One of the great benefits of being involved in Global Café was getting to talk to and interact with inspiring digital entrepreneurs like Alexis O’hainan. From the first conference call to his presentation live at Global Café, I was inspired by his refreshing yet relatable insights into the digital world and using the internet as a platform for creativity and entrepreneurialism.

If you don’t know who Alexis is then refer to the Wikipedia description below: Alexis Ohanian (born April 24, 1983) is an American internet entrepreneur, activist and investor based in the Brooklynborough of New York City, best known for co-founding the social news website reddit, helping launch travel search website Hipmunk, and starting social enterprise Breadpig. He is a partner at Y Combinator. Yeh he knows his way around digital!!

During this live Global Café beam in Alexis made mention of searching for Vegemite recipes (see the video to get a full understanding of the context), and how having an internet connection and a few buddies transformed into a business.

One of the key insights I took from Alexis was his simplification of the internet. “The internet is an amazing platform for knowledge and gives everyone the ability to share what you create on it. Users of digital are creators, not just consumers of digital” So simple, yet such truth!

His belief when he started Reddit held true and should be the basis for every digital start up “As long we built something that people wanted, we would win”.

Global Café bought together innovators, entrepreneurs and digital experts from around the globe. And as Alexis rightly says in his presentation during the event “you don’t need to be in Silicon Valley to be successful, you can do it anywhere in the world”

Watch the video here: