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A few friends have been messaging me on facebook about this new video that just got released by TED:

My first reaction was “gee, that looks familiar”. In fact, 8 months prior to this TED talk I had done the exact same thing – but in a far less controlled situation in rural Kenya:

A ton of friends have been pushing me to apply for TED but I always told them no because I didn’t think I had anything “TED worthy”. If I knew something I already did 12 months ago would be the centerpiece of a TED global talk, I would have applied ages ago!

As someone who done this first hand, here’s what I wish Michael Pritchard could have done and/or created to set his product apart:

• Why not add salt? During a cyclone or flood, salt often mixes into drinking water. However, the LifeSaver does not filter salt.
• Why not add chemicals? Sometimes water gets contaminated from industrial run-off, but the LifeSaver doesn’t filter chemicals.
• Why not show a working family version? A large black jerry can was held up but, according to the official website, the LifeSaver doesn’t come in a family scale version.
• [see update below for more]
  

If it sounds like I’m bashing the LifeSaver in favor of the LifeStraw Family – please keep in mind that I have never been paid to endorse the LifeStraw Family. But it’s a moot point because, the LifeStraw Family has the exact same limitations as the LifeSaver. Both use nano-technology and both have the same limitations of a nanopore-based filter. The only difference is price.

The LifeStraw Family costs $35 and filters 18,000 litres of water. The LifeSaver costs well over $100 and only filters 6,000 litres of water. While it might be possible that one day in the future the LifeSaver could come down in cost, the LifeStraw Family is already at this price point and is already saving lives (also note the photos Michael Pritchard displayed are stock photos – none showed his product in action in the field).

For someone whose TED talk is (to a large extent) a replay of an old YouTube video of mine, this product brings nothing new to the table except a price tag 100 times more than existing (and technologically identical) solutions.

[UPDATE: I forgot to add this to the list, but the LifeSaver also doesn't show how it can handle highly turbid water. Turbid water basically means how much junk and how "liquidly" the water is. As you can see in "Cow Sh*t to Clean Water", I stressed tested the LifeStraw Family by using so much cow feces the water was more like a thick slop (i.e. extremely turbid water). But the LifeStraw Family handled it because it has a nano-tech hydrophobic surface that flushes the dirt away. The LifeSaver product, from what I can tell, uses a carbon pre-filter. Basically, technobabble aside, it seems like the LifeSaver can clog whereas the LifeStraw Family doesn't. You can replace the carbon pre-filter if it gets clogged - but the replacement filter alone costs about 1/3rd of what a brand new LifeStraw Family costs.]

Yesterday, I talked about a comment someone had written called “The Uncultured Project is totally useless!”. If you haven’t read it – check it out. Just to be clear – this wasn’t a hater comment. The points raised by the author are actually common points raised in the discussion about global poverty.

That’s why I want to talk about this.

And I want to bring someone else into this discussion – his name is Sharief:

Meet Sharief

I’ll keep the guilt-trip to a minimum – you can read more after the jump.
Continue reading ‘Teach a Man to Fish?’

If you don’t know, in addition to being a huge nerdfighter, I’ve slowly also been becoming involved with the IPower community. They have a great forum and recently, user Kubuguy wrote this about the Uncultured Project.

Just to be clear – he isn’t being a troll or a hater. This is his sincere and honest assessment of the Uncultured Project and it’s been a great launching point of debate over at IPower. I’m posting this here because I’m sure this might strike a chord with at least a few:

So I was watching this Shawn doing all these awesome things and I admire him for that but then I realized … what he is doing is totally useless. It isn’t going to change a thing!

I read this under the Uncultured section:

“With no formal plan, training, experience, or real budget, Shawn has been helping combat malaria through bed net distributions, providing disaster relief after Cyclone Sidr and monsoon flooded, and has helped rural families and children through scholarships, school supplies, and even materials for home reconstruction.”

So he is giving them all kinds of things. “Things” being the key word, what when (not if) they brake, when the water is drunk, nets become torn and notepads for children are left with no more blank pages? Is he going to supply them with more for his whole life? What he is doing is conditioning them that they’re at mercy of others, other wealthy nations. That’s plain wrong. And quite frankly I was disgusted when he rolled out the US flag. It’s a symbol of suppression [sic] all over the world. But that aside, while I’m sure he doesn’t realize that and has only good intentions at heart, it’s very brave and awesome what he decided to do but useless nonetheless. This is what he and others inspired by him should realize and try to offer real solutions instead.

As the saying goes, give man a fish you feed him for a day, learn him how to fish and you’ll feed him for a lifetime. What these people need to do is to start their own “businesses”, to grow their own food, to take back their natural resources, to get rid of the greedy foreign corporations and their corrupt governments. These people are not lazy, they’re not stupid, they can perfectly take care of themselves you just need to show them HOW. It’s not that these people can not develop, they’re not ALLOWED to develop. That’s the key, you achieve absolutely nothing by giving them “aid”. There are how many millions of them? How many mosquito nets he gave them? I mean … just think about it.

These are valid thoughts. Come back tomorrow for my response. Or, head over the IPower and find my response already in the forums

Since I started talking about “Changing the Conversation about Global Poverty”, a lot has changed.

People, organizations, and charities are starting to realize you can’t guilt your way into getting people to support your cause. Many charities are also starting to use the internet in a way that’s just more than uploading their TV spots.

I’ve talked about a lot of charities that are taking the lead in this. But today I’d like to talk about an unlikely source in helping to change this conversation – CollegeHumor.com.

CollegeHumor is one of my favorite sites. They’ve helped create amazingly funny videos like the Powerthirst 2 commercial, Where the Hell is Matt spoof (NSFW.. kinda), Jack Bauer in 1994, and much more.

Their recent spoof is a stab at what I consider the most annoying, guilt-inducing, charity commercial in the history of the world. First, take a look at the original (the charity has disabled YouTube embedding so that their video cannot be used in blog posts like this):

[Please Click this Link to See the Original Video]

It’s got all the hallmarks of what I hate about charity commercials. CollegeHumor’s spoof takes this on – almost phrase by phrase. They also make fun of grad students which – as a former grad student – I can especially appreciate the humor.

Sometimes criticizing something doesn’t work as well as spoofing it. Hopefully, the only time we’ll be seeing Mr. White Beard of Guilt from now on is when he’s trying to help grad students.

A couple of days ago, I wrote about my frustration trying to translate a single word a young cyclone victim had told Paul. Although it may not seem like much, here’s the fruits of that 14+ hour labor:

What you might not see in this video – because I did have to edit it a bit to make it understandable – is the struggle he was going through to find the right words to express himself in English. He desperately wanted to share his story – and I desperately wanted to make sure I got what he was saying correct. In hindsight, a half day’s worth of work seems like a bargain for that.

This also serves to highlight one of the common things I’ve learned about how Bangladeshi rich fail to understand, empathize, or even acknowledge poverty within Bangladesh. Many of the well-to-do Bangladeshis didn’t have a clue what was being said but instead offered their guesses (such as “he’s talking about river or coastal embankments” or even better “he’s talking about returning a book”).

As this experience highlights, when it comes to well-to-do Bangladeshi elites and their understanding of the plight of the poor in this country. Both literally and figuratively, the rich are often not even speaking the same language as the poor.

These past 14 hours have served as an example of one of the many frustrating challenges a project like this faces.

What many non-Bangla speakers sometimes don’t realize, is that there are many variations of Bangla. There is city Bangla, Bangla used by those who emigrated away from Bangladesh, and rural village Bangla. Each one comes with different accents, meanings, and translations.

This can be a lot of trouble when trying to translate words I’ve heard for the first time in rural villages. This was exactly what happened when a local villager tried to explain to Paul that Cyclone Aila had destroyed many “bhitas”:

In many ways, I relate to this villager a lot. I often throw English words into my Bangla when I don’t know what the Bangla equivalent is. And this villager, while explaining the damage caused by Cyclone Aila, had to throw in “bhita” because he didn’t know the English equivalent.

The problem is that there is no direct English translation for “bhita”. And thus began my 14 hour struggle to find a translation.

The first people I turned to were those from the American-Bangladeshi community. This consists of Americans who originally were born and raised in Bangladesh. To my surprise, many of them told me their Bangla was too poor to properly help with any translation. This includes people who still do business in Bangladesh! I was shocked and surprised.

Those in the American-Bangladeshi community that did try and take a stab at translating each came up with different words. One suggested it means “embankment”, another suggested it meant “landscape” or “property”, someone else suggested it meant “home”, finally one of them suggested it meant “mud hut”. How could one word mean so many different things?

Well it turns out they were all wrong… and right at the same time. Click the jump to find out what the word “bhita” means.

Continue reading ‘Lost in Translation’

A Young Villager Talks to Paul About His Experiences with Cyclones Sidr & Aila

When my friend Paul stepped off that plane at Zia International Airport in Dhaka, he thought he was going to get away from it all. For the past several months, Paul has been living in Nepal. He’s seen regular riots, curfews, day-long power outages, and frequent water shortages. Bangladesh, by comparison, was a place he assumed he could get away from that for a bit.

Being the great friend that I am, his experience was more like jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire.

Instead of taking Paul to Cox’s Bazar for a break at a seaside resort, to the Sundabans in the hopes of glimpsing a Bengal Tiger, or even the beautiful tea gardens – I took him to a cyclone disaster area to see what we could do to make a difference. In what was no doubt an act of sainthood, Paul endured stomach aches, blistering sun, peeling skin, and a two day journey to reach a remote village affected by Cyclone Aila.

In addition to my mobile vlogs, I have regular footage and photos of the event. But in the meantime, Paul has a great first blog post about his experiences complete with some amazing photos. Paul also was generous enough to let me repost a select few of these photos on uncultured flickr account and license them under the Creative Commons (which I will be doing in the near future).

Although Paul never got to see Bangladesh’s fancy resorts or tourist spots, by the time his trip was over, he could unequivocally say he’s stood in places that no “bideshi” (foreigner) has ever stood before. Which, knowing Paul, probably made this whole crazy trip worth it.