WEBVTT

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In June of 2017,

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I volunteered with a group
at a local food pantry

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on the south side of my home city

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in Atlanta, Georgia.

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It was a Friday afternoon,

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the day of their weekly food giveaway,

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and as I drove up,

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I saw people beginning to arrive,

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many with their rolling carts in tow,

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prepared to receive
their food supply for the week.

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As I was walking in the door,
there were about 40 people outside

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waiting in line,

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and I was so excited

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because there are very few things
I enjoy more than giving back.

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But then, as I entered the room where
the volunteer meeting was taking place,

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I immediately realized

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we weren't about to give
these people any real meals.

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We were essentially just giving them food.

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I took my place on the assembly line,

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where, get this,

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I was in charge of making sure
that the Weight Watchers Ding Dongs

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made it into every family's bag.

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As the bags started to come around,

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I'm thinking to myself,

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what on earth are we doing here?

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Each bag contained
two 20-ounce Diet Snapples,

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a gallon of barbecue sauce,

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a bag of kettle potato chips,

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a box of superhero-shaped
vegetable-enriched macaroni noodles,

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a box of Velveeta breakfast bars,

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a can of refried beans,

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a can of sweet peas,

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a miniature can of corn,

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I can't forget about those Ding Dongs,

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and french fried green onions,

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you know, the kind that go
on top of a green bean casserole.

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And that was it.

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We made over a hundred
of those bags that day,

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and people indeed
stood in line to receive one,

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but a feeling came over me.

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I felt bad, and a little angry.

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It was like, how could I even feel good
about the work that I was doing

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when I knew for a fact
that not one meal was to come

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from the food we had just given
to over 100 families.

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I mean, who wants to have
a meal with barbecue sauce and Ding Dongs?

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And the reality is,

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I've been part
of this process all my life.

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I've participated in food drives,

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I've collected cans since I was a kid,

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I've donated in the grocery store
more times than I can count,

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I've volunteered at shelters,
I've worked in food pantries,

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and I'm sure, like me,
so many of you have too.

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In 2013, I even created
a pop-up restaurant

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called Sunday Soul.

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And I rented tables and chairs and linens

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and I printed out menus

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and I took these experiences to alleyways

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underneath bridges and in parks

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to allow people that were
experiencing homelessness

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to dine with dignity.

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So I've invested in this fight
for quite some time.

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In almost every major US city,

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the food bank is viewed
as a beloved community institution.

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Corporations send volunteers
down on a weekly basis

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to sort through food items
and make boxes of food for the needy.

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And can drives,

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they warm the hearts of schools
and office buildings that participate

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and fill the shelves of food banks
and food pantries across the nation.

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This is how we work to end hunger.

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And what I've come to realize

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is that we are doing hunger wrong.

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We are doing the same things

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over and over and over again

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and expecting a different end result.

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We've created a cycle

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that keeps people dependent on food banks
and pantries on a monthly basis

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for food that is often not well-balanced

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and certainly doesn't provide them
with a healthy meal.

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In the US, our approach to doing good,

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or what we call charity,

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has actually hindered us
from making real progress.

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We're educating the world
on how many people are food insecure.

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There are television commercials,

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billboards,

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massive donations,

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the engagement of some
of our biggest celebrities in the fight,

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but the ever-present reality is that,

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even with all of this work,

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millions of people are still going hungry,

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and we can do better.

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Globally, 821 million people are hungry.

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That's one in nine people on this planet.

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And here in the United States,

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nearly 40 million people
experience hunger every single year,

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including more than 11 million children

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that go to bed hungry every night.

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Yet we're wasting more food
than ever before,

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more than 80 billion pounds a year,

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to be exact.

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The EPA estimates that food waste
has more than doubled

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between 1970 and 2017,

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and now accounts for 27 percent
of everything in our landfills,

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and as this food sits,

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it gradually rots

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and produces harmful methane gas,

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a leading contributor
to global climate change.

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We have the waste of the food itself,

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the waste of all the money associated
with producing this now-wasted food,

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and the waste of labor
with all of the above.

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And then there's the social inequity

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between people who really
need food and can't get it

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and people who have too much
and simply throw it away.

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All of this made me realize

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that hunger was not an issue of scarcity,

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but rather a matter of logistics.

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So in 2017, I set out
to end hunger using technology.

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After all, food delivery acts
had begun to explode on the scene,

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and I thought surely we can
reverse-engineer this technology

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and get food from businesses
like restaurants and grocery stores

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and into the hands of people in need.

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I believe that technology and innovation

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have the power to solve real problems,

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especially hunger.

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So in 2017, I created an app

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that would inventory everything
it is that a business sells

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and make it super-easy for them
to donate this excess food

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that would typically go to waste
at the end of the night.

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All the user has to do now
is click on an item,

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tell us how many they have to donate,

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and our platform calculates
the weight and the tax value

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of those items at time of donation.

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We then connect with local drivers
in the shared economy

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to get this food picked up
and delivered directly to the door

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of the non-profit organizations
and people in need.

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I provided the data

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and the analytics to help business
reduce food waste at the source

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by letting them know that the items
that they waste repeatdly

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on a regular basis,

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and they even saved millions of dollars.

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Our mission was simple:

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feed more, waste less.

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And by 2018, our clients included
the world's busiest airport,

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Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson,

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and we were working
with brands and corporations

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like Hormel, Chick-fil-A, and Papa John's.

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We even had the opportunity
to work with the NFL for Super Bowl LIII.

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And over the last two years,
we've worked with over 200 business

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to divert more than two million pounds
of edible food from landfills

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into the hands of people
that needed it most.

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(Applause)

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Thank you.

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This has accounted
for about 1.7 million meals

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and allowed us to start to expand
our efforts to other cities,

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like Washington, DC, Chicago,
Miami, Philadelphia, and more.

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That's just one approach
that actually tackles the problem.

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Another was the launch
of our pop-up grocery stores.

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We recover excess food from businesses

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and set up free community grocery stores
right in the middle of food deserts.

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We bring out a chef

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and we do on-site taste-testings and allow
families to leave with recipe cards.

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We give every family reusable grocery bags
and allow to simply shop

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minus the price tag.

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We wanted to give people access to meals

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and not just food.

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We wanted to change the way that we think
and work to solve hunger in this country,

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get people to believe
that we can solve hunger,

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not as a non-profit, not as a food bank,

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but as a social enterprise

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with the goal of reducing waste
and ending hunger.

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But it hasn't been as easy as I thought

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to change the narrative
and the thought process

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on how we think that hunger can be solved.

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In 2016, France became the first country

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to ban supermarkets
from throwing away unused food.

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Instead, they must donate it,

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and they're fined if they don't.

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Yes.

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(Applause)

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In 2017, Italy followed suit,

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becoming the second European nation

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to pass an anti-food waste ban,

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and they stated it so simply
as it was passed through legislation:

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we have millions of pounds
of good food going to waste

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and we have poor people
that are going hungry.

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That simple.

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Denmark now has a mandated
food waste grocery store.

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It's named Wefood.

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They recover excess food
from local grocery stores

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and sell it at up to
a 50 percent off discount.

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They then use all the proceeds
and donate it to emergency aid programs

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and social need issues
for the people in need.

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It has been hailed as
"the Goodwill of grocery."

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And last year, the world got its first
pay-what-you-can grocery store

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when Feed it Forward opened in Toronto.

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Their shelves remain stocked
by recovering excess food

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from major supermarkets and allowing
families to simply pay what they can

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at the grocery store.

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This is amazing.

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This innovation we need more of.

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Every can take on the roles of changing
the attitudes of how we solve hunger.

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When we think of how we've allowed
innovation and technology

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to change our lives,

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from how we communicate with each other

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to how we view our entertainment

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to how we even receive food,

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it's amazing that we haven't
solved hunger yet.

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We literally have cars
that can drive themselves

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and millions of people
that cannot feed themselves.

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With millions of dollars being donated
to end food insecurity,

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we should've solved hunger years ago,

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and I asked myself --

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(Applause)

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I asked myself, why can't we
escape this vicious cycle?

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Why haven't we solved this problem?

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I remember meeting with investors
and pitching the idea,

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trying to raise funds for my business,

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and one of them said to me
in true seriousness,

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"Hunger is already being solved,"

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as if millions of people weren't going
to go to bed hungry that very night

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and as if there was nothing else to do.

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And the reality is,

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one would think
that hunger is being solved,

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but the truth is it's being worked on.

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If we really want to solve hunger,

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then we have to change
the way we've been doing it.

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The same actions will always
garner the same results.

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There are hundreds of social
entrepreneurs all over the world.

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They have a focus to solve
really big problems, like hunger,

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but they'll never get the same support

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that we give national hunger-fighting
organizations and food banks.

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But, if given the opportunity,

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they have the ability to foster insight

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and perhaps be forward-thinking enough

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to solve this problem.

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That's why I'm traveling the world

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and I'm really talking about
what hunger looks like in America

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and explaining the difference between
giving people access to food

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and access to meals.

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I've been meeting
with city council members

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and city organizers across the US

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and telling them that technology
indeed does have the power

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to connect businesses with surplus food

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to people in need,

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and explaining to them
what a meal can actually mean to a family.

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I've been meeting with school boards
and school districts

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to talk about how we feed hungry children,

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and health care organizations,

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sharing the message that food is health

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and food is life

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and that, by solving hunger,
we can solve so many more problems.

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So if we want to know

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that we don't live in a nation

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where perfectly good food goes to waste

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when our neighbors don't have food to eat,

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then we need to change the laws.

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We need to introduce new policies,

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and, most importantly, we need to change
our minds and our actions.

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Food drives are fine.

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Food banks serve a huge purpose.

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And yes, sometimes I like Ding Dongs too.

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But the reality is that food drives
do not solve hunger,

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and if we are smart
about connecting the dots

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that are right in front of our noses,

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we can do far more than give a family

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a box of superhero-shaped
vegetable-enriched macaroni noodles

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and a gallon of barbecue sauce
to feed themselves.

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Instead, we can
give them back their dignity.

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Perhaps we can increase
school attendance in schools.

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We can improve the health
outcomes for millions.

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And, most importantly, we can reduce
food waste in our landfills

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creating a better
environment for all of us.

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The thing I love most is that
we can feel good about it in the process.

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If we solve hunger,

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we have nothing to lose
and everything to gain,

00:11:50.804 --> 00:11:51.886
so let's do it.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)

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Thank you.