I'm Hannes, from Germany, 28 years old, I am open-minded, I grew up in a big family, studied economics and sociology in Göttingen and for now I’m in Ethiopia in Addis.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

From living 6 months in New Zealand, 3 months in Togo, one year in Nigeria and a semester in Belgium I experienced the benefits of changing one’s own perspective and that there are so many interesting things to learn about. To just do this I'm on Couchsurfing.

Interests

Getting to know new people and to talk about the sense of life, happiness and where our world should go, are things I enjoy. I like to laugh and motivate people for their own ideas and goals. I also enjoy outdoor activities like running, surfing, or hiking, but also more calm things like cooking, good food, and I love non-fictional audiobooks and biographies.

• cooking
• podcasts
• hiking
• surfing
• business
• entrepreneurship
• social justice
• good food
• startups
• audiobooks
• events
• social impact

Music, Movies, and Books

Outliers – Malcolm Gladwell • Start With Why – Simon Sinek • Creating a World Without Poverty: How Social Business Can Transform Our Lives – Muhammad Yunus • Twelve Years a Slave – Solomon Northup • Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle against World Poverty – Muhammad Yunus • The Marshmallow Test: Mastering Self-Control – Walter Mischel• Losing My Virginity – Richard Branson • Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow – Yuval Noah Harari • Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World – Adam Grant • Thinking, Fast and Slow – Daniel Kahneman • Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness – Richard H. Thaler, Cass R. Sunstein • Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future • My Brief History – Stephen Hawking • Auschwitz: Topographie eines Vernich-tungslagers – Hermann Langbein, H. G. Adler • An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth – Mohandas (Mahatma) K. Gandhi • Capital in the Twenty-First Century – Thomas Piketty • Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela • Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty – Abhijit V. Banerjee, Esther Duflo •

Teach, Learn, Share

Being aware of the limited time we have. For example, a person in the US on average becomes 78 years – this is equal to 28000 days. Every day counts! I like to live up to the value of honesty.

Countries I’ve Visited

Croatia, Denmark, Ethiopia, France, Italy, Kenya, Spain, Turkey, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

Belgium, Germany, New Zealand, Nigeria, Switzerland, Togo