The Initiators

Berlin 2006. At the same time, in the same place – but unknown to each other - a few people had the same idea.

After an extended stay in Africa, Till Behnke returned to Germany to work for car manufacturer DaimlerChrysler. In 2006, Till felt the need to combine his degree in Business Informatics, his professional expertise as a project manager and the ambivalent encounter with the African continent to a more meaningful end than a career in a transnational corporation. In Berlin he met his ideal partner in Line Hadsbjerg. With a degree in anthropology, she had worked both for Amnesty International in India and for the European Commissioner for Development in Brussels. After long discussions about how the Internet can be used to better the lives of people in need worldwide, they surrounded themselves with a highly motivated, interdisciplinary team, consisting of Philip Baier, Moritz Eckert, Georg Friedrich, Axel Kuzmik and Bodo Sieber, to start betterplace.org - a global platform that was to be a bridge between needs and new, innumerable opportunities.

A year ago, Joana and Stephan Breidenbach, together with their children Lilian and Vico, spent five months travelling around the world. Joana, a cultural anthropologist and Stephan, a professor of law, mediator and entrepreneur, met a number of remarkable people who were trying to improve their lives. Many of them knew very well what they needed for a better life, or were supported by people who helped them identify and work out new options and strategies. But often they lacked even the most basic resources or know-how. Depending on their own initiative, they operated below the radar of the institutionalized aid industry, without access to its funds. Their cases made it clear that small contributions and innovations could make a real difference: a cheap and ecologically sound irrigation technology; a simple, but effective medical treatment against river blindness; a new home for AIDS orphans. After their return, the couple, together with a small team consisting of software architects, social scientists, and organisational development experts began creating The Platform.org, an internet platform enabling people to present themselves and their needs to a world-wide audience and connect them with people who want to experience directly the positive impact their support can have: one to one, worldwide.

In July 2007, the two groups became aware of one another – not surprisingly, through the Internet. It very soon became apparent that, not only did our aims coincide, we had also approached them in strikingly similar ways. It thus seemed natural to merge our two teams under one name – betterplace - in order to increase the momentum for our idea.