How-to: Measure World Change in Statistical Eloquence with Gapminder World

by Tristan Jul 25th, 2009
StumbleUpon.com

The video above is one of the most eloquent and comprehensive explanations of the HIV/AIDS epidemic I ‘ve seen. In it, Hans Rosling, co-founder of Gapminder.org, discusses the progression of HIV/AIDS in the world with the Gapminder World data platform. The images are truly stunning. The lecture is even more stimulating as it reveals the misconceptions of HIV/AIDS in Africa.

Rosling says Africa cannot be considered as a whole when considering HIV/AIDS aid and neither can Kenya, South Africa or Uganda. Countries must be looked at more specifically when determining how and where to help. Region, state, and city data must be used to appropriately administer positive change.

This is what drives Hans Rosling and Gapminder. Nonprofits and social change ventures must drill deeper into the geographic, economical and social roots of poverty, disease, human rights, and Internet access. How do they do that? The Gapminder World.

Gapminder-World

Gapminder World gives you access to a history of thousands of statistics from countries across the globe. This allows you to compare hundreds of issues, from income and life expectancy to CO2 emissions and education. You simply choose which issues you’d like to compare on the Gapminder World graph, placing one on the X-axis and one on the Y-axis.

You can then move the timeline as far back, or as far forward your variables allow. Hit the play button and witness the changes that have occurred in different countries/regions/states throughout history. You can then apply these attributes to help create greater impact for your cause.

Gapminder was created to make statistics easily understandable and remove bias and misconception. In conjunction with this, Gapminder also has a video playlist that Rosling narrates while using Gapminder World to show facts and trends, as well as eliminate falsehoods. The best way to get started with Gapminder is to watch a few of these videos and test out the tutorial that is in Gapminder World.

On your mark, get set, start tracking that impact!

Gapminder

logo_gapminder

Gapminder promotes sustainable global development and achievement of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals by increased use and understanding of statistics and other information about social, economic and environmental development at local, national and global levels.


Contributor Profile: Tristan


Tristan is a social change advocate and social media do-gooder. He has worked with Ashoka and Best Buy promoting social entrepreneurship and responsibility.
Twitter: @writerpollock

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