Aug 5, 2007

Prof. Hans Rosling shows us the real world

I had the priviledge to meet Sweden's Professor Hans Rosling at GOVIS 2007: Innovation in ICT conference held here in Wellington. I attended his workshop Unveiling the beauty of statistics with animations. Prof. Rosling was described in the GOVIS conference pages as
Hans Rosling has spent two decades studying the links between poverty, agriculture and disease in remote rural areas across Africa. He-founded Gapminder together with his son and daughter-in-law to promote better use and understanding of statistics by converting international statistics into moving, interactive and enjoyable graphics.

In the workshop he further informed us that his software Trendalyzer has been acquired by Google (yes, the big monster that's eating up everything) and they will help further develop it. Its features will probably be included into Google Analytics as well. This will give the software a platform and resources for more development.

Prof. Rosling already has a very busy schedule, being invited to speak in front of most major international forums, including UN bodies, OECD etc. I think every world government and media outlet should hear him. In most conference sessions I like to take lots of notes in case I forget something, but at the GOVIS session I had to put my pen down as I knew I wouldn't forget this one. Not only was the presentation enormously informative, it was also very entertaining. The famous videos below are from the TED conferences.

February 2006 - Hans Rosling: Debunking third-world myths with the best stats you've ever seen




March 2007 - Hans Rosling: New insights on poverty and life around the world



Prof. Hans Rosling at GOVIS 2007 in Wellington

Professor Hans Rosling at GOVIS 2007 conference

2 comments:

Bal Anand said...

Your latest blog entry regarding workshop (the world has undergone, as if, a transmigration of the soul from its earlier connotation of a blacksmith's shop with a a hand operated air-bag furnace) touches upon the topic of my deepest passion. The Swedes are indeed the most gifted for global visions. Heard of Alva Reimer & Gunnar Myrdal, both Nobel
Laureates, with Gunnar serving as his country's Ambassador in Delhi, of Asian Drama: An inquiry into the Poverty of Nations
fame!

monty said...

no doubting they are one of the most gifted but they are also one of the weirdest, They too have cause a lot of problems around the world so they might as well be the ones to fix it i guess. How is it that the people in their own countries are not able to see the problems in front of them, but here are the swedes best minds, who know what exactly is happening around the world. huh odd huh