Esther Duflo's Social Experiments To Fight Global Poverty

After the Haiti outbreak, millions of people all over the world sent billions in donations to aid the victims. This was and still is a completely noble cause, as the disaster has been devastating.

However, is the world aware of the fact that 9 million children under the age of five die every year from preventable causes? That is equal to a Haiti earthquake every eight days.

It is true that many people do give to poverty reduction organizations. However, as Esther Duflo states, not with the same intensity. In the above Ted Talk, Duflo explains why this happens in a very concrete, convincing and scientific way.

Duflo also shows how aid can work and has worked to change lives. We can't necessarily eradicate poverty now, but it is possible to know what development tactics work and do not. By enacting policies that promote development efforts that do work, in time we can make a serious dent in global poverty.

-Gabrielle Gurian

SOURCE: TED TALKS

From Kombucha To Clothing

Fashion designer, Suzanne Lee has begun experimenting with a kombucha-based material (a type of tea) to essentially grow her own fabric. She began thinking of materials in a whole new way when she met an influential biologist.

Green tea + sugar + a few microbes + time = clothing.

The process is fascinating. She begins by using a Kombucha tea recipe, which is a mix of bacteria, yeasts and microorganisms. Once sugar is added to the tea, it spins cellulose in a fermentation process. After about three days, bacteria starts to feed on the sugar liquid and spins tiny fibers. Over time, tiny threads form into a mat on the surface. After 2-3 weeks the mat has grown to about 1-3 inches in thickness. Once it is ready to harvest, it can be washed with cold water and laid out to dry in the sun since the excess water will need to evaporate. As it dries it compresses and becomes a light weight transparent paper or a flexible vegetable leather. It can then be cut it out and sewn conventionally or the wet material can be used and molded around another shape.

The process is completely organic and involves absolutely no waste since the previously fermented liquid can be recycled. Lee does not use any chemicals or dyes, but instead she changes the color of the fabric using iron oxidation, fruit or vegetable staining, or indigo. After use, it is even biodegradable.

Unfortunately, the fabric made by this Kombucha process is still not water resistant. So if you were to walk outside in the rain you would absorb large amounts of water. The seams would fall apart and even if you walked out of your house clothed, you would return naked. If this issue can be solved though, Kombucha based clothing could become a smart and sustainable way to dress.

--Gabrielle Gurian

SOURCE: TED TALKS

TEDxChange Videos

TEDxChange is a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and TED sponsored initiative aiming to organize TED Talks-like events locally, so they can reach deeper into their communities. As other TED Talks, TEDxChange is recorded and shared with the world community, following their motto: "ideas worth spreading."

"In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x=independently organized TED event."

Check out their video gallery in search of ideas worth spreading to fight global poverty!

- David Nebreda

SOURCE: Bill&Melinda Gates Foundation

The Future We'll Make: TEDxChange Photo Campaign

The Gates Foundation and TED recently collaborated to create "The Future We'll Make: Flickr Photo Campaign." This photo campaign marks the 10th anniversary of the UN's Millennium Development Goals and is also an exciting way for people from all around the world to contribute their visions for a better future. The Borgen Project staff, such as our intern Corey Cox in the above picture, are getting involved - and so should you! Just click on this link and follow the few simple steps to get started.

-Clare Ortblad

IMAGE SOURCE: Flickr

Kiva.org Co-Founder Speaks at TED

Jessica Jackley, a co-founder of the online microfinance community Kiva, is trying to change the way we think about people in poverty. Many people will relate to her perspective, especially her attitude towards people in poverty prior to founding Kiva. She thought that "they" need "our" help. After actually meeting a handful of people we would term as "in poverty," she realized that her attitude was wrong. They did not need help that would only turn into dependency. Now she believes that instead of the haves and have nots, the lines should be blurred. We should not think of giving as a transaction or a way to make ourselves feel better. We should not distance ourselves from people in poverty. Check out the above video to hear her story as well as the stories of the entrepreneurs that changed her attitude towards poverty.

-Kelli Hanson

SOURCE: TED

Creative Approaches to Education Effectively Fight HIV/AIDS in Thailand

In this enlightening TED Talk, Mechai Viravaidya explores the creative and practical approaches that Thailand has taken toward slowing population growth and reducing poverty. Mr. Mechai, a public health expert and founder of the Population and Community Development Association, has spent almost forty years making innovations in public health, education, and community development.

Since the 1970s, Thailand has been working on targeting population growth as a venue for poverty reduction. One of the most effective ways of slowing population growth? Condom distribution education. Over the last few decades, a number of creative, innovative methods were used to distribute condoms and teach about their use. These have included placing condoms in mini-bars in hotels, having monks bless condoms to legitimize their use, and training village shopkeepers to distribute birth control methods in order to increase local access.

Recently, this family planning campaign has proved extraordinarily effective, not only with respect to family planning, but also in prevention of HIV/AIDS. From 1991-2003, new HIV infections in Thailand declined by 90%, saving an estimated 7.7 million lives. Today, as Mr. Mechai notes, "wherever you find people, you will find condoms."

Mr. Mechai stresses that everyone in a given community must be involved to make any education program effective. In Thailand, everyone from Buddhist monks to school teachers were used as tools of education and outreach. "Don't leave it to the specialists, the doctors, the nurses ... we all need to help!" Mr. Mechai said, reminding us that we all play a part in securing a better future for our world.

-Elizabeth Newton

SOURCE: TED

An Embrace That Saves Lives

Jane Chen, the CEO of Embrace, is behind the innovative product that is an affordable substitute for an infant incubator. The Embrace infant warmer is Chen’s solution to reducing high infant mortality rates caused by a lack of or inadequate incubators. This small sleeping bag-like product literally embraces a newborn child and warms it at an adjustable temperature. The Embrace infant warmer is less than 1% of a traditional incubator’s cost, and therefore is an affordable option for the millions of people living in developing countries.

The beauty of this product is that it is affordable, reusable, works without electricity, and can be sterilized easily. Jane Chen will distribute the Embrace infant warmer into poor regions of India this year in hopes of saving millions of lives. In addition to saving lives, this product will have a longer-term, social impact in developing countries. The Embrace infant warmer will help decrease infant mortality rates, which ultimately reduces population sizes. As counter intuitive as that may sound, here is how the correlation between mortality rates and population works: as parents stop anticipating that their babies will die, they will then have fewer children, and subsequently the population level drops.

- Clare Ortblad

SOURCE: TED

A Born Inventor: Malawian Boy Creates Windmill Energy

At age 14, William Kamkwamba decided to take initiative in finding ways to create electricity for his family home in Malawi. With the help of a library book titled Using Energy, Kamkwamba learned the basic mechanics of an electricity-producing windmill. Innovative and resourceful thinking led him to use scrap metals and materials gathered at a local scrap yard to build a windmill. He was successful in his attempts. The windmill he built powers four lights and two radios in his home!

This simple yet innovative creation has dramatically changed Kamkwamba’s life. Word spread rapidly about Kamkwamba’s inspiring tale. And as a result, he now has support to build more of his dream projects and to attend school in South Africa. One of his dreams is to build a larger windmill that will help irrigate the farmlands in his entire village. Thanks to a few journalists, bloggers, and TEDGlobal, Kamkwamba now has the means to fulfill his dream to improve living conditions in his home country.

- Clare O.

SOURCE: TED

Increasing Access to Incubators in the Developing World

Incubators in the western world cost upwards of $20,000, making the care of premature infants in developing countries nearly impossible. At a recent TED talk, Jane Chen present The Embrace, a child sized sleeping bag-like product outfitted with a heat system to keep premature babies at a consistent 37 degrees (body temperature). The product is priced at $25 and hopes to become available sometime this year.

- Clara Hill

SOURCE: "A warm embrace that saves lives"- TED

"To Make Poverty History, Make Clean Energy Cheap"

During this years 2010 TED conference in Long Beach, CA, Bill Gates highlighted his greatest wish in the world: "an energy technology that gets invented at half the cost with no CO2 emissions....this is the one with the greates impact."

Mr. Gates went on to state that "without access to modern, commercial energy, poor countries can be trapped in a vicious circle of poverty, social instability and underdevelopment."

Attendees to this year's TED convention listened seminars and conferences led by scientists, innovators, and philanthropists that all had the same goal in mind - to bring the world together via our similarities and common interests.

To learn more, check out the link to the following video found at the TED talks.

- Tiffanie Depew

SOURCE: TED 2010

One Laptop per Child Successes

Nicholas Negroponte started the One Laptop per Child program after he experienced what a difference a laptop could make for a family in rural Cambodia. By providing laptops for children in developing countries, a whole new world of educational possibilities is opened up. Investing in children’s education is what many countries need to do in order to escape the poverty cycle.

In 2008, TED flew to Colombia with Mr. Negroponte to deliver laptops to children in areas that have been cut off from the outside world for the past 40 years, when the FARC began a revolution. The Minister of Defense of Colombia, who recognizes that an educated population is beneficial for strategic defense, made the trip possible. In this trip alone, 650 laptops will be delivered to the region making a total of 3,000 of these laptops in Colombia.

Thanks to One Laptop per Child, half a million children around the world have laptops and there are a quarter million more on their way and an additional quarter million being produced. These laptops are especially beneficial because they are designed to help children learn about learning. They give them tools to interact with the world and have new experiences they cannot connect to in any other way.

To learn more about the organization, visit http://laptop.org/en/index.shtml
--Jessica Milstead

Source: ted.com

Lifesaver Bottle for Safe Water

Michael Pritchard was upset after watching people in crises suffer from diseases caused by drinking unsafe water. He watched as it took the U.S., a developed nation, five days to deliver water to those affected by hurricane Katrina. Poorer nations suffer extensively even without natural disasters. Mr. Pritchard invented the Lifesaver bottle, which allows people to filter water at the source without having to walk hours to find safe drinking water.

Previously engineered filters were able to filter out organisms up to 200 nanometers, but that still leaves large enough pores to allow tuberculosis (200nm) and polio bacteria (25nm) to get through. The pores on this new filter prevent any organisms larger than 15 nanometers from filtering through. The same technology can be used on a larger scale in tanks to help provide water for a whole family.

This innovation could help countries reach the UN’s Millennium Development Goals of halving the amount of people without clean drinking water with $8 billion and ensure safe drinking water for everyone worldwide with only $20 billion.
--Jessica Milstead

Source: ted.com

Gordon Brown Calls for United Global Society

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown gave a speech at the TED Global Conference addressing the need for greater global connectivity in solving the major problems affecting the world today. He began by calling attention to images that have affected millions of people across the globe and forced them to action. From pictures of Kim, a girl whose back was ruined by napalm in Vietnam, to the video of Neda, an Iranian woman who was killed while demonstrating, Prime Minister Brown explains how compassion compels people to act.

Prime Minister Brown explains, “We now have the capacity to find common ground with people we will never meet but who we will meet through the Internet and through all the modern means of communication, that we now have the capacity to organize and take collective action together to deal with the problem or an injustice that we want to deal with, and I believe that this makes this a unique age in human history, and it is the start of what I would call the creation of a truly global society.”

With the Internet and new technologies, we have the potential to act united as one world to combat challenges from human rights abuses to climate change and financial crises. It is with greater communication and combined efforts that we can prevent future genocides, famines and severe poverty. In ancient Greece, crowds would call out “Let’s march,” following one of Demosthenes’ speeches. Prime Minister Brown asks us now to march toward a global society.
--Jessica Milstead

Source: Ted.com (click here to view his speech)

Emmanuel Jal Shares his Eperiences as a Child Soldier Through Singing

Emmanuel Jal became a child soldier in Sudan at the age of seven. He learned to hate the northern Sudanese even though he did not know the origins of the war. What he did know was that his family perished because of the war and he felt he had to avenge their deaths.

Fighting two civil wars over a five-year period meant that Jal’s future was bleak. However, at age 13, a British aid worker, Emma McCune, smuggled Jal into Nairobi and adopted him. This gave him the opportunity to be a part of a new family, gain an education and eventually to spread awareness about the state of Sudan.

Music provides him with the strength and means to share his story worldwide. His lyrics touch the soul, providing a glimpse into what he suffered as a child in Sudan. In 2005, he released his first album, Gua, which means peace in his native Nuer. Since then, he has performed at Nelson Mandela’s 90th birthday, and spoken to U.N. delegates as well as given talks at universities throughout the U.S.

He recently told his story at a TED conference, sharing poetry and a song dedicated to Emma McCune. Check it out!
--Jessica Milstead

Source: ted.com

The Boy who Harnessed the Wind

At the TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) conference this week at Oxford, William Kamkwamba shared his story of innovation as a farmer in Malawi. After their family’s crop failure in 2001, Mr. Kamkwamba could no longer afford to go to school. However, at age 14, after reading about windmills that could generate electricity, he decided to build one to help his family. Even though he did not have the usual materials, he improvised using a tractor fan, shock absorber, PVC pipes and a bicycle frame. The first model he built was strong enough to run one light bulb, but a second version was sufficient for four light bulbs. Mr. Kamkwamba, who is now 19, shared his message at the TED conference, "Trust in yourself and believe. Never give up." To learn more about his story, look for his book, The Boy who Harnessed the Wind, which will be published in September.