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The WaterLeader Magazine, Issue 03

June 28, 2011

During a mini-reunion of the TED2009 Fellows in NYC, TED Fellow Sean Gourley had put out a challenge to the dozen or more of us crowded in that small room. "This is an incredible group of individuals," he said surveying the room, "...and I think some amazing projects can come out of us working and collaborating with each other. So I would like to throw out a challenge that each of us to find a way to collaborate with atleast one other Fellow to create something in the next two years." 

I was at once energized by and skeptical of the challenge. As I surveyed the room and looked at the incredible quality and talent of the people I was surrounded by, I wondered how I could somehow find a way to leverage their skills into any work I did. I tend to be an "intrapreneur," one who goes into organizations and tries push innovation within the constraints of that organization or the circumstances I'm surrounded by. Of course, working within organizations means dealing with a lot more constraints and needing far more patience and maneuverability than when you work on your own. But used well, you can use existing resources to your advantage. And that's what I hoped to do...but it would take a lot of time, energy, and patience...

Just under two years later, I'm thrilled to say that I've finally been able to meet the challenge in the allotted time, though in a very small and humble way. A passionate infrastructure engineer, with an interest in institutional development and innovation in developing countries, I have spent the past year managing a water policy think tank in Singapore. Amidst the chaos of my work and the projects I was challenged with, I decided (with a lot of help from my colleagues) to turn a dying newsletter into a newly stylized, visually appealing magazine that brought academic voices around water issues to the layman. This would in turn be launched at the Singapore International Water Week, Asia's largest water conference that attracts almost 15,000 people from diverse backgrounds and cultures to discuss water issues.

At one point, I put a call out amongst the TED Fellows for articles. Four responded with articles; of which two were chosen...one by Milena Boniolo, and the other by Francis L. de los Reyes. The results are below. Please take a look and give me your feedback. Note that to ensure complete impartiality and transparency, the selection of articles was done by a distinguished team (all with PhDs!); AND that it took tremendous amounts of energy, time and patience to get very traditional and conservative organizations to trust me to do things in such a new way. But it has happened...

Special thanks to all contributors who shared their work, and my colleagues at IWP (particularly Professor Asanga Gunawansa and Sung Lee) who provided significant editorial and creative management to keep the quality of our product extraordinarily high. 


---------------
The Institute of Water Policy (IWP) is pleased to introduce the third issue of The Water Leader.  Newly revamped and stylised, this issue features:
  • 17 think-pieces from a multi-faceted group of highly-regarded academics and experts from around the world
  • A stunning photo-essay titled "Choke Point China" by the internationally-renowned network of photojournalists from the Pulitzer-Prize-nominated organisation -  Circle of Blue.  
Read it online: click here 
 

(download)

Filed under  //   magazine    Fellows   SIWW   Singapore   collaboration   infrastructure   media   pragzz   the waterleader   water   water leader   waterpolicy  
Posted by pragzz 

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(How Much) Healthcare is a Human Right

August 24, 2009

  Phil Niles

No US political issue is more inflammatory than health care reform.  The two main dimensions are morality and affordability: approximately 70 million people are un- or under-insured, yet we already spend twice as much as other developed countries on healthcare.  Unfortunately, many people are passionate about either the personal or the pragmatic side of this problem, fewer people are passionate about both.  What a time to be an MD/MBA student!

The other day, I saw the following message glued to the lid of a classmate's lap top:

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Many people (particularly medical students, and particularly not business students) are passionately in favor of universal healthcare.  However, the fundamental statement "HEALTH CARE IS A HUMAN RIGHT" addresses the wrong question.  Instead of debating whether healthcare is or is not a human right, my friend, Tim, should Elmer this:

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Whether you believe healthcare is a right or is not a right forces an artificially black and white stance out of a progressive situation.  When thinking about healthcare resources as a zero sum game this becomes somewhat clearer.  Does one person have a right to $100,000 per year health care over society's right to use that money on other health care expenditures? What if it were $1,000,000 (which is not an unrealistic figure in the US)?  Would you rather spend $1,000,000 on curing one person's otherwise terminal disease or on 100,000 people's flu shots?  Collectively, we make such decisions, in other words we already practice rationing.  While I can understand that the concept of a "human right" being price-dependent is unsettling, it is important that we become comfortable with rationing if we are to have a sustainable system.  Yet every politician and their mother is avoiding the "R"-word.

Peter Singer (the ethicist) recently wrote in the New York Times: "Remember the joke about the man who asks a woman if she would have sex with him for a million dollars? She reflects for a few moments and then answers that she would. 'So,' he says, 'would you have sex with me for $50?' Indignantly, she exclaims, 'What kind of a woman do you think I am?' He replies: 'We’ve already established that. Now we’re just haggling about the price.'"


With all of the emotional and financial investment in health care, it is important to address the situation with an actionable approach - not an ideologic one.  My suggestion is to quantify just HOW MUCH health care we believe is "right" to provide, recognize that we should cap public health care spending, and focus the moral/fiscal debate on how high that cap should be set.  Let's achieve our ambitions of providing access for the uninsured with the most likely way of succeeding: by haggling about the price.


Philip Niles

Filed under  //   Case Western   Health Care Cost   Health Care is a Human Right   Health care   Healthcare costs   Human Right   MD/MBA   Peter Singer   Phil Niles   Philip Niles   Ration   TED   TED Fellows   cap spending   collaboration   ted2009  
Posted by Phil Niles 

Comments [9]

 

A Post-TED Update

August 19, 2009

It's been a month since TED and my participation at TEDGlobal 2009 as one of the fellows and speakers.  Needless to say it was an incredible experience. However, I'm sure a lot of people want to know if or how the TED Fellows program has given my work 'the little push' that it needed.  (Or the big push, as it were.)

Well, I have to say from the moment I was selected I could feel the momentum behind my work gaining but the actual conference was a major boost.  Here's what I've been up to since TED Global:

- My panel proposal for SXSW has been selected! The panels are "World Wide UI: Rise of the Data Alchemist" and "What the World Wants to Know".  To get selected, people have to vote on them so Vote! Vote! Vote!

- Status.ug, the first startup Appfrica has funded, is finally incorporated and ready to launch. Three months ago Status.ug (the brainchild of 19-year old Ugandan student Felix Kitaka) received some seed capital from our partner Chembe Ventures and a $100,000 valuation.  Since then I've been mentoring him, and hopefully prepping him to take his idea from lines of code to an innovative Ugandan startup.

- We've been working with UNICEF's branch in Uganda.  They've been incredibly supportive and are very much interested in building capacity here by contracting work from local developers.  This creates jobs and allows for the transfer of knowledge needed to increase local participation.  We're happy to be included as one of the local teams supporting their various projects.

- New Scientist, The Gaurdian, and Forbes all profiled my work with QuestionBox.org and WorldWantsToKnow.com.  Most recently NextBillion interviewed me.

- My staff of entrepreneurs got a lot of attention as well, with Google profiling some of their work here.


- A phone call with Fellow Meklit Hadero resulted in an awesome podcast that I posted at my blog Appfrica.net.  I was happy to help promote her work and I look forward to contacting some of the other Fellows to do the same.

- Fellow Candy Chang has been working with QuestionBox to improve some of our product designs, a great example Fellow-on-Fellow action and the TED community supporting each other.

- There was also a great deal of discussion that began at the conference with a number of organizations that wanted to get involved.  I can't name any names yet but I am looking forward to seeing where it all goes.

- I'm helping to organize a TEDxKampala which UNICEF has already agreed to support and facilitate

Hopefully things are going well for everyone else, looking forward to checking in again next month with more!

Filed under  //   Fellows   TED Fellows   collaboration   news   unicef   update  
Posted by Jon Gosier 

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