16/09/2026
Happy birthday, Tiago.
Let me tell you a story about who Tiago is, and how he is connected to pretty much everything we are doing with our company today.
The first time we went to Sweden was for the World Peace Awards. The plan was that Iain and I would spend the weekend there and fly back to Finland on Sunday.
Then Phra Mahanual Chamnanram, the abbot of Wat Buddharama in Nurmijärvi, asked me to stay longer and come back with them by ferry.
Iain had to get back because of work, and I had absolutely no money. Literally none.
So I told him I could not stay.
He said he would pay for my ferry ticket.
I told him that did not really solve the problem because I still had no money for food or anything else.
He said he would pay for that too.
So I stayed.
The whole reason we had gone to Sweden in the first place was to meet people and make connections — “networking”, as people call it, even though I hate that word.
And that is how I met Tiago.
Phra Mahanual gave me a key to a cabin on the ferry, and when I got there, Tiago arrived at pretty much the same time. We had never met before.
He is Brazilian, and I lived in Brazil for about six months, so we immediately had something to talk about. We got along really well and ended up talking a lot during the trip.
And of course I told him about MyTemple.
When we got back to Finland, the group did some sightseeing and our last stop was a Thai restaurant in Helsinki. After that, everyone else was going back to the ferry and I was going home.
Tiago and I were sitting at the restaurant when two Asian guys were looking for a place to sit. Tiago waved them over to our table.
Pretty much immediately he told me:
“Tell him about the app.”
The guy sitting opposite me asked what app.
So I started explaining MyTemple.
That guy was Piya.
Today, Dr. Piya Ratna Maharjan is one of the shareholders of our company.
So basically, I met Piya because Tiago invited two strangers to sit at our table and then told me to talk about the app.
It is funny to think about how these things happen.
If I had had money, I would have flown home with Iain.
If Phra Mahanual had not offered to pay for everything, I would not have stayed.
If I had not ended up in that cabin, I might never have met Tiago.
And if Tiago had not waved those two guys over to our table, I might never have met Piya.
A ferry cabin, a random conversation and two empty seats in a Thai restaurant ended up changing a lot more than any of us knew at the time.
Happy birthday, Tiago.
