Hans Rosling: Data sings in his hands

Summary

I watched this awesome Ted Talk given by Hans Rosling, who is a statistics guru, data visionary, and global health expert. "With the drama and urgency of a sportscaster, statistics guru Hans Rosling debunks myths about the so-called 'developing world.'"

See more on:

Astonishing Changes on Global Health

Hans Rosling uses his vivid “datasets” to change our “mindsets” on so-called “developing countries”. If there were not these data, we could be so wrong about this world. Most of the third world countries have already successfully dragged themselves out of poverty and are maintaining a healthy and wealthy society as western countries do.

Stunning Way to Present Stats -- Gapminder

What distinguishes Hans Rosling from other statisticians is not his studies on world health issues, but his unique way of presenting statistics, and visualizing boring numbers by effective animations. It has been years since the first time I watched this video but I still remember it vividly whenever my professor Murali Haran stresses the importance of data visualization. It is always hard to find a balance between accuracy and appeal because scientific presentation tends to be boring whereas an intriguing presentation may distract or even twist the fact itself by extra fancy miscellaneous. However, Hans Rosling found his way to make both statisticians and common audience satisfied. He created and developed the visualization software – Gapminder, to help people handle data in a new perspective. Additionally, the concern he mentioned in this video, that a large number of databases are hidden underground with limited access, has been addressed just one year after his speech.

#DataVisionary