Sometimes it’s the simplest of explanations that can change your whole perspective…at least, that’s what statistics guru Hans Rosling hopes to achieve in a new video.
Rosling, who is a professor of global health at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden and frequent TED speaker, has been pushing data analysis at audiences for years using stunning visuals and impassioned presentations in an effort to disrupt popular yet erroneous mindsets of global issues. In 2010, he stated, “I kid you not, statistics are now the sexiest subject on the planet,” backing that statement up with an awesome augmented-reality fueled video for The Joy of Stats BBC documentary.
The new video from Rosling, however, aims to distill the grand challenges facing the world in as straightforward and low tech approach as possible – with LEGOs. Check out the video, courtesy of The Guardian:
Rosling’s message is that population growth can only be managed by both improving the living standards of the poorest in the world and persuading the wealthiest to embrace better resource distribution. In other words, somehow the increasing trend toward socioeconomic divergence must be reversed — easier said than done.
Perhaps Rosling will be able to release more videos in the future with proposals to these global grand challenges using LEGOs, but next time, he just might have to use Mindstorms.