Some digital nomad origin stories start with a big promotion, a one‑way ticket, or a perfectly curated Instagram moment. Kevin Hofmann’s story starts with a punch in the face on a rave night in Vienna – and somehow ends with a packed conference room in Chiang Mai, a scooter rental startup prototype, and a global movement to clean up the planet.
In this episode of the Nomad Summit Podcast, hosted by Christoph Huebner and Palle Bo, Kevin shares how a violent incident and a broken jaw became the catalyst that pushed him out of a job he hated, into meditation, co‑living, indie hacking, and impact‑driven entrepreneurship. If you’ve ever wondered how to turn a setback into fuel for a mission‑driven life, this is an episode you’ll want to listen to until the end.
“My Nomad Journey Started With the Biggest Setback of My Life”
Kevin was living what many would call a normal path: a 9–5 account manager role at a startup in Vienna, daily office life, and the sense that something just didn’t fit. After a rave on the Danube Island in the summer of 2020, a group stole some of his belongings, including what he calls “one of the most important possessions I have” – his Bluetooth speaker.
When he spotted them on his way home, he approached them calmly and almost playfully, telling them that the speaker looked “quite familiar” and even joking that his phone was already connected. A few minutes later, one of them punched him in the face so hard that his jaw broke, he blacked out briefly, and woke up in an ambulance, bleeding and unable to open his mouth.
For weeks he lived off blended food, “out of a straw for a while,” and in a lot of pain. But that time in the hospital made one thing brutally clear: life can change in an instant, and he didn’t want to spend his limited time sitting in an office complaining about a job that never felt like his.
From Office Desk to Buddhist Meditation Center to One‑Way Ticket
The broken jaw became a strange kind of liberation. Kevin quit the account manager job after just two months, left Vienna, and moved into a Buddhist meditation center in Upper Austria for about two and a half months. In the quiet of that center, away from sales targets and Slack pings, he finally had room to listen to his intuition.
One day that intuition was loud and simple: book a one‑way ticket to Portugal. He did. That decision set off a chain of events that would eventually lead him to running a co‑living and co‑working space, becoming a digital nomad, winning a scholarship to the Nomad Summit, and stepping on stage as both scholarship winner and startup co‑founder.
Building Community at Noma Village in Lagos
In Lagos, Portugal, Kevin landed one of those serendipitous opportunities that only seem to appear once you shake up your life. He connected with the owner of a property and ended up helping to build and run a co‑living and co‑working space called Noma Village.
For him, it was “one of the best times of my life.” He watched nomads from all over the world come and go, listened to endless travel stories, and realized: “I want to do what they do. I want to be the one telling the travel stories.” That season in Lagos shifted him from observer to participant in the nomad world, and it also revealed a deeper thread in his personality: he loves bringing people together.
Manifesting the Nomad Summit Scholarship
Fast‑forward to Portugal. Scrolling through Instagram one day, Kevin saw a video about the Nomad Summit scholarship. At that point he had never heard of Nomad Summit and had never attended any nomad conference, but the opportunity immediately clicked. He already knew he was coming to Chiang Mai, so it felt like perfect alignment.
He applied, sent in his video, and – in his words – really believed he would get it. While switching planes on his way to Thailand, during a layover, the confirmation email dropped into his inbox: he’d been selected as one of the scholars.
The scholarship is more than just a free ticket. As Christoph explains in the episode, Nomad Summit deliberately recruits regular volunteers from local universities in Chiang Mai to give students real exposure to the international community. For aspiring nomads who can’t easily afford a ticket but have strong values and community‑driven projects, the scholarship adds an extra layer: not only a ticket, but also stage time and free accommodation during the event.
Kevin’s application stood out in a jury process that involved respected community members like Lera (founder of Nomad Magazine), Andrew from Remote Tribe, and Alex from GigSky. When he finally arrived in Chiang Mai and spent about 10–11 days immersed in the event and community, he describes the experience as “an absolutely amazing ride” and “a kind of accelerator” for his personal and entrepreneurial journey.
First Time on Stage: Sharing His Project With 250+ People
Part of the scholarship package is a short speaking slot on the main stage. For Kevin, this was the first time he’d ever stood on a stage in front of 250 people. Despite some nerves, he says he genuinely enjoyed it. He prepared by visualizing himself on stage during meditation, which helped him stay calm when the moment came.
All three scholars got a couple of minutes each to present their projects and invite collaboration from the audience. Kevin’s mission‑driven project, WasteWatch, would later become a central thread of this episode – but the story took an extra twist when the Nomad Summit Buildathon started.
Chiang Ride: Fixing Scooter Rental Chaos in Chiang Mai
At the end of the conference at the Shangri‑La hotel, the Buildathon kicked off. It’s Nomad Summit’s take on a hackathon: participants pitch ideas, form teams with a mix of Thai students and international attendees, and then spend the following days building prototypes.
Kevin was one of the first on stage and pitched a problem almost everyone in Thailand can relate to: renting a scooter. Right now, the experience usually looks like this: you spend ages digging through random Google Maps listings, reading scattered reviews, trying to figure out deposit policies, prices, and whether you can trust the shop at all. It’s opaque, inefficient, and nerve‑wracking – especially if you’re new in town.
His solution is Chiang Ride, a platform that connects local scooter rental shops with travelers and digital nomads in a transparent way. The vision is a central, authentic platform that:
- shows verified shops and their deposit policies,
- lists prices and fleet inventory,
- shows real availability, and
- gives shop owners a simple web app they can run from their phone.
In other words, Chiang Ride aims to be the trust layer for scooter rentals in Chiang Mai (and potentially beyond), making it easy for visitors to rent without gambling on random reviews and for local shops to modernize their operations.
Kevin’s pitch attracted a team of seven people, including three Thai participants. Over the Buildathon they worked together to ship an actual MVP that you can visit at chiang-ride.vercel.app. During the event, Thai team members even walked into scooter shops to demo the product; one shop owner was “pretty keen,” a promising sign for future adoption.
In the final pitch competition, their team took second place – and the first prize went to a fully Thai team, which Kevin was genuinely happy about. For Christoph and Palle, this was exactly the kind of Thai–international collaboration the Buildathon was designed to spark.
Becoming an Indie Maker With a Mission
Outside of events and hackathons, Kevin makes money with freelance work in web design, web development, and automations. But his clear direction is moving towards being an indie maker: building and launching his own products, rapidly prototyping ideas with the help of AI, and focusing on projects that align with his values.
He describes himself as “very purpose driven and mission driven,” and that’s where his main project, WasteWatch, comes in.
WasteWatch: A Global Cleanup Platform
WasteWatch grew out of a single cleanup event in Vienna. Before his jaw incident, Kevin had joined an environmental group called Green Heroes for a cleanup along the Danube River. Even in a country like Austria, which many imagine to be spotless, he was shocked by the amount of trash – especially cigarette butts. They collected thousands in one go.
That day fundamentally changed how he saw the world. From then on, he started noticing litter everywhere. He realized that a cleanup isn’t just about removing waste; it rewires how you perceive your surroundings. Once you’ve filled a bag with other people’s trash, it’s hard to un‑see.
As he traveled, he noticed another pattern: there are countless cleanup groups and organizations around the globe, but their efforts are scattered. Some have simple WordPress sites they can barely maintain, others run Facebook pages that are hard to discover, and often it’s difficult for volunteers to find events wherever they happen to be.
Kevin wanted to solve two problems at once:
- Make it easy for organizers to publish events, show their impact, and present the people behind the project.
- Make it easy for volunteers and individuals to find cleanups nearby and join a global movement.
The result is WasteWatch.app, a platform where cleanup organizations can create profiles, publish upcoming events, and document their impact – especially the amount of waste removed from nature. Volunteers can discover events, join, and gradually see a global picture of collective action.
Kevin emphasizes that after a cleanup, the awareness often remains locked within the group that showed up. People go home, and the wider community never sees what happened. WasteWatch is his way to make that awareness visible, shareable, and scalable.
Collaboration in Chiang Mai: Cleanups With Local Kids
During the Nomad Summit in Chiang Mai, Palle introduced Kevin to Shayne, a member of the Nomad Summit team who already organizes cleanups with local school kids around the Ping River. Shane has established regular spots and brings students out to collect trash and learn about environmental responsibility.
Kevin loved that initiative and they discussed hosting a cleanup side event during the Nomad Week. In the end, the social intensity of the event (and the need for a bit of personal space) meant it didn’t happen this time – but Kevin is staying in Chiang Mai for another month and is keen to organize something together. Christoph and Palle also floated the idea of including a cleanup officially as a side event at a future Nomad Summit.
Why Clean Environments Change Behavior
The conversation then zooms out to how environment shapes behavior. Palle shares observations from Japan and Rwanda: in places that are extremely clean, people are much less likely to litter. In Tokyo, where there are surprisingly few trash cans, people simply take their trash home. In Rwanda, regular nationwide cleanup days – with everyone participating, including the president – have created a culture where trash on the street is almost unthinkable.
By contrast, in places where trash is everywhere, people quickly adopt a “whatever” attitude. Why bother being the only one who cares? Kevin hopes WasteWatch can help flip that script by making environmental care visible, celebrating those who give their free time for a higher purpose, and eventually enabling crowdfunding to support both organizations and highly engaged individuals.
In a future version of WasteWatch, Kevin imagines people not only finding cleanups but also directly donating to groups or individuals who are consistently out there collecting waste. That way, those who invest their time and energy can expand their impact instead of burning out.
A Vision for the Next Ten Years
Towards the end of the episode, Palle asks Kevin about his dreams for the future. Kevin is 34 (even if Palle insists he looks 25) and doesn’t obsess over detailed long‑term plans, but he has a clear direction: he wants to be both location‑independent and financially independent so he can fully dedicate his time to impact.
His purpose is to bring people together and to build projects that help the environment, animals, and the planet as a whole. He’s already organized multiple beach cleanups in Lagos and has seen firsthand how powerful it is when people come together, have fun, create memories, and at the same time leave a positive mark.
“I just see myself building nice projects that help people, help the environment, help the planet. I want to take care of animals and just live in harmony with life,” he says. Christoph calls it “beautiful final words” and hopes they’ll inspire many listeners to follow Kevin’s lead – or to partner with him on WasteWatch, Chiang Ride, or future projects.
How to Connect With Kevin and Support His Projects
If you’re part of a cleanup organization, a community builder, a developer, or just someone who lights up when hearing about impact‑driven tech, Kevin is actively looking for collaborators and partners. His biggest bottleneck with WasteWatch right now isn’t code – it’s getting organizations and users onto the platform.
- Check out Chiang Ride (MVP for scooter rentals in Chiang Mai): https://chiang-ride.vercel.app
- Discover and support WasteWatch: https://WasteWatch.app
- Message Kevin on Telegram: @kevkevkev23
- Follow Kevin on Instagram: @kev_hfmn
If Kevin’s story resonates with you, the best next step is simple: listen to the full episode, hear the nuance in his journey from hospital bed to hackathon stage, and think about where you might plug into his mission – whether that’s building features, onboarding organizations, organizing local cleanups, or amplifying his work in your own community.
And if you know someone who’s stuck in a job they hate, secretly dreaming of something more meaningful, share this episode with them. Sometimes all it takes is one story, told at the right time, to turn a painful setback into the beginning of a completely different life.
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