it’s a 14 degrees Fahrenheit outside and
there’s a snowstorm going on in these
conditions most people would want to be
inside and I did too
but instead of being inside of my dorm
room like many of my friends I was
inside of a homemade sleeping bag a few
friends and I had sewn together a few
days earlier now you’re probably asking
why is he in a sleeping bag to answer
this question we have to go back 10
years I spent most of my childhood in
the Boy Scouts program every month we’d
go backpacking and on these trips we
would sleep on the ground underneath the
stars without a tent if it started to
rain we would pitch a plastic tarp above
us all these nights our sleeping bag was
the only thing keeping us warm and we
lived by a Scout slogan do a good turn
daily the way my old Scoutmaster
described this was that anybody could do
a good thing every single day as I grew
older I became more and more aware of
the different challenges people around
the world were facing
I remember seeing pictures of refugee
children struggling to stay warm in the
winter I remember seeing my friends
share pictures like this on Facebook and
offer their own thoughts and prayers
what I remember most though was how
helpless I felt seeing this picture and
knowing that the only thing I could do
was offer my own thoughts and prayers I
eventually left the program and started
taking classes at MIT there I was
surprised a lot of my classmates were
focusing their time on creating the new
app or researching emerging technologies
such as virtual reality but they weren’t
spending as much time on what I saw to
be other pressing issues such as the
Syrian refugee crisis
so there I decided to combine what I
have learned in Boy Scouts with what I
was learning at MIT to create traveller
pack a multi-purpose sleeping bag
specifically designed for refugees in
the Middle East to help them stay warm
during the winter and also improve their
quality of life and with this project I
adopted a very stubborn mentality I was
going to do whatever it took to make a
difference in the beginning we wanted to
work with Raoul but you can’t buy that
online in small quantities so we found a
lit harbors in Massachusetts on Google
and started cold calling and cold
emailing eventually I spoke with the
over the phone with the Shepherd and I
decided it was worth a shot
so I rented a car drove three hours down
to his farm to meet this Shepherd but
more importantly to meet his sheep and
he ended up selling me some wool our
next step was to sew together our first
prototype so we convinced the mechanical
engineering professor to lend us a $600
sewing machine and with this we stored
everything if I dorm room we used to put
the sewing machine in my closet
underneath my clothes and we threw all
the materials underneath my bed every
few nights we would move everything to
the kitchen where we would sew together
pieces of this bag
on our dining room table until
eventually we had our first prototype
for the longest time though we didn’t
know how exactly to test this bag to see
if it worked until one night in January
2017 a snowstorm had come into Boston
and the mayor had shut down the city I
was biking walking back to my dorm in
the middle of the storm when I thought
to myself wow it’s pretty cold outside
the temperature had dropped down to 14
degrees Fahrenheit that and then this
ridiculous idea popped up maybe the best
way to test this bag is for me to sleep
inside of it overnight and
side during this snowstorm my first
thought was if I decide to do this you
know there’s a pretty big chance that I
get really hurt but I knew that with
this project we wouldn’t be able to move
forward unless we knew whether or not
this bag worked granted I was also a
college freshman so I decided it was
worth it that takes us back to this
original picture so I waited for a break
in the store I threw my back down and I
got inside of it the next morning I woke
up there was snow all over the bag but I
was completely fine
and it was at this moment that I
realized you know maybe we do have a
good chance at helping some people since
that a lot of things have changed we now
work with a manufacturer to produce our
bags on a much larger scale so that we
no longer have to sew them in my kitchen
we also work with a nonprofit called Lou
de Syria and they have a team on the
ground in Syria that has done some
amazing work with the local refugee
populations they’re gathering design
input distributing our bags and most
importantly helping the local refugee
populations integrate traveller pack
into their day-to-day lives this past
winter we raised about fifty thousand
dollars and with that money we’ve
distributed 600 of our bags in Syria and
we have another 400 in production in the
meantime we are continuing to look for
ways to make an even bigger impact if I
may I want to leave you with a little
bit of food for thought today with
traveling back in the beginning we were
three freshmen and we would call the Red
Cross and the UN out of the blue and
asked them all these questions like
nobody’s business
I used to email nonprofits telling them
hey my name is Vic I am a product
manager at a company called traveler PAC
do you have a few minutes trying to
convince them that I wasn’t really just
an eighteen year old trying to balance
studying for exams and this at one point
I even took up a job on the side sorting
mail for MIT students so that my team
and I could purchase more materials
and make more prototypes I guess what
I’m trying to say is that if you see
something wrong in the world there’s
always something you can do it’s never
easy and it doesn’t happen overnight but
I truly believe we can become the change
we’ve so desperately been waiting for
and that starts with each and every one
of us thank you [Applause]
there’s a snowstorm going on in these
conditions most people would want to be
inside and I did too
but instead of being inside of my dorm
room like many of my friends I was
inside of a homemade sleeping bag a few
friends and I had sewn together a few
days earlier now you’re probably asking
why is he in a sleeping bag to answer
this question we have to go back 10
years I spent most of my childhood in
the Boy Scouts program every month we’d
go backpacking and on these trips we
would sleep on the ground underneath the
stars without a tent if it started to
rain we would pitch a plastic tarp above
us all these nights our sleeping bag was
the only thing keeping us warm and we
lived by a Scout slogan do a good turn
daily the way my old Scoutmaster
described this was that anybody could do
a good thing every single day as I grew
older I became more and more aware of
the different challenges people around
the world were facing
I remember seeing pictures of refugee
children struggling to stay warm in the
winter I remember seeing my friends
share pictures like this on Facebook and
offer their own thoughts and prayers
what I remember most though was how
helpless I felt seeing this picture and
knowing that the only thing I could do
was offer my own thoughts and prayers I
eventually left the program and started
taking classes at MIT there I was
surprised a lot of my classmates were
focusing their time on creating the new
app or researching emerging technologies
such as virtual reality but they weren’t
spending as much time on what I saw to
be other pressing issues such as the
Syrian refugee crisis
so there I decided to combine what I
have learned in Boy Scouts with what I
was learning at MIT to create traveller
pack a multi-purpose sleeping bag
specifically designed for refugees in
the Middle East to help them stay warm
during the winter and also improve their
quality of life and with this project I
adopted a very stubborn mentality I was
going to do whatever it took to make a
difference in the beginning we wanted to
work with Raoul but you can’t buy that
online in small quantities so we found a
lit harbors in Massachusetts on Google
and started cold calling and cold
emailing eventually I spoke with the
over the phone with the Shepherd and I
decided it was worth a shot
so I rented a car drove three hours down
to his farm to meet this Shepherd but
more importantly to meet his sheep and
he ended up selling me some wool our
next step was to sew together our first
prototype so we convinced the mechanical
engineering professor to lend us a $600
sewing machine and with this we stored
everything if I dorm room we used to put
the sewing machine in my closet
underneath my clothes and we threw all
the materials underneath my bed every
few nights we would move everything to
the kitchen where we would sew together
pieces of this bag
on our dining room table until
eventually we had our first prototype
for the longest time though we didn’t
know how exactly to test this bag to see
if it worked until one night in January
2017 a snowstorm had come into Boston
and the mayor had shut down the city I
was biking walking back to my dorm in
the middle of the storm when I thought
to myself wow it’s pretty cold outside
the temperature had dropped down to 14
degrees Fahrenheit that and then this
ridiculous idea popped up maybe the best
way to test this bag is for me to sleep
inside of it overnight and
side during this snowstorm my first
thought was if I decide to do this you
know there’s a pretty big chance that I
get really hurt but I knew that with
this project we wouldn’t be able to move
forward unless we knew whether or not
this bag worked granted I was also a
college freshman so I decided it was
worth it that takes us back to this
original picture so I waited for a break
in the store I threw my back down and I
got inside of it the next morning I woke
up there was snow all over the bag but I
was completely fine
and it was at this moment that I
realized you know maybe we do have a
good chance at helping some people since
that a lot of things have changed we now
work with a manufacturer to produce our
bags on a much larger scale so that we
no longer have to sew them in my kitchen
we also work with a nonprofit called Lou
de Syria and they have a team on the
ground in Syria that has done some
amazing work with the local refugee
populations they’re gathering design
input distributing our bags and most
importantly helping the local refugee
populations integrate traveller pack
into their day-to-day lives this past
winter we raised about fifty thousand
dollars and with that money we’ve
distributed 600 of our bags in Syria and
we have another 400 in production in the
meantime we are continuing to look for
ways to make an even bigger impact if I
may I want to leave you with a little
bit of food for thought today with
traveling back in the beginning we were
three freshmen and we would call the Red
Cross and the UN out of the blue and
asked them all these questions like
nobody’s business
I used to email nonprofits telling them
hey my name is Vic I am a product
manager at a company called traveler PAC
do you have a few minutes trying to
convince them that I wasn’t really just
an eighteen year old trying to balance
studying for exams and this at one point
I even took up a job on the side sorting
mail for MIT students so that my team
and I could purchase more materials
and make more prototypes I guess what
I’m trying to say is that if you see
something wrong in the world there’s
always something you can do it’s never
easy and it doesn’t happen overnight but
I truly believe we can become the change
we’ve so desperately been waiting for
and that starts with each and every one
of us thank you [Applause]
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