150’000 members in 4 months

Goodwall brings together all the stories of people doing good and highlights the best to inspire others to follow their footsteps. Goodwall is not “just another social network”: it promotes real, concrete actions that push humanity forward.

Goodwall has officially launched in February after almost two years of preparation and 1.1 million CHF in fundraising. The Geneva-based startup began its story by winning the People’s Choice Award sponsored by Accenture at Alp ICT’s Venture Night at Lift, one of Europe’s key events about innovation and technology.

“Do good & share it” is the mantra behind Goodwall: the humanitarian and environmental social network that encourages and facilitates people to do real good and inspire others progressively throughout their lives. The innovative platform is a game changer for people seeking to improve our world. “We know that clicking on a website will not change the world, but changing mindsets will” says Founder Omar Bawa.

According to him, “Social education” is the first step to achieving this mission. To begin, they are partnering with schools around the world to encourage kids to systematically do good and share it on Goodwall from a young age; they are also partnering with universities to incentivize high schoolers to do good and build their humanitarian CVs to distinguish themselves beyond their grades. The humanitarian CV showcases a member’s education, concrete good actions, projects and real-life experiences to inspire others to do good. The goal is to continue on that track until “doing good” becomes a habit: a behavior, a way of life.

Goodwall, however, is not exclusive to high schoolers and university students. Goodwall brings together all the stories of people doing good and highlights the best to inspire others to follow their footsteps. Anyone can create and share beautiful inspiring stories, videos and photos. That said, to ensure the content is relevant (to avoid videos of kittens riding bicycles backwards), members must select an issue (Environment, Health, Human Rights, Education, Conflict and Development). Members can discover trending socially-relevant shareable “Top Stories” hand-picked by Goodwall’s editorial team or enjoy a constant stream of fresh meaningful content from the issues, people, organizations and communities they follow. Like-minded members can connect, collaborate, share and discuss with each other in dedicated communities. Goodwall is not “just another social network”: it goes way beyond that by promoting real, concrete actions that push humanity forward.

The platform was founded by a team of young social entrepreneurs: the Bawa brothers: Omar and Taha, and Marcus Bonalumi. After participating in Model UN, interning at the UN Human Rights Council and studying humanitarian law, Omar created Goodwall when he realized the web was the perfect platform to inspire, inform and involve a global community. Taha joined him, after understanding that it was a unique opportunity to harness technology and address the world’s greatest challenges. Soon after, Marcus Bonalumi, Taha’s university classmate, joined the team.

Taha Bawa just completed a residency at swissnex San Francisco, participating in the CTI Start-up Market Validation Camp in May 2014. His mission was to meet as many relevant partners and institutions as he could during his brief stay in order to test his company’s core concept: helping young people build resumes of the good they do, thereby giving them a leg-up getting into a university or landing their first job. A short video interview with him can be seen at the website of Swissnex San Francisco.