A long format talk by Hans Rosling at the Open Knowledge Festival, on the importance of not just liberating public data, but also using it to weave engaging stories for the public about the facts of the world as we know it exists today. It does no good to allow students to debate why women in the Muslim world have more children than elsewhere, because it isn’t true. Sweden still sends foreign aid to China, even though China just bought Volvo. People think that 30% of our power comes from wind and solar, because wind and solar grew 30% last year. Why don’t more activists demand good data? Why don’t they use it to build fact-based cases for their causes, instead of seeking out only the data that confirms their pre-existing ideologies?
Note: Rosling’s talk begins at 35 minutes into the archived video stream.