[Music]
so what I’m gonna talk about today of it
is like I’m gonna touch on actually a
lot of points the previous speakers were
talking before and like summarize it a
bit in how I view that the general
question basically of this TEDx is do
you believe that young people can
actually change something in the world
and can have a significant impact that
has a global reach when I went to high
school I was learning about a lot of
different aspects of our globalized
society and actually I was puzzled the
more I learned the less I understood I
was puzzled with questions like how is
it possible that even though the global
economy is getting wealthier every year
yet social injustice increases such as
poverty and also looking at our consumer
behavior how is it possible that
children working in sweatshops everyday
just that I can buy a t-shirt for 5 euro
even though I could actually spend more
money on it or looking at public health
also doesn’t make any sense in the OECD
countries obesity and diabetes are
increasing at the same time the average
per capita chocolate consumption is also
increasing and then I asked myself a
question why do we need to eat chocolate
every single day in the first place
especially given that it’s farmed by
people who are so poor that it probably
will never eat chocolate in their entire
lives
yeah so the main question that actually
I was thinking about is why did my life
as a 17 year old European mattered more
than the life of a 17 year old in a
developing country because I was raised
and educated with the values and beliefs
that all human lives matter and that
every human being has dignity however in
reality I couldn’t see anything of that
happening in the world and
as texter Holland described it the world
is crying but nobody’s listening please
leave a message on my cellphone I got
frustrated and angry with all the
questions that I had and that
frustration and that anger like made me
angry at companies for doing business in
an unethical way and I got angry at
politicians for not driving political
change and I got angry at society with
that entire mentality where we buy
things we don’t need from the money that
we don’t have to impress people that we
actually don’t like and with my
frustration and with my anger back then
I didn’t know any other way off of how I
could handle that and I just wanted to
express myself I wanted to express my
frustration and my anger and I did that
by making music and as you can see like
if my talent for music would have been
fantastic as my hairstyle then probably
I would be also performing on stage
today instead of talking to you but that
was the only way that I knew back then
now and I can tell you and I can assure
you there probably none of the teachers
in this room would have loved to have me
as a student because I was just causing
trouble because I was always angry and
frustrated so time passed on and then I
thought like okay maybe I go to
university and if I study a bit and I
understand more about these problems and
yeah let’s see how that goes and it was
years later that I started realizing
that yeah so so so in high school I
challenged everyone and everything
around me yeah every single person and
it was that I realized years later that
yes the world is full of misery and full
of problems
I just became very pragmatic about and
accepted it and I thought okay but I as
an individual do not want to contribute
to more misery in the world that’s the
only thing that I can do and more more
importantly what I learned in the recent
years when I got much older and
in university was that actually no
problem in the world was ever solved by
being angry it took me many years to
come to that conclusion and I also came
to the conclusion that I have challenged
everyone and everything around me when I
was in high school however I have never
challenged myself and I came to the
realization that I am the one who has to
change and I cannot rely on others to
change anything for me I’d rather have
to fix it myself and I mean we have seen
a lot of fantastic talks today from a
lot of inspiring people however you
might say that like okay I’m young and
so on just like that is just dreaming
and it’s just idealistic and if you are
in skeptical about the idea that one
person can change something I absolutely
agree with you you are absolutely right
but the problem and the issue with most
people today is that their problems that
they chasing are not big enough
they are just caught up with the small
problems that we have every day oh I
need to get a good grade in the next
exam I need to go into this uni because
then I can study that or they’re like
caught up with the problem so yeah if I
work out a lot and I’m going to be very
handsome and then that girl will go out
for dinner with me so these are the
small problems that most people are
chasing however once you start chasing
the big problems and that’s what we saw
today when you start chasing these big
problems you will come to realize that
you have to gather a crowd around you
who will join you and I personally
witnessed it and that’s why I started
believing in the collaborative power of
youth because young people have always
been at the forefront of significant
social change just think of the fall of
the Berlin Wall in my home country or
also the Arab Spring that we had
recently in the recent years because
young leaders imagine a world
that is worth fighting for and this
generation of young people that we see
today is very different from previous
generations and that is because the
world today is very different and they
grow up in a very different world and
this generation of young people is all
about very different spirit the spirit
is about positive impact sustainability
and entrepreneurship because recent
global study suggests that over 50% of
Millennials are willing to support
companies and purchase purchase products
from companies that support classes that
they care about and at the same time a
global study asking more than 40,000
young people they stated that 64 percent
or 61 percent of them want to become an
entrepreneur in the future but at the
same time they do not have enough
guidance and they feel they do not have
enough support in getting there and also
the majority of them said that they
prefer experience based learning as the
number one method of acquiring new
skills and learning new knowledge so as
you can see we’re looking at a young
generation that is craving for change
and yet at the same time want to do
business at their preference and this is
one of the aspects that we are
addressing with our movement where we
unite a whole generation to stand up and
to take action against modern-day
slavery and at the same time they can
learn their first steps as a young
entrepreneur and as a young leader where
we’re fighting an illegal business that
generates more than a hundred fifty
million u.s. dollars every single year
and where we’re speaking up for the
freedom of over 35 million slaves that
we have in the world today that is more
than we had in any time of human history
so it started the students they come
together and they run a continuous
24-hour relay race in order to create
urgency and to bring the cause to public
attention and to fundraise to support
small charities that were not would not
be able to access that support that we
have in such a wealthy society like Hong
Kong and it started in 2010 where a
hundred eighty young students from all
over Hong Kong came together and ran the
race and together they fund raised more
than thirty thousand US dollars to
support a small charity that is working
in Nepal and in India and with that
single fundraising back then that
charity could rescue over fifty children
who were trafficked from Nepal to India
where they worked in exploitative
orphanage and circus businesses but it
even goes beyond that in the course of
this rescue operation a traffickers got
arrested an entire trafficking route
from Nepal to India got shut down
ending includes also the explorative
orphanages where the children were
enslaved at and the students came
together back then because they knew it
mattered and because they knew it would
make a significant difference for the
life of others and that was under the
leadership of a handful of young people
and ever since our movement has grown
substantially last year alone over 2,000
students came together and were engaged
in our races and those races happened
simultaneously in three cities and we
fund raised more than two hundred and
fifty thousand US dollars and we’re not
only supporting charities in Nepal now
but all over Southeast Asia
local grassroots NGOs that work
tirelessly in the field to rescue more
children from slavery prosecute
traffickers and even changing the way
how the governments respond to the
problem it is that when you often are
confronted with all these problems that
that are in the world out there climate
change environmental pollution poverty
injustice slavery like myself you start
feeling like okay there’s nothing I can
do you feel hopeless and you start being
paralyzed and I just have to tell you
like I often wonder what great things I
could have achieved ten years ago if
someone had shown me a better way
instead of just being angry where I
actually could have taken action and our
movement is just one example of what a
handful of young leaders can achieve and
how something small can grow into
something huge with a global reach and a
significant impact as Ban ki-moon said
it last year I’d be proud to be young
you’re not the leaders of tomorrow
you’re the leaders of today
[Applause]
so what I’m gonna talk about today of it
is like I’m gonna touch on actually a
lot of points the previous speakers were
talking before and like summarize it a
bit in how I view that the general
question basically of this TEDx is do
you believe that young people can
actually change something in the world
and can have a significant impact that
has a global reach when I went to high
school I was learning about a lot of
different aspects of our globalized
society and actually I was puzzled the
more I learned the less I understood I
was puzzled with questions like how is
it possible that even though the global
economy is getting wealthier every year
yet social injustice increases such as
poverty and also looking at our consumer
behavior how is it possible that
children working in sweatshops everyday
just that I can buy a t-shirt for 5 euro
even though I could actually spend more
money on it or looking at public health
also doesn’t make any sense in the OECD
countries obesity and diabetes are
increasing at the same time the average
per capita chocolate consumption is also
increasing and then I asked myself a
question why do we need to eat chocolate
every single day in the first place
especially given that it’s farmed by
people who are so poor that it probably
will never eat chocolate in their entire
lives
yeah so the main question that actually
I was thinking about is why did my life
as a 17 year old European mattered more
than the life of a 17 year old in a
developing country because I was raised
and educated with the values and beliefs
that all human lives matter and that
every human being has dignity however in
reality I couldn’t see anything of that
happening in the world and
as texter Holland described it the world
is crying but nobody’s listening please
leave a message on my cellphone I got
frustrated and angry with all the
questions that I had and that
frustration and that anger like made me
angry at companies for doing business in
an unethical way and I got angry at
politicians for not driving political
change and I got angry at society with
that entire mentality where we buy
things we don’t need from the money that
we don’t have to impress people that we
actually don’t like and with my
frustration and with my anger back then
I didn’t know any other way off of how I
could handle that and I just wanted to
express myself I wanted to express my
frustration and my anger and I did that
by making music and as you can see like
if my talent for music would have been
fantastic as my hairstyle then probably
I would be also performing on stage
today instead of talking to you but that
was the only way that I knew back then
now and I can tell you and I can assure
you there probably none of the teachers
in this room would have loved to have me
as a student because I was just causing
trouble because I was always angry and
frustrated so time passed on and then I
thought like okay maybe I go to
university and if I study a bit and I
understand more about these problems and
yeah let’s see how that goes and it was
years later that I started realizing
that yeah so so so in high school I
challenged everyone and everything
around me yeah every single person and
it was that I realized years later that
yes the world is full of misery and full
of problems
I just became very pragmatic about and
accepted it and I thought okay but I as
an individual do not want to contribute
to more misery in the world that’s the
only thing that I can do and more more
importantly what I learned in the recent
years when I got much older and
in university was that actually no
problem in the world was ever solved by
being angry it took me many years to
come to that conclusion and I also came
to the conclusion that I have challenged
everyone and everything around me when I
was in high school however I have never
challenged myself and I came to the
realization that I am the one who has to
change and I cannot rely on others to
change anything for me I’d rather have
to fix it myself and I mean we have seen
a lot of fantastic talks today from a
lot of inspiring people however you
might say that like okay I’m young and
so on just like that is just dreaming
and it’s just idealistic and if you are
in skeptical about the idea that one
person can change something I absolutely
agree with you you are absolutely right
but the problem and the issue with most
people today is that their problems that
they chasing are not big enough
they are just caught up with the small
problems that we have every day oh I
need to get a good grade in the next
exam I need to go into this uni because
then I can study that or they’re like
caught up with the problem so yeah if I
work out a lot and I’m going to be very
handsome and then that girl will go out
for dinner with me so these are the
small problems that most people are
chasing however once you start chasing
the big problems and that’s what we saw
today when you start chasing these big
problems you will come to realize that
you have to gather a crowd around you
who will join you and I personally
witnessed it and that’s why I started
believing in the collaborative power of
youth because young people have always
been at the forefront of significant
social change just think of the fall of
the Berlin Wall in my home country or
also the Arab Spring that we had
recently in the recent years because
young leaders imagine a world
that is worth fighting for and this
generation of young people that we see
today is very different from previous
generations and that is because the
world today is very different and they
grow up in a very different world and
this generation of young people is all
about very different spirit the spirit
is about positive impact sustainability
and entrepreneurship because recent
global study suggests that over 50% of
Millennials are willing to support
companies and purchase purchase products
from companies that support classes that
they care about and at the same time a
global study asking more than 40,000
young people they stated that 64 percent
or 61 percent of them want to become an
entrepreneur in the future but at the
same time they do not have enough
guidance and they feel they do not have
enough support in getting there and also
the majority of them said that they
prefer experience based learning as the
number one method of acquiring new
skills and learning new knowledge so as
you can see we’re looking at a young
generation that is craving for change
and yet at the same time want to do
business at their preference and this is
one of the aspects that we are
addressing with our movement where we
unite a whole generation to stand up and
to take action against modern-day
slavery and at the same time they can
learn their first steps as a young
entrepreneur and as a young leader where
we’re fighting an illegal business that
generates more than a hundred fifty
million u.s. dollars every single year
and where we’re speaking up for the
freedom of over 35 million slaves that
we have in the world today that is more
than we had in any time of human history
so it started the students they come
together and they run a continuous
24-hour relay race in order to create
urgency and to bring the cause to public
attention and to fundraise to support
small charities that were not would not
be able to access that support that we
have in such a wealthy society like Hong
Kong and it started in 2010 where a
hundred eighty young students from all
over Hong Kong came together and ran the
race and together they fund raised more
than thirty thousand US dollars to
support a small charity that is working
in Nepal and in India and with that
single fundraising back then that
charity could rescue over fifty children
who were trafficked from Nepal to India
where they worked in exploitative
orphanage and circus businesses but it
even goes beyond that in the course of
this rescue operation a traffickers got
arrested an entire trafficking route
from Nepal to India got shut down
ending includes also the explorative
orphanages where the children were
enslaved at and the students came
together back then because they knew it
mattered and because they knew it would
make a significant difference for the
life of others and that was under the
leadership of a handful of young people
and ever since our movement has grown
substantially last year alone over 2,000
students came together and were engaged
in our races and those races happened
simultaneously in three cities and we
fund raised more than two hundred and
fifty thousand US dollars and we’re not
only supporting charities in Nepal now
but all over Southeast Asia
local grassroots NGOs that work
tirelessly in the field to rescue more
children from slavery prosecute
traffickers and even changing the way
how the governments respond to the
problem it is that when you often are
confronted with all these problems that
that are in the world out there climate
change environmental pollution poverty
injustice slavery like myself you start
feeling like okay there’s nothing I can
do you feel hopeless and you start being
paralyzed and I just have to tell you
like I often wonder what great things I
could have achieved ten years ago if
someone had shown me a better way
instead of just being angry where I
actually could have taken action and our
movement is just one example of what a
handful of young leaders can achieve and
how something small can grow into
something huge with a global reach and a
significant impact as Ban ki-moon said
it last year I’d be proud to be young
you’re not the leaders of tomorrow
you’re the leaders of today
[Applause]
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