TEDxDelft 2013 | Anne Walraven: let’s not wait for the next Martin Luther King

Anne Walraven was in NRCNext and on the TEDx Delft stage today. Not bad. The perfect example that individuals ‘like you and me’ can become so much more powerful in this day and age.

After finishing her studies Anne Walraven understood her peers that were feeling self-doubt and confusion due to the lack of jobs. An environmentalists herself she was used to communicating 90{95388bbb2e9df0f2b3d26445fc24fe82185b1b567dbb094bc3a45074083d0a2b} about all the problems that the world faces and only 10{95388bbb2e9df0f2b3d26445fc24fe82185b1b567dbb094bc3a45074083d0a2b} about the solutions. And that 10{95388bbb2e9df0f2b3d26445fc24fe82185b1b567dbb094bc3a45074083d0a2b} you can come up with easily. Cosmopolitan and Glamour magazine know how to do it. 10 easy ways to change the world. Eat local food, vote for the right politicians etc. Some books claim you can even make money whilst saving the world or that you can do it together with your horse. If it is that easy why are we still stuck with crisis after crisis?

What we are doing wrong is focusing on the 90{95388bbb2e9df0f2b3d26445fc24fe82185b1b567dbb094bc3a45074083d0a2b} doom and assuming cookie cutter solutions for the 10{95388bbb2e9df0f2b3d26445fc24fe82185b1b567dbb094bc3a45074083d0a2b} answers. What if Martin Luther King would have said ‘I Have a nightmare’ instead of ‘I have a dream’? Sitting on the steps of the Lincoln memorial, Anne Walraven still felt the buzz of that time. Martin Luther King made people believe change was possible and they had the power to change history. Why do we communicate nightmares when we really have dreams for the future? Despite the environmentalists’ message nothing has changed… because of that message nothing has changed.

Anne Walraven has gone on a personal quest across 4 continents interviewing 50 of the most insightful thinkers of our time. Rolemodels for the next generation, sustainable thinkers of the world. And only the 6th interviewee mentioned the enormous opportunities. With this quest Anne Walraven is finding pieces of the puzzle of what is going on. So that she can create her own dream and a vision for the future that she can work with.

Why Anne Walraven was here today is to make you stop listening to those doom preachers. What we need to do is to communicate our dreams and our visions of where we want to go. Please create room for discussion about where we need our society to go.