Latest Event Updates
Connect ideas, don’t protect them. Build bridges to a better future.
This morning at Sydney Coffee Mornings meeting at Single Origin, my mate Gregg was talking about seeing ideas as networks echoing a TED Talk. That this conversation was in a cafe was not a coincidence, but only exemplified what the talk was about. Watch Steve Johnson present this TED Talk here:
Steve talks about metaphor. Coffee houses providing the incubation place for an idea.
He cautions that a lot of ideas have a slow incubation period. The falacy of the ‘Eureka!’ moment. The long hunch, as he describes it. Steve asks:
How do we allow hunches to connect with other hunches?
Another metaphor I am exploring through the 10 City Bridge Run is that of a bridge. How might we design a bridge to incubate the ideas that make a difference to extreme poverty?
Soon I start running 10 sub-marathons each of 24 km in 10 cities across 10 countries inside of one month. Each distance represents the 24,000 children that die every day. The run itself is bridging cities, conversations and communities.
The real work of participation is collecting 24,000 photographs of human bridges to be used as a pictorial petition to be presented to the G20 leaders. This is an idea that is emerging and still needs some work to refine and spread. So how do we allow hunches to connect with other hunches?
Will you join us over the next few weeks before I commence running during an informal event: ’10 Cafes in 10 Days’? I thought we could start at Single Origin Roasters Cafe at 64 Reservoir St, Surry Hills on Wednesday 27 October (how is 8.30 am- 9.30 am?) and see where it goes from there. Coffee anyone?!
Women Are Heroes
The power of the photograph and film is evident here.
From this year’s TED Prize winner, JR.
Engaging, emotional, inspiring.
Watch it now.
The 10 City Bridge Run aims to influence child mortality through a creative process of inquiry. This is a human challenge- child mortality. Money and aid are important, as is institutional involvement. I believe that ultimately what the collective global citizenry do matters most.
Together, we can influencing the outcome of Millennium Development Goal 4 by building a bridge to the G20. The G20 has the political will to make global change happen very quickly, if it chooses to do so. But to do so requires effort and participation from us.
Help us to build the bridge. Thanks for the inspiration JR!
A 5th Birthday Party Should Not Be A Luxury
On Tuesday I heard two talks which supported the International Women’s Development Agency, or better known by its acronym IWDA.
Rosaria Martin da Cruz from HIAM Health in Timor Leste spoke at both events. She is an articulate woman who was able to paint a picture of life in Timor Leste, and how that was so different to what people might experience in Australia.
The first talk was a lunchtime gathering- it was small and intimate, and really showed the benefits and strengths to be found in partnerships.
The second event was an evening gathering which was well stage-managed and more a series of well connected sound bites presented from World Vision. I preferred the intimacy of the lunchtime discussion.
Some speakers at the evening gathering made some excellent points, and spoke from the heart. Questions around why are the most vulnerable forgotten. Questions asking us what we were going to do about it.
The global figures for child mortality were appropriately described as “a shocking violation of childrens’ rights” by Louise Baur, Professor and Deputy Associate Dean of Paediatrics and Child Health at The University of Sydney. “We all have a more responsibility to help”.
Michael Dibley, the Associate Professor in International Public Health at The University of Sydney argued that children are the living messages to be sent forth to the next generation. A really important point.
The Governor of New South Wales, Her Excellency Professor Marie Bashir who is also the Chancellor of The University of Sydney spoke strongly “in her capacity not only as Chancellor, Governor, medical professional, but also mother and grandmother”. She argued that experiencing a fifth birthday party in Australia was not a luxury, but was so for too many children particularly in Africa.
Even looking at the child mortality figures between Timor Leste and Australia shows how unacceptable this huge gap really is: 97 deaths per 1,000 children under the age of five in Timor Lester compared with a ratio of less than 5 deaths per 1,000 children in Australia.
We need to build bridges to become better informed. These bridges will help to close this gap in small ways by increasing our awareness and our capacity to act. Money alone is not the answer.
The Governor went on to make some startling comparisons:
When you consider that over 6 million children die each year from pnuemonia and diarrhoea, diseases we readily have the prevention for, the cost of which is less than a postage stamp per child, how can we continue to make 5th birthday parties an occasion to be a luxury for only some to enjoy?
Consider that Harry Potter books have been translated into 67 languages, yet we still lack the ability to distribute oral hydration- are our priorities wrong? Do those people not count?!
Her summary? A blunt and disappointed observation: “Not good enough.”
Stop and listen to someone else’s story: Be the bridge
Get inspired!
Each one of us can do amazing things in the world. Take the time to listen to another today- build a bridge to understand them better.
We all have an enormous capacity for love. Void if not used before use by date (death).
Jessica Jackley co-founder of Kiva tells her personal story here at TED. It is an emotional appeal.
How can you be the bridge for another today?
What are people saying about the G20?
Looking ahead toward Seoul, what did people have to say about what took place in Toronto last June? Here are a few observations from the blog Sherpa from a range of NGO speaking on the broad topic of ‘development’:
- The Global Campaign for Education expressed disappointment that the G20 did not progress further on a financial transaction tax that could go someway to filling the gap in funding left by the G8.
- Save the Children called on the G20 to broaden their impact as a forum.
- Save the Children US said the G-20 isn’t moving quickly enough to offer the kind of global economic leadership that ensures balanced growth and stability by improving the resilience of the world’s poor. The agency saw some encouraging language on narrowing the development gap, but it took no major, new action at this summit beyond establishing a working group and and reaffirming the importance of food security.
- Oxfam says the G20 has drawn a blank on poverty.
- WWF warned that sustainable economic recovery needed more than brief platitudes from the G20 on green recovery than what it delivered in Toronto. The agency said that the world leaders were still painting the economy in black and white but it must inlude green.
- Actionaid UK said the G20 was bankrupt as the leaders lacked ideas and and any willingness to compromise. The organisation said the communique would be forgotten before the day was over.
- World Vision applauded and welcomed the cancellation of Haiti’s International Financial Institutions (IFI) debt and the creation of G20 Working Group on development. The organisation did express concern that the development agenda is taking a back seat to economic growth.
- Tearfund said the G20 was a missed opportunity to show leadership on climate justice and to set a path to get back on track for a global deal post 2012.
- Greenpeace said “important progress was made today in ending fossil fuels”.
- Make Poverty History expressed concern that the G20 dealing with budget deficits through cutting back on government services will end up hurting the poor.
- The ONE Campaign issues a statement at the end of the G20 Summit stating that the two working groups created in Toronto on development and on anti-corruption needed to focus on improving governance and mutual accountability.
- The Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP) said the G20 summit showed an unfortunate lack of political will to fight poverty by delaying key actions such as the Robin Hood Tax and investing in clean energy and ending fossil fuel subsidies. The group also said the G20 needs to include Africa as a regular member. The group welcomed the establishment of a Working Group on Development.
Black Africa
Hans Rosling argues that the time has come to stop thinking of Sub-Saharan Africa as one place. They are such diverse countries.
If we are going to change our perspective on extreme poverty, maybe we should first get better fidelity on where the problems actually are, rather than massing it all together: ’22 of the world’s poorest countries are found in sub-Sarahan Africa’.
I am as guilty as the next person to have looked through this generalised view.
No need to throw the baby out with the bath-water. I think sub-Saharan Africa still has its utility as describing a geographic region. I guess we should be careful that it does not become as catch-all for all that we here.
Let’s start looking for the good as well as the bad.
Sub-Saharan Africa is a term used to describe the area of the African continent which lies south of the Sahara, or those African countries which are fully or partially located south of the Sahara.
It contrasts with North Africa, which is considered a part of the Arab world.
Ideas as Bridges
Melinda Gates provides an engaging perspective about what would define a better world in this TED Talk.
Great to see that the better half of one of the world’s richest men has her priority on things that really matter. Her belief: it is possible to globally eradicate polio.
How does she define happiness? Holding a healthy baby in her arms.
Look to the innovators. Here she uses Coca-Cola as a case study. This is an example of ideas as bridges. This is the potential of the 10 City Bridge Run. Connecting people, ideas and places. Join us!
Winning the war against child mortality
The Loveable and Avuncular Hans Rosling returns to give another outstanding TED Talk about how we are winning the war against child mortality.
Hans is a brilliant communicator and makes the complex simple. This 15 minute is worth watch to move beyond theory and understand how progress has been made.
20 Days to Go: Why the G20?
The G20 Summit in Seoul commences on 11 November. So too does the 10 City Bridge Run.
But why the G20? Isn’t that only about banking and a talk-fest among world leaders?
The 10 City Bridge Run forms a bridge conceptually between the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (in particular MDG 4: Reduce by two thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the under-five mortality rate) and the leadership of the 20 largest economies (19 countries plus the European Union).
This is what the G20 agreed upon following the last meeting held in Toronto in June this year under the heading of ‘Development’:
We recognize that 2010 marks an important year for development issues. The September 2010 Millennium Development Goals (MDG) High Level Plenary will be a crucial opportunity to reaffirm the global development agenda and global partnership, to agree on actions for all to achieve the MDGs by 2015, and to reaffirm our respective commitments to assist the poorest countries.
In this regard it is important to work with Least Developed Countries (LDCs) to make them active participants in and beneficiaries of the global economic system. Accordingly we thank Turkey for its decision to host the 4th United Nations Conference on the LDCs in June 2011.
Narrowing the development gap and reducing poverty are integral to our broader objective of achieving strong, sustainable and balanced growth and ensuring a more robust and resilient global economy for all. In this regard, we agree to establish a Working Group on Development and mandate it to elaborate, consistent with the G-20’s focus on measures to promote economic growth and resilience, a development agenda and multi-year action plans to be adopted at the Seoul Summit.
The website foe the Working Group opens a blank page. I want that to change.
The methodology used by the 10 City Bridge Run is about raising awareness of an individual’s capacity to act to influence extreme poverty. It involves:
- Observing
- Listening
- Bridge building
- Petitioning
- Doing
- Asking institutions what action they took after making public statements
- Learning
Join me on this journey. It is not a spectator sport.
Heart of Darkness: G20 Protests
Searching ‘G20‘ on YouTube I was amazed to see almost every link that comes up was of confrontation between protestors and police.
Of course, the range of issues the G20 discuss is broad. It is not only about extreme poverty. That is only a small part of the summit agenda.
Do the protesters at the G20 present a credible alternative?
Watch the video clip here of Toronto:
Or this one from London:
Building Bridges 