August 3, 2024 • 27 mins
Social entrepreneur and CEO/Founder of Amoofy, Luis Duarte, speaks passionately about the importance of sharing our memories to enhance social cohesion and revolutionize the preservation of human stories—one story at a time.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome back to What's at Risk. I'm Mike Christian. Louis
Duarte was born in Juaua, Mexico, and has always seen
himself as a citizen of the world. He believes that
every individual has the potential to be a leader, and
(00:25):
that it is through love, kindness and access to options
that we can build and leave a better world for
those coming after us. Louis is the founder and CEO
of a MOFEE. Previously, he was a partner at Imaginable Futures,
a global philanthropic investment firm. All right, our guest is
(00:47):
Luis Duarte, founder and CEO of a MOFEE. How you doing, Louise.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
I'm doing great, Mike, So grateful to be here.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Thank you, so nice to have you. Thanks for joining us.
Maybe a good place to start, just as you can
tell our listeners a little bit about your background.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Yeah, sure so, raised on born in Mexico. I came
to the States first on kind of several educational programs,
but then I had a chance to come then here
in the States in Boston, messages it's close to you
to do my MBA at Babson College. I've done a
(01:25):
few companies and then also worked in the public sector
private sector, but for the past twelve years, Mike, I've
been supporting family offices, whether philanthropic and investment strategies, and
just recently decided to go back to building and becoming
(01:46):
an entrepreneur again and building a moment of you MUFI
and say, it's a fantastic adventure that I'm on that
it's filled with heart fueled by stories, and that makes
me commit every day because because I know how important
(02:08):
sharing the stories are for everyone. And on the personal side,
I'm married to my beautiful wife Vanessa now this year
sixteen years. And then we have two amazing boys that
I'm inspired and learned through them every day. And yeah,
that's me. And I'm based in Denver, Colorado.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
Right. Well, I think our listeners are going to have
the same question I had for you at the beginning,
and I think you've answered it in your background story,
but I'm gonna ask you directly, what does a movie
stand for?
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Yes, So a lot of late nights thinking about kind
of the right name. And the company was really born
out of a personal experience that I had when we
almost lost my father, and I recognized Mike that I
(03:04):
never really captured his story in the past. Before this
health scare, he was just a fantastic storyteller and he
would bring incredible wisdom and insights. Whenever you ask him
a question, he would never give you a straight answer,
but he would tell you a story of what happened
to him, and then you could kind of used the insights.
(03:26):
So thankfully he recovered from that and I started interviewing him,
and every time after the interview, he would say, well,
now you have a moment of me in a moment
of me, and I'm like, this is true. Is whenever
I go back and hear the recordings or whenever I'm
with you, I do have a moment of you and
(03:50):
playing with the words. Then this new name kind of
Ammufi came alive.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
You brought up personal stories and it seemed like it's
on everybody's minds these days. People talk about storytelling, and
people talk about everybody having a personal story and really
wanting to get that personal story out there. Why do
you think that's become so prevalent, so important.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
We are now a society that is completely hooked by
social media, and we now see all the challenges that
society is facing with mental health and loneliness and isolation.
And when I go and see some of the things
that are on social media, a lot of it is superficial, right.
(04:39):
A lot of it is a place where where there's
a few that will share some type of kind of reality.
But then I have also seen a growing trend of
people sharing vulnerable stories in whatever platform, and I I
(05:00):
think it signals the longing for authenticity, for meaningful stories,
for vulnerability.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
So that's one.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
The other thing I think that it's finally I think
emerging is we have lost our true connection as society
with oral history, and that the more kind of isolated
we become, the less I think care and interest we
have from our elders and from kind of just what
(05:33):
has worked what didn't work. Before we had like the
surrounding fire pit where the elder will tell the story
and everybody would hear it, and we have really really
kind of gone on the other extreme of that. And
then the last thing that I would say is after COVID,
(05:54):
there was this moment where we all were really surrounded
by moments of introspection, moments of like, wow, life is
actually very short, and I think humanity got like an
uplift of consciousness, and what we're seeing now is the
(06:15):
need for such spaces to then go back into this
reflection moment, but also the insights that I can share
with others, and how might I also capture the people
that are around me understanding that life is too short.
So I think the combination of those factors are bringing
(06:37):
all of us to this longing of storytelling and the
importance of it.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Yeah, I agree, and there has been a loss of connection.
I think everybody felt that, certainly exacerbated by COVID, there's
no question about that, but it was coming already and
now I think that focus on storytelling is become more
and that's a positive thing for sure. That's a positive
(07:04):
outcome from COVID because the mental health issues, especially amongst
our young people, are very severe right now.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Mike, I had this experience.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
I was in Mexico last week visiting family, and there
was a moment where I saw my thirteen year old
who has a cell phone but no social media, and
I saw him with my father and they engaged in
a conversation around the story that my dad would just share.
(07:37):
And what I saw in my son was this affirmation
of who he is because then he could understand where
he's coming from. And then when I asked him, like, hey,
how did you feel, my son said, I want more.
So even to your point about the young generations that
(07:58):
are trying, I need to find their identity trying to
battle all this isolation and mental health issues. A solution
as simple as just sitting down and listening, it's missing.
So yes, I think I think you're hitting a very
important point. The young generations will benefit tremendously from the
(08:22):
elder and the older wisdom, but we don't have those
bridges anymore.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Yeah, this is not a new concept. By the way,
the Indigenous people have been having oral traditions and storytellers,
and you know their elders have been the leaders of
doing that for thousands of years, not just for a
bit of time.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
Not only that, but I think when you see where
we need to go back as a society, I would
also elevate the how our indigenous elders have also elevated
the care for planet, the care for nature, they care
for animals, and that because of the systems that we
(09:04):
have in place have completely alienatedus from some of their teachings.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
From the Smithsonian Indigenous peoples have strong storytelling traditions. Histories, stories,
and religious rights will passed from the memories of one
generation to the next through the spoken word. The worldview
of Native people is intricately woven into the fabric of
language and the ways of speaking. The oral tradition connects past,
(09:35):
present and future, and titans, tribal and familiar bonds. These
oral traditions can communicate creation stories, cultural beliefs, and personal
family or tribal history and experiences. Oral traditions are a
form of shared history and specific Native communities in our
source of historical knowledge. Storytelling is an integral part of
(09:59):
traditional Native education systems. Stories develop listening skills, memory, and imagination,
and they support social and emotional learning to develop a
whole child. Language loss was part of the systemic destruction
or assimilation of Native peoples. Some languages have vanished completely,
(10:20):
while many others are weakened. Elders believe if the language
is lost, the people will be two Teachers, elders and
linguists have been working to capture Native speech in written
form through online classes and in language school nests as
ways to pass on the languages and cultures to younger
(10:40):
generations and from Utah Public Radio. While technology can cause distractions,
it also provides new tools for storytelling. Stories are how
people remember and learn. Facts and figures are quickly forgotten,
but emotions and memories endure. For some indigenous groups, knowledge
(11:01):
that has been passed down orally for generations is being
lost with the passing of elders. Listening to and uplifting
these stories will make sure their knowledge and perspectives last.
Modern technology can help preserve their stories and helps young
people to connect with the histories of their people. Do
(11:23):
you think the recent popularity of twenty three and meteris
and ancestry dot com has been a catalyst for all
of us to kind of examine our ancestral history and roots.
I know it digs into DNA and there's some health
aspects to it too, but it also connects people to
distant cousins and all that type of thing. Do you
think that's been something that's energized this thinking about getting
(11:47):
our stories right, our own personal stories and our family stories.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
It's an interesting question. One of the things that I
have learned since the inception of Ammufi is there's always
one person in the family or community that it's kind
of the archivist, right, there's always one. And then my
sense is that now with technology and with the access
(12:15):
that ancestry and tools like twenty three and Me and
others have provided, they have finally fed the need of
this family archivist in a way that it's much more easy.
And what's happening is once you start building your family
tree or you understand that, wow, in eighteen ten, my
(12:36):
great grandfather or great great grandfather was doing this, you
cannot stop in thinking would that person be proud of
me now? Or am I proud of what I'm seeing
now in history and how connected our lineage is to
(12:58):
who we are today. I do feel that the exercise
of doing that is bringing up more philosophical questions about
who we are and where we're going.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Let's talk about how MFI works and how does it
capture stories.
Speaker 3 (13:15):
Yeah, Like, we began with like very simple prototypes, whether
it was in person interviews or interviews over platforms like
Zoom or any other video call. And of course we
got inspired by the Story Corps of the World, a
couple of other companies that have done kind of a
(13:37):
fantastic job with really enabling the space for people to
share their stories and what we have right now. It's
a platform that you can be in person and you
can record over audio or video. You can be in
different places in the world and you can just do
(13:59):
a video call all and the platform it's really a
guided experience for you to share particular points in your
life story, whether it's particular stages or life wisdom or
but then the platform allows you not only to do that,
but also to capture the content in pieces I would say,
(14:22):
in parts that then you can also share with the
communities that you would like. It's all private unless you
want to you opt in into sharing. You can share
it with the whole ammi FI community. So when you
download the app, you have a few videos of people
that might have said, hey, this is important for other
(14:44):
people to see. Maybe they get inspired by your story.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
So you share it.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
There's a lot of content that might be just for you.
It was just a reflection of a moment of whether
it's greatness or weakness, or a vulnerable thing that you
want to capture and advance for your kids when they're older.
My kids and I just did an audio recording this
morning where the question that I posted them was what's
(15:09):
the favorite thing about grandma, and they did they imprompt
share their thoughts. I shared the audio with their grandmother
and immediately she called back and she was like, I
didn't expect this, This was such a gift and now
it's there forever right, So she can go back to
(15:29):
see the recording, and of course when my kids now
thirteen and eleven, are like twenty or thirty, they can
also go back to see the recording and just kind
of go back and touch that feeling again.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
So that's what the platform is.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
Allowing people to do, is really to reconnect and have
the ability to capture very meaningful moments that inspire and
there's some tears, there's some joy, there's some laughter, and
we accept all of it.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
And this is all saved in the cloud.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
It's all save in the cloud. It's all private, encrypted,
and again, we were very thoughtful about designing a platform
that would allow people to feel that their data is secured,
and we also wanted to make sure that if as
a user, you have a conversation that it's good to
(16:23):
have on the cloud, but you also want to download
it on your device, or you can do it immediately.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
And the more intimate, the more detailed the story is.
I'm sure the more meaningful it is. But then some
people might have concerns about confidentiality, and you touched on it.
But how can they be assured that they tell stories
that they really only intend to have their children or
grandchildren hear about. How can they be assured that it's
going to be confidential?
Speaker 3 (16:51):
Yeah, I think two things. Given the technology that we
have right now, it's not only again secure and private,
it under your own log in. But then the other
thing that we made sure from the beginning was we
wanted to build a company that will never sell the data,
(17:13):
that will never sell their stories. And we said, the
reason we are building this not only as a public
benefit corporation, but also as a company that wants to
remain at the top of the line of ethics and privacy.
We are structuring the company in a way where all
(17:35):
the stories will never be touched, even if the company
at some point gets get sold. We have articles structured
in place for yes, we might be able to sell
our technology, we might be able to sell the insights
of anonymous insides of a collective story platform, but the
(17:57):
privacy of the story of every will never be shared.
The one more thing that I'll say is it's interesting, Mike,
when people share at the end of the day, is
their reality, is their true story, That doesn't mean that
that's the truth, right, the universal truth. So one of
(18:18):
the things that we have been thoughtful about is some disclaimers,
because you will never want to say something and then
share it and then that whatever you shared come back
and hunt you, which we have seen in space with
social media, with like every media I think platform. So
(18:40):
one of the things that we're saying is your story
is your story, it's your truth, it's your perspective, and
this is a space where you can just share it.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
That's the appeal of it. We all have a story, right,
and we just need a medium to tell that story too.
So what you mentioned and the public benefit corporation, just
for the benefit of our listeners, what exactly is that
versus a regular corporation.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
Yeah, the public benefit corporation status was created, promoted and
supported by b Lab, which is a nonprofit that provides
the Bee Corps certification. And what the founder's envision was
there's got to be a better way to do business
(19:29):
business in a way that the company not only takes
care of shareholders but also takes care of all the
other stakeholders, whether it's employees or or a community around it,
or even the kind of the natural environment in which
the company operates. So they began first with the b
(19:52):
CORP certification, which is this certification that allows businesses to say, yes,
I have gardners a lot of best practices on how
to treat employees, how to treat workers, how to treat
a community, et cetera. But then the next step outside
of the b CORP certification is to actually change your
(20:15):
bylaws and create a public benefit corporation. And the main
difference between a C corporation and a public benefit corporation
is that as a public benefit corporation, you're not only
beholden to your shareholders, you're also beholden to the stakeholders
that you're serving.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
So in your experience and you're capturing these stories, what
prompts us to remember these stories? We don't all remember
our own history right from scratch. If you told me
they tell me your story, I'd have a hard time
remembering back to when I was five, six, twelve years old.
What prompts us to remember is photos or songs or
(20:58):
words or what are the things that bring these stories
out of us, and how does MFI help people do that?
Speaker 3 (21:07):
Yeah, I think there's many things, but I'll speak about two.
One is being in a space where you're intentional about
doing it and in a space that feels safe, whether
it's solo or with someone or with a group of
(21:28):
folks that you feel safe. But the other thing comes
as easy as just beginning with open prompts, like just
having the right questions. But the hard question is how
do I begin? And I think this is where the
platform guides you through that process where you can start
(21:51):
very simple with like tell me about your childhood.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
It's like a very high level, open ended question.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
But as soon as you tap into that neuron system,
a lot of people just smile, or in the case
of my father, my father would be like, let's just
skip the childhood because it was very challenging. It was
a very challenging stage. And I would sometimes just push
and say, well, tell me about what you learn, tell
(22:19):
me about how you became a different father if you
had that experience. And then I think that the platform
really supports that guided telling kind of story.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
Does the platform allow you, like if I were to
think about my story, I'd probably remember it in snippets.
You know what I did last year, what I did
thirty five years ago. Is does the platform allow you
to put it together in some cohesive way that's that
you know, follows the time sequence of your life. How
does the platform work? What kind of kind of benefits
(22:53):
are there to try and edit it and put it together.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
Yeah, well, we have the benefit of being a company
in a time where advancements in technologies are just incredible, right,
So we of course we are kind of testing with
a lot of different AI based technologies and one of
(23:19):
the things that we have seen is that the most
important thing is to get the story out in a
very authentic, kind of transparent way. What you can do
after given the technologies and still complying with ethics, with privacy,
with everything is remarkable.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
So last question, how can our listeners find out more?
How can they find that app and start capturing their
personal stories.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
Yes, I would encourage everybody to go to www. Dot MFI.
That's a m o o f y dot com. You'll
find a way then to download the current version of
our product.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
And one of.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
The things that I'm asking everyone always is we want
your feedback right at the end of the day. We
want everybody to have a fantastic experience, which we have
heard repeatedly from our customers. Very quick anecdote. I was
about eighteen months ago. I was working in one of
the largest favelas in Brazil and one of the matriarchs
(24:28):
of the kilombo that we were visiting, she had amazing
stories about their fight, about their resilience, about their values
as a community. And I remember asking her, who is
capturing your story? And she kind of looked at me
and she said, I don't know if anybody cares. And
(24:49):
I was like, oh, you have no idea, Like you
just inspired me in a way that I had never
felt before. So when I think about and a platform
that we're building, my hope and my dream is that
it serves everyone, regardless of income, regardless of geography, regardless
(25:09):
of language or any other differences that we see. This
is for all of us.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
We've been speaking with Luis Duarte, founder and CEO of MFI. Luise,
thank you so much, really great insights. Appreciate your time.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
Thank you for having me, Mike, It's great to be here.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
Well that's all for this week. I'm Mike Christian inviting
you to join us again next week on What's at Risk.
Also check out our podcast at Wbznewsradio dot iHeart dot com.
What's on your mind? Send us your thoughts, comments, and
(25:58):
questions to what at Risk at gmail dot com. That's
one word, What's at Risk at gmail dot com.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
A big thank you to our producer, Ken Carberry of
Chart Productions and
Welcome back to What's at Risk. I'm Mike Christian. Louis
Duarte was born in Juaua, Mexico, and has always seen
himself as a citizen of the world. He believes that
every individual has the potential to be a leader, and
(00:25):
that it is through love, kindness and access to options
that we can build and leave a better world for
those coming after us. Louis is the founder and CEO
of a MOFEE. Previously, he was a partner at Imaginable Futures,
a global philanthropic investment firm. All right, our guest is
(00:47):
Luis Duarte, founder and CEO of a MOFEE. How you doing, Louise.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
I'm doing great, Mike, So grateful to be here.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Thank you, so nice to have you. Thanks for joining us.
Maybe a good place to start, just as you can
tell our listeners a little bit about your background.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Yeah, sure so, raised on born in Mexico. I came
to the States first on kind of several educational programs,
but then I had a chance to come then here
in the States in Boston, messages it's close to you
to do my MBA at Babson College. I've done a
(01:25):
few companies and then also worked in the public sector
private sector, but for the past twelve years, Mike, I've
been supporting family offices, whether philanthropic and investment strategies, and
just recently decided to go back to building and becoming
(01:46):
an entrepreneur again and building a moment of you MUFI
and say, it's a fantastic adventure that I'm on that
it's filled with heart fueled by stories, and that makes
me commit every day because because I know how important
(02:08):
sharing the stories are for everyone. And on the personal side,
I'm married to my beautiful wife Vanessa now this year
sixteen years. And then we have two amazing boys that
I'm inspired and learned through them every day. And yeah,
that's me. And I'm based in Denver, Colorado.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
Right. Well, I think our listeners are going to have
the same question I had for you at the beginning,
and I think you've answered it in your background story,
but I'm gonna ask you directly, what does a movie
stand for?
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Yes, So a lot of late nights thinking about kind
of the right name. And the company was really born
out of a personal experience that I had when we
almost lost my father, and I recognized Mike that I
(03:04):
never really captured his story in the past. Before this
health scare, he was just a fantastic storyteller and he
would bring incredible wisdom and insights. Whenever you ask him
a question, he would never give you a straight answer,
but he would tell you a story of what happened
to him, and then you could kind of used the insights.
(03:26):
So thankfully he recovered from that and I started interviewing him,
and every time after the interview, he would say, well,
now you have a moment of me in a moment
of me, and I'm like, this is true. Is whenever
I go back and hear the recordings or whenever I'm
with you, I do have a moment of you and
(03:50):
playing with the words. Then this new name kind of
Ammufi came alive.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
You brought up personal stories and it seemed like it's
on everybody's minds these days. People talk about storytelling, and
people talk about everybody having a personal story and really
wanting to get that personal story out there. Why do
you think that's become so prevalent, so important.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
We are now a society that is completely hooked by
social media, and we now see all the challenges that
society is facing with mental health and loneliness and isolation.
And when I go and see some of the things
that are on social media, a lot of it is superficial, right.
(04:39):
A lot of it is a place where where there's
a few that will share some type of kind of reality.
But then I have also seen a growing trend of
people sharing vulnerable stories in whatever platform, and I I
(05:00):
think it signals the longing for authenticity, for meaningful stories,
for vulnerability.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
So that's one.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
The other thing I think that it's finally I think
emerging is we have lost our true connection as society
with oral history, and that the more kind of isolated
we become, the less I think care and interest we
have from our elders and from kind of just what
(05:33):
has worked what didn't work. Before we had like the
surrounding fire pit where the elder will tell the story
and everybody would hear it, and we have really really
kind of gone on the other extreme of that. And
then the last thing that I would say is after COVID,
(05:54):
there was this moment where we all were really surrounded
by moments of introspection, moments of like, wow, life is
actually very short, and I think humanity got like an
uplift of consciousness, and what we're seeing now is the
(06:15):
need for such spaces to then go back into this
reflection moment, but also the insights that I can share
with others, and how might I also capture the people
that are around me understanding that life is too short.
So I think the combination of those factors are bringing
(06:37):
all of us to this longing of storytelling and the
importance of it.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Yeah, I agree, and there has been a loss of connection.
I think everybody felt that, certainly exacerbated by COVID, there's
no question about that, but it was coming already and
now I think that focus on storytelling is become more
and that's a positive thing for sure. That's a positive
(07:04):
outcome from COVID because the mental health issues, especially amongst
our young people, are very severe right now.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Mike, I had this experience.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
I was in Mexico last week visiting family, and there
was a moment where I saw my thirteen year old
who has a cell phone but no social media, and
I saw him with my father and they engaged in
a conversation around the story that my dad would just share.
(07:37):
And what I saw in my son was this affirmation
of who he is because then he could understand where
he's coming from. And then when I asked him, like, hey,
how did you feel, my son said, I want more.
So even to your point about the young generations that
(07:58):
are trying, I need to find their identity trying to
battle all this isolation and mental health issues. A solution
as simple as just sitting down and listening, it's missing.
So yes, I think I think you're hitting a very
important point. The young generations will benefit tremendously from the
(08:22):
elder and the older wisdom, but we don't have those
bridges anymore.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Yeah, this is not a new concept. By the way,
the Indigenous people have been having oral traditions and storytellers,
and you know their elders have been the leaders of
doing that for thousands of years, not just for a
bit of time.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
Not only that, but I think when you see where
we need to go back as a society, I would
also elevate the how our indigenous elders have also elevated
the care for planet, the care for nature, they care
for animals, and that because of the systems that we
(09:04):
have in place have completely alienatedus from some of their teachings.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
From the Smithsonian Indigenous peoples have strong storytelling traditions. Histories, stories,
and religious rights will passed from the memories of one
generation to the next through the spoken word. The worldview
of Native people is intricately woven into the fabric of
language and the ways of speaking. The oral tradition connects past,
(09:35):
present and future, and titans, tribal and familiar bonds. These
oral traditions can communicate creation stories, cultural beliefs, and personal
family or tribal history and experiences. Oral traditions are a
form of shared history and specific Native communities in our
source of historical knowledge. Storytelling is an integral part of
(09:59):
traditional Native education systems. Stories develop listening skills, memory, and imagination,
and they support social and emotional learning to develop a
whole child. Language loss was part of the systemic destruction
or assimilation of Native peoples. Some languages have vanished completely,
(10:20):
while many others are weakened. Elders believe if the language
is lost, the people will be two Teachers, elders and
linguists have been working to capture Native speech in written
form through online classes and in language school nests as
ways to pass on the languages and cultures to younger
(10:40):
generations and from Utah Public Radio. While technology can cause distractions,
it also provides new tools for storytelling. Stories are how
people remember and learn. Facts and figures are quickly forgotten,
but emotions and memories endure. For some indigenous groups, knowledge
(11:01):
that has been passed down orally for generations is being
lost with the passing of elders. Listening to and uplifting
these stories will make sure their knowledge and perspectives last.
Modern technology can help preserve their stories and helps young
people to connect with the histories of their people. Do
(11:23):
you think the recent popularity of twenty three and meteris
and ancestry dot com has been a catalyst for all
of us to kind of examine our ancestral history and roots.
I know it digs into DNA and there's some health
aspects to it too, but it also connects people to
distant cousins and all that type of thing. Do you
think that's been something that's energized this thinking about getting
(11:47):
our stories right, our own personal stories and our family stories.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
It's an interesting question. One of the things that I
have learned since the inception of Ammufi is there's always
one person in the family or community that it's kind
of the archivist, right, there's always one. And then my
sense is that now with technology and with the access
(12:15):
that ancestry and tools like twenty three and Me and
others have provided, they have finally fed the need of
this family archivist in a way that it's much more easy.
And what's happening is once you start building your family
tree or you understand that, wow, in eighteen ten, my
(12:36):
great grandfather or great great grandfather was doing this, you
cannot stop in thinking would that person be proud of
me now? Or am I proud of what I'm seeing
now in history and how connected our lineage is to
(12:58):
who we are today. I do feel that the exercise
of doing that is bringing up more philosophical questions about
who we are and where we're going.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Let's talk about how MFI works and how does it
capture stories.
Speaker 3 (13:15):
Yeah, Like, we began with like very simple prototypes, whether
it was in person interviews or interviews over platforms like
Zoom or any other video call. And of course we
got inspired by the Story Corps of the World, a
couple of other companies that have done kind of a
(13:37):
fantastic job with really enabling the space for people to
share their stories and what we have right now. It's
a platform that you can be in person and you
can record over audio or video. You can be in
different places in the world and you can just do
(13:59):
a video call all and the platform it's really a
guided experience for you to share particular points in your
life story, whether it's particular stages or life wisdom or
but then the platform allows you not only to do that,
but also to capture the content in pieces I would say,
(14:22):
in parts that then you can also share with the
communities that you would like. It's all private unless you
want to you opt in into sharing. You can share
it with the whole ammi FI community. So when you
download the app, you have a few videos of people
that might have said, hey, this is important for other
(14:44):
people to see. Maybe they get inspired by your story.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
So you share it.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
There's a lot of content that might be just for you.
It was just a reflection of a moment of whether
it's greatness or weakness, or a vulnerable thing that you
want to capture and advance for your kids when they're older.
My kids and I just did an audio recording this
morning where the question that I posted them was what's
(15:09):
the favorite thing about grandma, and they did they imprompt
share their thoughts. I shared the audio with their grandmother
and immediately she called back and she was like, I
didn't expect this, This was such a gift and now
it's there forever right, So she can go back to
(15:29):
see the recording, and of course when my kids now
thirteen and eleven, are like twenty or thirty, they can
also go back to see the recording and just kind
of go back and touch that feeling again.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
So that's what the platform is.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
Allowing people to do, is really to reconnect and have
the ability to capture very meaningful moments that inspire and
there's some tears, there's some joy, there's some laughter, and
we accept all of it.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
And this is all saved in the cloud.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
It's all save in the cloud. It's all private, encrypted,
and again, we were very thoughtful about designing a platform
that would allow people to feel that their data is secured,
and we also wanted to make sure that if as
a user, you have a conversation that it's good to
(16:23):
have on the cloud, but you also want to download
it on your device, or you can do it immediately.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
And the more intimate, the more detailed the story is.
I'm sure the more meaningful it is. But then some
people might have concerns about confidentiality, and you touched on it.
But how can they be assured that they tell stories
that they really only intend to have their children or
grandchildren hear about. How can they be assured that it's
going to be confidential?
Speaker 3 (16:51):
Yeah, I think two things. Given the technology that we
have right now, it's not only again secure and private,
it under your own log in. But then the other
thing that we made sure from the beginning was we
wanted to build a company that will never sell the data,
(17:13):
that will never sell their stories. And we said, the
reason we are building this not only as a public
benefit corporation, but also as a company that wants to
remain at the top of the line of ethics and privacy.
We are structuring the company in a way where all
(17:35):
the stories will never be touched, even if the company
at some point gets get sold. We have articles structured
in place for yes, we might be able to sell
our technology, we might be able to sell the insights
of anonymous insides of a collective story platform, but the
(17:57):
privacy of the story of every will never be shared.
The one more thing that I'll say is it's interesting, Mike,
when people share at the end of the day, is
their reality, is their true story, That doesn't mean that
that's the truth, right, the universal truth. So one of
(18:18):
the things that we have been thoughtful about is some disclaimers,
because you will never want to say something and then
share it and then that whatever you shared come back
and hunt you, which we have seen in space with
social media, with like every media I think platform. So
(18:40):
one of the things that we're saying is your story
is your story, it's your truth, it's your perspective, and
this is a space where you can just share it.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
That's the appeal of it. We all have a story, right,
and we just need a medium to tell that story too.
So what you mentioned and the public benefit corporation, just
for the benefit of our listeners, what exactly is that
versus a regular corporation.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
Yeah, the public benefit corporation status was created, promoted and
supported by b Lab, which is a nonprofit that provides
the Bee Corps certification. And what the founder's envision was
there's got to be a better way to do business
(19:29):
business in a way that the company not only takes
care of shareholders but also takes care of all the
other stakeholders, whether it's employees or or a community around it,
or even the kind of the natural environment in which
the company operates. So they began first with the b
(19:52):
CORP certification, which is this certification that allows businesses to say, yes,
I have gardners a lot of best practices on how
to treat employees, how to treat workers, how to treat
a community, et cetera. But then the next step outside
of the b CORP certification is to actually change your
(20:15):
bylaws and create a public benefit corporation. And the main
difference between a C corporation and a public benefit corporation
is that as a public benefit corporation, you're not only
beholden to your shareholders, you're also beholden to the stakeholders
that you're serving.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
So in your experience and you're capturing these stories, what
prompts us to remember these stories? We don't all remember
our own history right from scratch. If you told me
they tell me your story, I'd have a hard time
remembering back to when I was five, six, twelve years old.
What prompts us to remember is photos or songs or
(20:58):
words or what are the things that bring these stories
out of us, and how does MFI help people do that?
Speaker 3 (21:07):
Yeah, I think there's many things, but I'll speak about two.
One is being in a space where you're intentional about
doing it and in a space that feels safe, whether
it's solo or with someone or with a group of
(21:28):
folks that you feel safe. But the other thing comes
as easy as just beginning with open prompts, like just
having the right questions. But the hard question is how
do I begin? And I think this is where the
platform guides you through that process where you can start
(21:51):
very simple with like tell me about your childhood.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
It's like a very high level, open ended question.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
But as soon as you tap into that neuron system,
a lot of people just smile, or in the case
of my father, my father would be like, let's just
skip the childhood because it was very challenging. It was
a very challenging stage. And I would sometimes just push
and say, well, tell me about what you learn, tell
(22:19):
me about how you became a different father if you
had that experience. And then I think that the platform
really supports that guided telling kind of story.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
Does the platform allow you, like if I were to
think about my story, I'd probably remember it in snippets.
You know what I did last year, what I did
thirty five years ago. Is does the platform allow you
to put it together in some cohesive way that's that
you know, follows the time sequence of your life. How
does the platform work? What kind of kind of benefits
(22:53):
are there to try and edit it and put it together.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
Yeah, well, we have the benefit of being a company
in a time where advancements in technologies are just incredible, right,
So we of course we are kind of testing with
a lot of different AI based technologies and one of
(23:19):
the things that we have seen is that the most
important thing is to get the story out in a
very authentic, kind of transparent way. What you can do
after given the technologies and still complying with ethics, with privacy,
with everything is remarkable.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
So last question, how can our listeners find out more?
How can they find that app and start capturing their
personal stories.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
Yes, I would encourage everybody to go to www. Dot MFI.
That's a m o o f y dot com. You'll
find a way then to download the current version of
our product.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
And one of.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
The things that I'm asking everyone always is we want
your feedback right at the end of the day. We
want everybody to have a fantastic experience, which we have
heard repeatedly from our customers. Very quick anecdote. I was
about eighteen months ago. I was working in one of
the largest favelas in Brazil and one of the matriarchs
(24:28):
of the kilombo that we were visiting, she had amazing
stories about their fight, about their resilience, about their values
as a community. And I remember asking her, who is
capturing your story? And she kind of looked at me
and she said, I don't know if anybody cares. And
(24:49):
I was like, oh, you have no idea, Like you
just inspired me in a way that I had never
felt before. So when I think about and a platform
that we're building, my hope and my dream is that
it serves everyone, regardless of income, regardless of geography, regardless
(25:09):
of language or any other differences that we see. This
is for all of us.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
We've been speaking with Luis Duarte, founder and CEO of MFI. Luise,
thank you so much, really great insights. Appreciate your time.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
Thank you for having me, Mike, It's great to be here.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
Well that's all for this week. I'm Mike Christian inviting
you to join us again next week on What's at Risk.
Also check out our podcast at Wbznewsradio dot iHeart dot com.
What's on your mind? Send us your thoughts, comments, and
(25:58):
questions to what at Risk at gmail dot com. That's
one word, What's at Risk at gmail dot com.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
A big thank you to our producer, Ken Carberry of
Chart Productions and
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