Rosling: Let My Dataset Change Your Mindset

In this video, Hans Rosling, a Swedish doctor and professor, gives a presentation at the US State Department for a video series called TEDtalks about the mindset of people versus what is actually true when it comes to the differences between first world and third world countries. The reason he gives this presentation is because of the preconceptions of his students that the Western world contained long life in small families and shorter lives with large families. According to Rosling, the preconceptions have not been true since the years that these students' professors were born. He goes on to disprove this misconception with a bubble chart that shows the relationship between life expectancy at birth and children per woman and income per person, child mortality and yearly income, as well as how HIV relates (or does not) to income over the span of different years. Approximately ten minutes into this presentation, Rosling presents a chart showing the relationship between child survival and GDP per capita in different regions of the world in 2003. When showed by region, it only makes sense that the African region is at the bottom, but when Rosling breaks the regions down by country the results change, showing countries from the regions at the bottom move to the top. By doing this, Rosling shows that these developing regions are slowly moving upward an improving their health and development. Breaking away from these assumptions is necessary in order to change the mindset of the world. Based on what Rosling has presented, once we have collected thorough and specific data that there should be a new mindset around convergence.