Bill Gates unleashes mosquitoes on TED conference | Hacker News Reader

Bill Gates unleashes mosquitoes on TED conference

alleyinsider.com

55 pointsfromedome23 comments

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.

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?

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.

Thanks.

Also a likely factor: Ghana's official language is English.

Although most nationals can speak 2-3 languages very well, owing to the many local dialects. English may be the language of business but the outlying villages often speak different languages. In general though, yes I think it tends to be a more stable country than some in Africa. There is even an American-style burger joint in Accra.

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

While I understand the point of your comment, there are plenty of places that are poor and safe for Americans. Like most of the world.

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.

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.

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.

I had a terrible time with names, and I felt very uneducated when I realized that nearly everyone was fluent in several languages. Oddly enough one of the most astounding things that happened when I was there was when one of the nationals with no formal training fixed an electronic piece of our camera gear with makeshift tools. That still is number one on my list of coolest hacks.

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Would you say "mosquito-size?"

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

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

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