About The Talk
(source: TED)
At age 14, in poverty and famine, a Malawian boy built a windmill to power his family’s home. Now at 22, William Kamkwamba, who speaks at TED, here, for the second time, shares in his own words the moving tale of invention that changed his life.
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About the Talk
(source: FORA.tv)
Thomas R. Frieden, the commissioner of the New York City Dept. of Health discusses the structure of the U.S. Health Care System and interventions that can be taken to prevent important health issues like tobacco use and obesity.
About Dr. Thomas Frieden
Thomas R. Frieden – Thomas R. Frieden, MD, MPH, has served as Commissioner of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene since January 2002. Dr. Frieden has worked as an epidemiologist, administrator, teacher, researcher, clinician, and community organizer. His top priorities are to strengthen systems to accurately monitor the health of New Yorkers and to use this information to work with communities to improve their health. A graduate of Oberlin College, Dr. Frieden received degrees in Medicine and Public Health from Columbia University. He completed specialty training in Internal Medicine at Columbia and subspecialty training in Infectious Diseases at Yale University.
About the Talk
(source: TED)
Too much of the world lacks access to clean drinking water. Engineer Michael Pritchard did something about it — inventing the portable Lifesaver filter, which can make the most revolting water drinkable in seconds. An amazing demo from TEDGlobal 2009.
(source: TED)
During the twin tragedies of the Asian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina, Ipswich water-treatment expert Michael Pritchard winced helplessly at televised coverage of throngs of refugees waiting for days for a simple drink of clean water. Stricken by the chronic failure of aid agencies to surmount this basic challenge, Pritchard decided to do something about it.
Using a non-chemical nano-filtration hollow fiber membrane with 15 nanometer pores (it is designed to block viruses), the Lifesaver bottle can make the most revolting swamp water drinkable in seconds. Better still, a single long-lasting filter can clean 6,000 liters of water. Given the astronomical cost of shipping water to disaster areas, Pritchard’s Lifesaver bottle could turn traditional aid models on their heads.
About The Talk
(source: TED)
Worldchanging.com founder Alex Steffen argues that reducing humanity’s ecological footprint is incredibly vital now, as the western consumer lifestyle spreads to developing countries.
About Alex Steffen
(source: TED)
Alex Steffen is cofounder and executive editor of WorldChanging.com. Part blog and part eco-activist street team, WorldChanging.com serves as a clearinghouse of information and inspiration dedicated to increasing sustainability and livability into the 21st century, emphasizing solutions over problems.
Steffen was an environmental journalist in Seattle when he realized that the tools and methods for improving society’s ecological profile by and large already exist — they just need better PR. Steffen and friend Jamais Cascio co-founded WorldChanging.com to provide that PR, linking to and posting stories by dozens of contributors around the world on everything from consumer activism and sustainable farming to alternative energy and green building projects, to technology, globalization, and human rights. World Changing, a sprawling 600-page collection of content from the website combined with new material, was published in 2006 to wide acclaim.
About The Talk
(source: TED)
Green-minded architect and designer William McDonough asks what our buildings and products would look like if designers took into account “all children, all species, for all time.”
About William McDonough
(source: TED)
Architect William McDonough practices green architecture on a massive scale. In a 20-year project, he is redesigning Ford’s city-sized River Rouge truck plant and turning it into the Rust Belt’s eco-poster child, with the world’s largest “living roof” for reclaiming storm runoff. He has created buildings that produce more energy and clean water than they use. Oh, and he’s designing seven entirely new and entirely green cities in China.
Bottom-line economic benefits are another specialty of McDonough’s practice. A tireless proponent of the idea that absolute sustainability and economic success can go hand-in-hand, he’s designed buildings for the Gap, Nike and Frito-Lay that have lowered corporate utility bills by capturing daylight for lighting, using natural ventilation instead of AC, and heating with solar or geothermal energy. They’re also simply nicer places to work, surrounded by natural landscaping that gives back to the biosphere.
In 2002 he co-wrote Cradle to Cradle, which proposes that designers think as much about what happens at the end of a product’s life cycle as they do about its beginning. (The book itself is printed on recyclable plastic.) From this, he is developing the Cradle to Cradle community, where like-minded designers and businesspeople can grow the idea. He has been awarded three times by the US governemt, and Time magazine called him a Hero of the Planet in 1999.