3rd January 2017. Freshly ironed shirt, neat shoes, gel in my hair for the first time since years, I enter the IMD terrain. Even though I am 31 years old, it feels like the first day of high school all over again.
Now, one year later I look back. Realizing that I never expected many of the things that the year at IMD brought me. But most of all I never thought that it would give me the freedom and support in pursuing my own social idea and making it what it is today.
Before my IMD year, I volunteered for a year in a township in South Africa. It was right there that I realized four things that led to Selfless Selfie:
The first thing I realized was how privileged we all are. There is still so much poverty in the world. Something we never actually face in our day to day lives.
Second is how much you can actually achieve with little money. The one dollar we will not even miss can mean an evening meal for someone who might not even have access to that.
Thirdly, when I look at my own generation – the millennials – I realise how little we donate to charity. We might think about improving our world a lot but we do not open our wallet for it.
Fourth is the power of networks and the benefits of sharing stories on a common platform. A fact that the charities of the world have not figured out yet. Otherwise they would not compete for donors so fiercely.
Combining these four steps led me to Selfless Selfie. A platform where you can micro-donate as little as one dollar to a cause of your choice for every selfie you upload to social media.
You take a Selfless Selfie, choose a cause categorized by the UN Sustainability Goals (by the way, the UN has got our back), add a cool filter and by uploading it to social media, it makes your selfie selfless so that everyone can see that you care.
If you believe in our idea to make selfies a little more selfless, please support our crowdfunding. Ideas or business partners are also very welcome to get in touch.
Philipp Bächtold (MBA 2017)
