Bill Gates unleashes mosquitoes on TED conference

http://www.alleyinsider.com/2009/2/bill-gates-unleashes-mosquitoes-on-rich-ted-crowd

by fromedome • 17 years ago

55 23 17 years ago

teej3• 17 years ago

Malaria sucks, and solving it is more than a Biology challenge, it's a people challenge.

Last year I spent a few weeks volunteering at a health clinic in rural Ghana. People walked in with various ailments and issues. To them, it's simply easier and more cost effective to treat everyone as if they have malaria then to spend the time diagnosing the real issue. The results of this being that practically everyone walked out with malaria medication.

This is simply one facet in a complicated issue, but it's a big one. The people issues require crossing cultural and logistical barriers and are just as difficult to solve as the scientific ones.

cchooper2• 17 years ago

Could you answer a question for me? When I went to Ghana, I noticed it had far more volunteers (especially from the US) than any other country I've ever been to. Do you know why this is?

teej3• 17 years ago

It's considered the most stable country in Western Africa and one of the most stable in all of Africa. Simply put, it's safe.

mattmaroon• 17 years ago

They have a tremendous peace corps presence due to governmental stability. There aren't many places that are both poor and safe for Americans.

dpeq• 17 years ago

I did an internship in Lagos, Nigeria and during this time a lot of folks from Ghana came to work there. They were the most friendly, open-minded and welcoming people I met during this time. Now that Nigeria is no longer a safe place to be, a lot of expats (mostly working for oil and construction companies) moved their families to Ghana . I doesn't matter from where they fly out to the oil rigs.

TrevorJ5• 17 years ago

What area of Ghana? I was there myself a couple years ago with a documentary crew. Traveled through Accra and across the Volta region. How did you find the country? In my experience the people are wonderful.

teej3• 17 years ago

All in the Ashanti region, about an hour north of Kumasi. Ghana was an incredible place - I also found the people wonderful. Very inviting and very friendly. All the older non-english speaking women would laugh and forgive me when I butchered their Twi names.

anuraggoel2• 17 years ago

(on twitter @wilshipley) Chris Anderson to Gates: We're titling your talk 'Bill Gates releases more bugs into the world.'

a-priori• 17 years ago

This is off-topic, but I'm curious: your name appears red to me, and I've never seen this before. What is the significance of this?

anuraggoel2• 17 years ago

You have probably seen it by now, but http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=467181

aneesh• 17 years ago

A new feature released a few minutes ago. See http://ycombinator.com/newsnews.html#4feb09

ensignavenger• 17 years ago

According to TED.com, the video is supposed to be released within 24 hours.

Alex3917• 17 years ago

His slides were terrible, they were impossible to read. He literally used a 12pt font to label his graphs.

TrevorJ5• 17 years ago

Would you say "mosquito-size?"

ivey• 17 years ago

That's surprising. I would have expected him to be pretty savvy about slide design.

TrevorJ5• 17 years ago

That's gotta be one of the cooler things I have heard of Mr. Gates doing. Effective illustration.

MikeCapone• 17 years ago

Indeed, and not so much for the people on the room, but because it gives the media a "hook" to sell the story and get people reading about it.

Kudos.

sheriff• 17 years ago

Fortunately all the mosquitoes BSOD'ed before they could bite anyone.

Bill Gates unleashes mosquitoes on TED conference

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