas in
Miranda as well as places like Uganda in
Kenya and even Ghana and now this wall
so I’ve told you about one of the
projects that I’ve been involved with
over the last few
years there are actually millions of
people around the world working on
innovative solutions to some of the
world’s most prevalent issues by working
in groups as individuals or through
programs and what I found is if we want
to make a difference in the world then
we need the right people the right
resources or resourcefulness and a lot
of hard work because if we can take
experience and expertise and infuse that
with energy creativity and passion and
when we start to utilize the right
resources we can create new models of
social change and come up with new ideas
and what better place to find those
ingredients then at university we have
access to future leaders in every area
of ranging all the way from engineering
through to archaeology and we all know
how motivated students can be when it
comes to social change we also have
access to academics and entrepreneurs
whose knowledge far exceeds that that
somebody could hope to achieve at
university level and this has allowed us
to make the multidisciplinary teams that
we need to pull projects like this off
and through our work with lecturers we
can now make research outputs that have
a significant grounding in reality and
that can really make a difference in the
world
and finally we have access to businesses
and institutions whose reach extends to
a global level you know businesses have
these things called CSR days or
corporate social responsibility days
which I think is an amazing idea in a
great step in the right direction
they’ll essentially go out into a
community and help build a school or
send people out to go and volunteer
which is incredible but I think that we
can take this one step further what if
instead of building a school we use the
experience that these executives have
spent years cultivating and go out there
and run projects that allow communities
and so that might seem impossible I want
to urge you all to challenge the way the
world works
to disrupt current systems and to go out
there and help create innovative
solutions to some of the world’s biggest
problems
because I honestly believe that if we
can see opportunity where others see
challenge if we can fear not trying
instead of failure and if we can focus
on what can be and what must be instead
of merely dwelling on what is then we
can find stories powerful enough to
unite the greatest minds in
institutional education academia and
business and we can come up with new
ideas and new models of social change
that give dignity back to people like
console a and Tara Fein and allow them
to improve their own lives and so what
can you guys do and how can you help
well first you have to believe that you
can make a difference I’m sure that
there are many of you sat out there
today thinking but I’m just a child I’m
just a student I’m just another cog in
the big wheel of business or that it’s
too scary or it’s too difficult or that
it’s just another impossible childhood
fantasy well I’m here to tell you today
that it may be scary and it may be
difficult but it’s also too important to
avoid doing what is possible and so
because whilst I’ve told you about an
incredible project
I’m personally nothing special I’m just
a 21 year old student that has got to
meet some incredible people through this
project but I did find that something
amazing happened when I started to tell
people about console a story I found
that the boundaries between students
lecturers
versus executives and directors broke
down and instead of being individuals we
became a group of people working
together in solidarity to try and make a
difference in the world and so if you
are someone who has experience and
expertise in an area whether it be a
field of business as someone who’s
worked with vulnerable people or as an
engineer then you can go out there and
help run projects you can create and
share ideas and you can reach out to see
what there is that you can do to help to
the people who are already running
projects if you are someone who owns a
business then you can go out there and
maintain an open forum and a platform to
be able to share what resources you can
with those who really need it and if you
are someone who cares enough to make a
difference then you’re the most
important part because you can find the
skills and resources that you need and
you can go out there and inspire
energizing unite the people that you
need to help move humanity forwards and
so although I can’t tell you exactly how
what to do all it really takes to change
the world it’s first the belief that we
can a story powerful enough to unite us
an idea that can make a difference and
the hard work and resources to make it a
reality
and so my question to you is this if we
can do that then why don’t we thank you
that’s awesome all I can say is I think
that women mothers in third world
countries are probably some of the most
high working people so no wonder they’ve
inspired you to take up such an such an
ambitious project again I just want to
thank you for spreading your idea on
this stage today everybody please a
round of applause actually I’ve got a
question okay so what is one simple step
that all of us as a community can take
to make our society more sustainable I
think it’s just making it sustainable
before we start I think it’s a case of
when we’re going out there and when
we’re trying to do new things it’s
starting off by thinking about
sustainability not thinking about oh
what can I do to do take this one step
but thinking about how can I help an
entire community how can I help people
so for example with console a we could
very easily go out there from raise some
money and just give them some sanitary
pads but it means that their daughters
and their daughters daughters and
everyone for years to come
won’t have that same privilege and so I
really think about when we’re going into
sustainability it’s a case of thinking
about it when we start not going into it
and realizing oh no everything’s not
working because we don’t have enough of
this leftover but it’s starting off by
thinking about how can we make it
sustainable brilliant well we’ll leave
it the dad again
everybody please [Applause]
water and sanitation we all know the
biggest issues facing our world today
and like many of you sitting out there
today I want to help make a difference
don’t we want to live in a world where
people no longer have to live sleep on
the streets in the middle of a freezing
cold winter and where children around
the world are no longer starving well
I’ve got the next 17 minutes or so to
talk to you guys about how we can help
to build this better future how I’m
working on sustainable solutions to help
women in rural Africa and how you guys
can be a part of creating innovative
solutions to some of the world’s
greatest problems now one of the ways to
help out is through charity and I’ve had
the pleasure of working with many
amazing people who have dedicated their
lives in the service of others and this
has led me to not only meet some
phenomenal people but I’ve also got to
work with some remarkable charities but
the current models that many charities
work on are flawed and we need new
models for social change and this is
because there’s a darker side to charity
that most people don’t see one where
many charities are going out business or
barely keeping their heads above water
or creating massive power imbalances
that lead to some pretty horrific things
imagine going up to a group of veterans
and telling them that the work
experience that they need can no longer
continue because you didn’t fundraise
enough that month or going up to a group
of disabled kids and telling the weekly
sessions you run they give them some
semblance of normality in their lives
can no longer continue but you didn’t
get a government grant that you needed
you know many of us gives to charity
but what happens when hard times hit and
people can no longer give well it’s the
people who really need help that miss
out and these are all real conversations
that people have had to have and it
showed me that if we want to make any
kind of meaningful and real change in
the world we have to do it in a way
that’s sustainable both environmentally
socially and most importantly
financially now this idea is not new and
it’s not novel around three years ago
world leaders came together the United
Nations created the sustainable
development goals with number of targets
spread across 17 aspirational global
goals and this was all done in order to
and I quote shift the world onto a path
of inclusive sustainable and resilient
development now when I first found out
about this I knew it was something I
want to be a part of and I’d honestly
thought that by using this model of
sustainability which found the way to
make a real difference in the world and
we found the right models of social
change but the truth is this was up
until I met one guy from Malawi who came
up to me and he said kyon the projects
are running are amazing but the issue of
people in third-world countries because
I essentially told him that the
philosophy we work on is that if you
give someone a fish then you feed them
for a day but if you teach someone to
fish and you feed them for a lifetime
they came up to me and he said the
projects are incredible we’ve got to
change the narrative the issue with
people in third-world countries
isn’t that they don’t know how to fish
because they do
the issue is that they don’t have the
resources the infrastructure or even the
basic tools to be able to fish for
themselves and this really opened my
eyes the fact that if we want to make
meaningful change we have to go one step
further we have to put change into the
hands of the people who really need it
by giving them the tools and the
training to be able to improve their own
lives and here’s an example of how we do
it I want you all to join me on a
journey out to meet a community in
Rwanda that our team has been working
with over the last few years now to
better understand the community I first
want to introduce you to console a she
is an incredible woman and lives in a
cooperative in Rwanda called Eva Tanguay
she is the sole provider in carer for
her four daughters and is a single mum
because her husband and all of her sons
were killed during the Rwandan genocide
she works hard every single day to
provide food and everything for her
daughters but her struggle is made worse
by the fact that she doesn’t have access
to affordable menstrual care this means
that once consulate is on her period or
week of shame as it’s sometimes referred
to out there she doesn’t go to work her
daughters don’t really have access to
her and while her daughters are on their
periods they don’t go to school and this
means that it’s harder for constantly to
provide for her family and that her
daughters eventually end up dropping out
of school now you might be thinking well
why don’t they just buy some sanitary
pads or some tampons or something but
the problem is is that the currently
available imported pads that they have
access to cost as much as an hour
which farmers daily wage now if we
really think about that for a second
here in the UK that would be like
spending a hundred and five pounds per
packet of Sancho Panza or 150 u.s.
dollars and what this means that the
only option that consular and her
daughters have is to use unhygenic rags
and cloths that lead to infections and a
loss of health what’s worse is the fact
that it’s not just constantly that has
the issues her story is similar to
millions of women around the world and
around we were human out there we found
that 75 percent of women and girls would
miss school and work whilst on their
periods and this means that over the
course of their lifetime they’re losing
now her community was also donated three
thousand banana trees in an effort to
help them and this was an incredible
idea and an incredible step because it
meant that they could use the bananas to
make food and even been on a whiskey but
the problem with banana trees is that
they only grow fruit once in their
lifetime this means if you want more
bananas you have to grow new banana
trees and the stems of these banana
trees are thought to be useless and so
every single year they have 3,000 banana
trees they get cut down and thrown on
the side of the road left to rot but our
team found these banana trees and these
banana stems were not useless
we found that they could be used to make
the sanitary pads that these women so
desperately needed and so here’s a video
of one of our student engineers out in
Rwanda teaching some of the women one of
the steps in that process first they
stripped the core of the tree into
stringy fibers
once you’ve got two there is the dried
mark in the Sun then they mix paper and
water to make a paste the paper means
the final product will be white and more
attractive the fibers are added so that
it can eventually go rigid it’s then
cooked to make it pure and dried in the
Sun the result a highly absorbent pads
that can be used in nappies and sanitary
towels we thought that console a story
was too important to ignore and so we
came back to the UK and have worked with
lecturers one of which is dr. Greek
who’s saying this room today as well as
business executives and our university
in order to develop this process further
and create and find a way to turn these
banana trees into sanitary pads there
will be a hundred percent biodegradable
we currently have two machines in the
final stages of development in order to
both make and sterilize the pads and
we’ll be going out to Rwanda in summer
of this year and working with consulate
and Tara Fein another lady in the
community whose story is very similar to
Consulate’s
and we’ll be working with them to help
empower them to provide access to
accessible and affordable sanitary pads
at a fraction of the current price
here’s what consul a what tariff in
Surrey had to say about our projects
since all ladies have a menstrual cycle
this will really help us instead of
spending the money in the shop where
we’ve been buying them we are going to
make them and teach auditors to the cost
will be cut we could even make plenty of
them and begin a business what’s more is
that it’s not just this corporate ofthat
we can help
we’ve already had interest about our
projects from areas of other areas in
Miranda as well as places like Uganda in
Kenya and even Ghana and now this wall
so I’ve told you about one of the
projects that I’ve been involved with
over the last few
years there are actually millions of
people around the world working on
innovative solutions to some of the
world’s most prevalent issues by working
in groups as individuals or through
programs and what I found is if we want
to make a difference in the world then
we need the right people the right
resources or resourcefulness and a lot
of hard work because if we can take
experience and expertise and infuse that
with energy creativity and passion and
when we start to utilize the right
resources we can create new models of
social change and come up with new ideas
and what better place to find those
ingredients then at university we have
access to future leaders in every area
of ranging all the way from engineering
through to archaeology and we all know
how motivated students can be when it
comes to social change we also have
access to academics and entrepreneurs
whose knowledge far exceeds that that
somebody could hope to achieve at
university level and this has allowed us
to make the multidisciplinary teams that
we need to pull projects like this off
and through our work with lecturers we
can now make research outputs that have
a significant grounding in reality and
that can really make a difference in the
world
and finally we have access to businesses
and institutions whose reach extends to
a global level you know businesses have
these things called CSR days or
corporate social responsibility days
which I think is an amazing idea in a
great step in the right direction
they’ll essentially go out into a
community and help build a school or
send people out to go and volunteer
which is incredible but I think that we
can take this one step further what if
instead of building a school we use the
experience that these executives have
spent years cultivating and go out there
and run projects that allow communities
and so that might seem impossible I want
to urge you all to challenge the way the
world works
to disrupt current systems and to go out
there and help create innovative
solutions to some of the world’s biggest
problems
because I honestly believe that if we
can see opportunity where others see
challenge if we can fear not trying
instead of failure and if we can focus
on what can be and what must be instead
of merely dwelling on what is then we
can find stories powerful enough to
unite the greatest minds in
institutional education academia and
business and we can come up with new
ideas and new models of social change
that give dignity back to people like
console a and Tara Fein and allow them
to improve their own lives and so what
can you guys do and how can you help
well first you have to believe that you
can make a difference I’m sure that
there are many of you sat out there
today thinking but I’m just a child I’m
just a student I’m just another cog in
the big wheel of business or that it’s
too scary or it’s too difficult or that
it’s just another impossible childhood
fantasy well I’m here to tell you today
that it may be scary and it may be
difficult but it’s also too important to
avoid doing what is possible and so
because whilst I’ve told you about an
incredible project
I’m personally nothing special I’m just
a 21 year old student that has got to
meet some incredible people through this
project but I did find that something
amazing happened when I started to tell
people about console a story I found
that the boundaries between students
lecturers
versus executives and directors broke
down and instead of being individuals we
became a group of people working
together in solidarity to try and make a
difference in the world and so if you
are someone who has experience and
expertise in an area whether it be a
field of business as someone who’s
worked with vulnerable people or as an
engineer then you can go out there and
help run projects you can create and
share ideas and you can reach out to see
what there is that you can do to help to
the people who are already running
projects if you are someone who owns a
business then you can go out there and
maintain an open forum and a platform to
be able to share what resources you can
with those who really need it and if you
are someone who cares enough to make a
difference then you’re the most
important part because you can find the
skills and resources that you need and
you can go out there and inspire
energizing unite the people that you
need to help move humanity forwards and
so although I can’t tell you exactly how
what to do all it really takes to change
the world it’s first the belief that we
can a story powerful enough to unite us
an idea that can make a difference and
the hard work and resources to make it a
reality
and so my question to you is this if we
can do that then why don’t we thank you
that’s awesome all I can say is I think
that women mothers in third world
countries are probably some of the most
high working people so no wonder they’ve
inspired you to take up such an such an
ambitious project again I just want to
thank you for spreading your idea on
this stage today everybody please a
round of applause actually I’ve got a
question okay so what is one simple step
that all of us as a community can take
to make our society more sustainable I
think it’s just making it sustainable
before we start I think it’s a case of
when we’re going out there and when
we’re trying to do new things it’s
starting off by thinking about
sustainability not thinking about oh
what can I do to do take this one step
but thinking about how can I help an
entire community how can I help people
so for example with console a we could
very easily go out there from raise some
money and just give them some sanitary
pads but it means that their daughters
and their daughters daughters and
everyone for years to come
won’t have that same privilege and so I
really think about when we’re going into
sustainability it’s a case of thinking
about it when we start not going into it
and realizing oh no everything’s not
working because we don’t have enough of
this leftover but it’s starting off by
thinking about how can we make it
sustainable brilliant well we’ll leave
it the dad again
everybody please [Applause]
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