There are three reasons why you should watch this event. For one, it talks about the effectiveness of our global immunization efforts in the fight against polio — because of vaccines, we’ve been able to reduce polio by a whopping 99 percent. Secondly, Bill Gates is going to use this moment to release his third annual letter (which you can actually read here right now). And lastly, ONE is launching a gigantic vaccines campaign in just a few short weeks…so take this as an opportunity to get familiar (and pumped!) about the issue.
Remember, Brooke Riley and I are reporting live from New York City. Follow our tweets on @ONECampaign and stay tuned for more blog posts and interviews after the event. If you don’t have time to watch, this nifty animated video on polio narrated by Bill Gates just might do the trick.
This post is republished from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Foundation Notes blog.
On Monday, we held our first TEDxChange salon in Kibera, Nairobi. It was inspiring for me to meet the community there and hear their perspectives on health and development. I’d like to thank them for the exceptional conversation.
We’ll be posting talks from our speakers soon, along with excerpts from the discussion. In the meantime, I wanted to share a few thoughts from the day, and look ahead to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, later this week.
I’ve got some really cool news: Next Monday, Brooke Riley (one of our fabulous global health experts) and I (your trusty ONE blogger) will be heading up to New York City for a very special event hosted by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, “Polio Eradication and the Power of Vaccines.”
We are seriously this close to beating polio. Thanks to a global childhood immunization effort, polio has been reduced by 99 percent. If we can get that number to 100, it will be the second disease in history to be completely eliminated.
And that’s exactly what panelists and special guests are going to talk about on Monday — the extraordinary progress in the fight to eradicate polio and the enormous life-saving potential of vaccines. The event will also mark Bill Gates’ third annual letter, an update on his work at the foundation and lessons that he learned from the year.
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Dr. David Oshinsky, WHO Chair Helen Rees and Sabin Executive Vice President Dr. Ciro de Quadros will be speaking at the event, along with a group of vaccine leaders from Nigeria and Pakistan.
The best part of all? You can be there, too. We invite you to watch the event on the ONE Blog — we’ll be live streaming it in a webcast at 9:30 a.m. ET. Don’t forget that Brooke and I will be covering the event live, so be sure to check our Tweets, Facebook updates and video interviews, too.
Photo courtesy of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Last week, Barron’s, a weekly finance and business magazine, published a list of the world’s top 25 philanthropists ranked by impact. Some key findings: Bill and Melinda Gates, who ranked No. 7 last year, is now at No. 1. Ten new members have joined the list, including a celebrity and a marathon runner. And China made its debut onto the roster. Here are the first five on the list. For the full article, go to Barron’s website.
1. Bill and Melinda Gates- Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
2. Pierre and Pam Omidyar- The Omidyar Network
3. Thomas Siebel- The Meth Project
4. Jeff Skoll- Skoll Foundation
5. Chris and Jamie Cooper-Hohn- The Children’s Investment Fund Foundation
It’s nice to get some good news every now and again… to be reminded of why our efforts are having impact on saving and improving real lives.
This week, with the help of Bill and Melinda Gates, we launched Living Proof – and I’d love you to take a look at some films if you get a moment. Let us know what you think, and, if you are so inclined, please share with friends, colleagues, loved ones…
At under two minutes, this video is just a nugget of the proof—poke around the Living Proof website and you’ll find real people making real progress.
If you are feeling adventurous I’d strongly encourage you to watch the full presentation from Bill and Melinda; it’s both evidence-based and heart-warming and an hour well spent. I learned a great deal and it’s certainly better than some of the television shows I’ll be watching this weekend.
Thanks for helping spread the good news—you really are making a big difference in the fight against poverty and injustice
P.S. Ahead of the presentation Bill and Melinda Gates answered questions from ONE members around the world. Keep an eye out for their answers in the coming days
I’ve been looking through responses to TEDxChange and want to explain why we tell success stories.
It’s easy to think that nothing is changing in the poorest parts of the world, that no progress is being made. But the facts show there has been real and dramatic progress – whether it’s the declining number of child deaths globally, the advances made against AIDS, or the halving of malaria deaths in several countries – especially over the past decade.
This week, Melinda French Gates of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is blogging about the MDGs in advance of their TEDxChange event, which looks into the future of global health and development.
So far, she has posted three fantastic pieces on breastfeeding, malaria and immunization. As always, her blog posts are filled with personal stories, interesting facts and figures and a refreshing sense of optimism.
Take a look at her posts on the Foundation Blog and be sure to leave a comment. Keeping the conversation going on important global health issues like these will help ensure that extreme poverty is at the forefront of our minds.
ONE is campaigning to ensure that the Congressional budget does not cut foreign assistance programs like Feed the Future that help people break the cycle of poverty and hunger.
The Horn of Africa is experiencing its worst drought in 60 years. More than 11 million people, mostly nomadic pastoralists and farmers in south-central Somalia, north-eastern Kenya, and south-eastern Ethiopia, are severely lacking access to food.
2011 marks 30 years since the first cases of AIDS were documented. Take a closer look at the specific, achievable goals we must hit by 2015 to make this year the beginning of the end of AIDS.
As aid agencies warn more than 9 million people could be affected by a food crisis in East Africa, world leaders are failing to keep their 2009 promises to tackle the causes of chronic hunger and support farmers in the world's poorest countries.
