The Best Stats Hans Rosling Response

Hans Rosling was one of the best presenters of data which we have seen in the world so far. His illustrations keep the audience engaged and interested throughout the whole ted talk. I watched many of his presentations throughout high school and every one of his presentations was consistently at the same elevated level as ‘The best stats you’ve ever seen” video was. Often the messages he is attempting to convey are important ones, which is why his skillful technique of presentation is so important.

In this video, Rosling breaks down data on gdp per capita, and child survival rate. At first when he puts the countries of the world on this plane, while also showing their population, it looks as we would expect it to look. However, as the presentation goes on, and he splits individual countries into main cities or provinces we can see that the poorest and unhealthiest countries actually have cities that look statistically like the rest of the developed world.

Previously, I had unconsciously grouped together some lower ranked countries and unintentionally thought that the quality of life was fairly common throughout, even in major cities. Now I can see that some of these countries are not as far behind as I thought. When you look at data from countries and break it down further, you can see where parts of a country need the most support. As Hans Rosling says, “The improvement of the world must be highly contextualized.” The world of data science when carefully and safely intertwined with human development, can help parts of impoverished countries catch up to the rest of their country and the world.