Tomorrow University's Berlin immersion week brings online students together in person to explore a compassionate economy. Speakers cover regenerative agriculture, food-waste rescue with Berliner Tafel, and why companies need purpose beyond efficiency. Participants built community through sound meditation, perspective-taking workshops, and visits to social businesses doing measurable impact.
Chapters
Welcome to the Tomorrow University takeover of Berlin. This week we'll be exploring the compassionate economy, what it means to us, how we turn it into action, all in this wonderful city. Let's take a look.
Today I had the opportunity to deliver a keynote to a number of students about regenerative agriculture, systems change, and I spoke about a few lessons I learned. So from my perspective, it's important to choose a very big problem if you start out. Because first of all, there's less competition. Second of all, most likely you fail anyway as a startup founder, so you might as well fail with something important. And then finally, I believe that if you choose a meaningful problem that really makes a difference, you will find powerful supporters along the way.
You know, I really want to build the perfect company. And I thought, okay, I can build the perfect machine, right? Like super efficient, like, like nail it with OKRs. And what I learned in that stage, actually, when it was like 100 people or so, The more I make it a machine, the worse it gets. And that was a point when I realized I need to really invest into the people. I really have to understand how the motivation of people works.
I really love food. It's one of the biggest pleasures in my life. And founding a food tech startup and using the whole MBA to develop it was like obvious for me. And today we're here offering the catering for the Tomorrow University. offering our beautiful food to the community, and I'm super happy about it.
I think there's a new generation of customers who are much more critical what companies actually do and how they're doing it, right? It's not just about purpose and values. They want to know where does the money go, where does the money actually come from, and much more questions about the value, the purpose, and things that go much beyond. And I think it's for companies important to realize that this new generation Has these questions and needs to address it, and this needs communication, requires good storytelling.
Bringing everybody together— some of us didn't know each other from before, so some of us just met for the first time, and now we already had this amazing experience of doing something that was so much outside of our comfort zone, and we felt terrible about it, some were afraid, and now we all overcame it, and it's really strengthening our sense of community.
Today was all about giving back to the community. On our TOU Social Impact Day, we went to Berliner Tafel, which is a food distributing company, and we helped here with saving wasted food. What was especially important to me was seeing how many tons of food is being wasted and how much of it can be actually rescued, and we were proud to deliver a small part of it today.
Today we hosted A great group of Tomorrow University students here for our company visit, and we talked about our social business model, what we do, why we do it, the way we measure and validate impact, but also our big systemic vision.
I'm a learner at TUU and also a sound healing practitioner, and this morning I hosted a sound meditation for the other students. To take some time to rest, to restore, and to just pause before the next day.
So today's workshop is about positive change and social impact. And if we want to achieve social impact, we need systems to work together. So what our participants are learning is how to communicate in an effective way, how to negotiate, Towards common goal and towards social impact.
Today I hosted the workshop with the title Taking Perspectives with Nauni: Expanding Your Lens as a Team Member, Leader, and TU student. Nauni is my own brand, and I am creating a tool where people can practice empathy in their work or in schools. With this, I hope to work towards a more understanding society. which can directly impact the goal of a more compassionate economy. Because if we think about each other, take care of each other, we will eventually have energy to create many more new things that help everyone.
So that's it. A whole week of connection, community, and compassion. The ingredients that make the TOU experience so special. We'll see you in Amsterdam next year.
