One of the things that thrills me about attending the Second Annual ICT4D Postgraduate Symposium is seeing Hans Rosling in the flesh, as he will be there as keynote speaker. I’ve always loved his work with Gapminder and how information or statistics, graphically presented, can be so revealing — and appealing.
My friend and colleague César Córcoles now reminds me that prof. Rosling was back at TED this year (he also was there on 2006). The presentation, as usual, is impressive, fun… and impressive. But, over all, I loved the common sense he showed when he explained the way he understood the dimensions of development, where crosses state the importance of each item as a mean and as a goal:
| Means | Goals | |
| Human Rights | + | +++ |
| Environment | + | ++ |
| Governance | ++ | + |
| Economic Growth | +++ | 0 |
| Education | ++ | + |
| Health | + | ++ |
| Culture | + | +++ |
As shown in the table, Economic Growth is the most powerful mean, but the real goal is not GDP increases, but Human Rights and, over all, Culture, which is what makes people’s live happy
. For your enjoyment, his two speeches at TED.
Source: TED Talks 2006. Hans Rosling: Debunking third-world myths with the best stats you’ve ever seen
If you need to cite this article in a formal way (i.e. for bibliographical purposes) I dare suggest:
Peña-López, I. (2007) “Information for Development: (micro)tribute to Hans Rosling” In ICTlogy,
#45, June 2007. Barcelona: ICTlogy.
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Besides the final sketch, is impressive how data can contain all this emerging patterns! The difference between goals and means for the dimensions of development seems also a great contribution (specially when considering statistics).
Thought I have doubts with child surviving as a 100% accurate indicator for health in different countries: in developed and heavy industrialized or informational economies, could we consider aspects like sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), obesity or hyperactivity from a reverse angle? I mean, for example, that developing countries with more mother-infant bed-sharing habits (& that’s also culture!) could have less SIDS, thus affecting the whole concept…
A-ha, Enric, this point of yours is an interesting one! :)