HANS ROSLING
"The Fact Based World View"
Professor Hans Rosling, global health expert and data visionary.
Hans Rosling is professor of International Health at the Karolinska Institute, the medical university in Stockholm, Sweden. He began his career as a physician in Mozambique, where he discovered konzo, a formerly unknown paralytic disease. His research traced the causes to malnutrition and dietary cyanide exposure from short-processed cassava roots.
He has also studied other links between poverty and health in Asia and Latin America, and has been an adviser regarding vaccination and essential drugs to WHO, UNICEF and Sida (the Swedish international development cooperation agency).
Hans co-founded Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) in Sweden, and is a member of the International Group of the Swedish Academy of Science. He has pioneered global health teaching in both graduate and post-graduate training, and recently published “GLOBAL HEALTH, an introductory textbook”.
He also co-founded Gapminder (www.gapminder.org), a non-profit venture for development of software that unveils the beauty of statistics by converting dry numbers into enjoyable moving and interactive graphics. His award-winning lectures with animated statistics were labelled “humorous, yet deadly serious”. In 2007 Google acquired the animation software from Gapminder and Hans is now pioneering the use of animated statistics to show global trends on video and in TV.
Even the most worldly and well-travelled among us will have their perspectives shifted by Hans Rosling. His current work focuses on dispelling common myths about the so-called developing world, which (he points out) is no longer worlds away from the west. In fact, most of the third world is on the same trajectory towards health and prosperity, and many countries are moving twice as fast as the west.
What sets Hans apart is not just his apt observations of broad social and economic trends, but the stunning way in which he presents them. By any logic, a presentation that tracks global health and poverty trends should be, in a word, boring. But in Rosling's hands, data sings. Trends come to life. And the big picture — usually hazy at best — snaps into sharp focus.
Presentations
The presentations that are allowed to be shared with the delegates are now accessible via this website, in PDF format. All delegates have received a thank-you e-greeting announcing the password. Please note that the password is case sensitive! Unfortunately, some presenters do not want to share their presentation. The presentation by Stephen Brobst - “The Science of Analysis” (Wednesday April 14) - is only available in hard copy. Please send an e-mail to scarlett.vandermeulen@teradata.com
if you want a copy.
Automotive Day
For the first time this year, we organised a special track for the Automotive Industry which proved to be very successful.The presentations of this one-day session are available here.
