TEDGlobal day 3 session 5 : Healthier together


Inge Missmahl started this fifth TEDGlobal session with her experience of being a psychanalist in hell, Afghanistan in that case. Annie Lennox then came again on stage this time not to sing but to talk about her contribution to the fight against HIV/AIDS together with Nelson Mandela and his 46664 campaign.

Mitchell Besser explained that one of the features of HIV is that it is also a social disease. He explained PMTCT (Prevention of Mother-To-Child Transmission) and why it was so important considering that there are 1.4M pregnant women with HIV each year. Stressed that it was a full package and not just drugs. There are still 1100 children a day born with HIV, 90% of them in Africa. Importance of all the non-medical followup and of the empowerment of women.

Karsu Donmez came to perform a few of her songs on the piano. She’s been described as the new Norah Jones and was also featured previously at the excellent TEDxAmsterdam.

Arthur Potts Dawson is a green chef. 1 calorie eaten = 10 calories needed for production. Food is one of the most wasteful industries on Earth. He showed the green feature of some restaurants he built. His new and young project is called The People’s Supermarket. Good luck!

Last talk of the session and my favourite, John Hardy told us how “An Inconvenient Truth” changed his life. “Thanks, Al!” . He showed us the Green School he built in Bali, a truly amazing little village where classrooms have no walls and almost everything is made from bamboo.  He explained why bamboo is an ideal construction material and said about the main building: “when the scafholding came down, we realized we had a cathedral”. It is indeed said to be the most beautiful building in the world made of bamboo. They are in their 3rd year and are already hosting 160 children. Education is suited to the challenges children will face in 2025. He invited everyone to join his initiative. Plus, he had the coolest business cards of TEDGlobal, fully made from bamboo! Standing ovation at the end.