A few years ago I had the chance to meet, and see in action, Hans Rosling (follow the link and play the fascinating clip if you have 6 minutes), at a summit by the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship. He is a Professor of International Health who developed Trendalyzer software, a tool that brings statistics to live with great visual and animation techniques. Google bought the software last March. You can find it here now.

The Financial Times today has an article titled The hidden beauty of numbers (subscription required), with some great quotes such as “Prof. Rosling works on the premise that the world can never be understood without numbers-or with only numbers” and “He draws an analogy with music: most people would find the written notes dull but love them when they are played. He says he wants to play the statistics and is adamant that he has the eye of the user in mind all the time”.

Here is a full presentation at TED Talks. Enjoy a much more insighful and fun way to see the world!

Two related posts:

• Microfinance, and a very sharp brain
• “Everyone a Changemaker”, Ashoka and Google