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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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Fellow Rose Shuman in the NewYorkTimes

September 28, 2009

Rosh Shuman, one of TED's newest fellows was profiled in the NYT this morning:

The caller was frustrated. A new pest was eating away at his just-planted coffee crop, and he wanted to know what to do. Tyssa Muhima jotted down notes as the caller spoke, and promised to call back in 10 minutes with an answer.

Each day, Ms. Muhima and two other young women at this small call center on the outskirts of Uganda’s capital city answer about 40 such calls. They are operators for Question Box, a free, nonprofit telephone hot line that is meant to get information to people in remote areas who lack access to computers.

The premise behind Question Box is that many barriers keep most of the developing world from taking advantage of the wealth of knowledge available through Web search engines, said Rose Shuman, the service’s creator. That could be a drag on economic development.

“So I was thinking, why not bring the information to them in a way that’s most convenient and useful to them?” said Ms. Shuman, who is based in Santa Monica, Calif.

Read the full article here....

Filed under  //   Fellows   mag   new york   news   poor   question   rural   times  
Posted by Jon Gosier 

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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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Dying for a Kidney: What Happens When Good TEDsters Go Bad?

June 23, 2009

 

By Phil Niles

 

We have a problem.  Thousands of people are dying and hundreds of thousands are suffering each year because they are on kidney dialysis machines instead of receiving kidney transplants.  Dialysis treatment is much MORE expensive, much more debilitating, and causes people to die much sooner than receiving a transplant.  So why are people on dialysis?  Because the current laws in almost every country prevent the supply of kidney transplants from meeting the sharply rising demand.  And guess what?  This problem was actually part-created by the most famous of TEDsters!  Let me explain.

When people do not take care of their blood pressure, or experience a multitude of kidney failures, they need to find a new way to filter their blood.  There are two solutions: (1) use a blood filtering, or dialysis, machine (originally developed right here at the Cleveland Clinic) or (2) get a new kidney.  The dialysis machine solution involves going to a dialysis center and plugging one’s blood vessels into a large filtering machine for about four hours three times a week – it’s a terrible part-time job.  Though most patients adapt to this lifestyle, it makes leading a “normal” life very difficult.  Also, dialysis patients die much sooner, and, while alive, they cannot eat salty foods and are much more likely to get sick.  Furthermore, it is very expensive, about $50,000 per year per person – usually paid for by the government.  A kidney transplant involves receiving a kidney donated from either a live person, who is almost always a family member or a close friend of the recipient, or from a recently deceased organ donor.  Typically, a recipient’s life is restored to normal, minus a few side effects from medications, soon after the surgery.  There is just one problem: we don’t have enough kidneys to go around.

Image001

 U.S. Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network data from the United Network for Organ Sharing

In the mid 1970s, doctors figured out how to transplant a kidney from a healthy donor to an unrelated recipient.  However, in 1984, then-Senator and future TEDster Al Gore sponsored the National Organ Transplant Act to prohibit the exchange of organs for any item of “considerable value.”  Every country (except Iran, strangely) has legislation to prohibit the “sale” of organs.  However, since that time, the demand for kidney transplants has soared, while the supply has stayed relatively constant.  It is predicted that there will be nearly 100,000 people on the US’s kidney transplant waitlist by 2010.  The waitlist has grown almost every year since we started tracking data in the late 1980s, despite many efforts to increase organ donation.  Several thousand people die each year while waiting for a kidney, the rest of the waitlist either suffers on dialysis or receives a transplant.

The impacts of several attempts to increase donations have been marginal at best, as the waitlist continues to grow.  There are now about 7.5 people waiting for every transplant donated to a member of the waitlist (recipients from friends/family donors usually do not go on the waitlist).

I do not believe that this was the intention of one of our favorite TEDster’s legislation back in 1984.  I contest that the laws limiting transplants have become outmoded in reference to kidney transplants for the following reasons:

1.      Compensating heavily scrutinized and willing donors for donating a kidney would save thousands of lives each year and prevent much suffering.  We must remember that we are making a choice: we will either choose inaction, leaving hundreds of thousands worldwide to have lower qualities of life (or death), or we will choose to try a new approach.  We have passively chosen the former for decades, save for a few vocal kidney doctors and economists.  I contest that we, as a society and a group of potential future waitlist members, should actively consider this decision

 

2.      Kidney donors are less likely to have kidney problems than non-donors – it’s a proven fact.  This is due to the very demanding selection criteria for becoming a donor; there is a selection bias, which is a good thing.  Also, the surgery has become minimally invasive and has a very low complication rate

 

3.      Every other approach thus far has not increased the number of donations nearly enough.

 

4.      Increasing the number of registered organ donors will not help the people who are in need of a kidney now

 

If you read this and you think that this is primarily about a troublesome piece of legislation – you are wrong.  This is about the hundreds of thousands of people who are literally dying for a kidney.  Unfortunately, these people are typically socioeconomically disadvantaged, preoccupied, and lack a voice.  I hope to help change the last part of that.

Image002

If I could make a TEDMED2009 (http://www.tedmed.com/) wish, this would be it.  I know the TED Community can solve this problem and save thousands of lives per year just by using our voices and rolodexes – not even our pocketbooks.

Lastly, if you read this and think that it is wrong to compensate willing and able individuals for a kidney donation, then stay tuned for my next blog entry to find out why this is actually much MORE moral than the current system.

Please send me your comments/feedback.  I am much more ears than mouth.

-          Phil Niles, TED2009 Fellow

PN@case.edu

P.S. Sneak Preview: I especially encourage you to read my next post if your argument about why compensated donation is morally wrong is based on the following assumptions:

1.      Compensated donation would be unfair to poorer individuals

2.      Health policy should observe religious beliefs

3.      We shouldn’t do things that are morally questionable

4.      Kidney exchanges (Alvin Roth) can solve this problem without money

5.      35 years has not been long enough to find the right solution, and we just need more time

6.      It would be expensive, and we can’t afford to spend more money on healthcare

7.      Laws based on stubborn beliefs shouldn’t change

 

Filed under  //   Al Gore   Bioethics   Cleveland Clinic   Dialysis   Fellows   Gore   Health Policy   Kidney   Kidney Transplant   Phil Niles   Philip Niles   TED   TED Fellows   TEDMED   Transplant   Waitinglist   Waitlist   ted2009  
Posted by Phil Niles 

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