Forbes airs technology and design series

Forbes College unveiled its new INNclusive Night program this Wednesday, which airs a different talk recorded from the annual Technology, Entertainment, Design (TED) conference each week. Wednesday night is college night at Forbes.

TED is a four-day conference that convenes in California and features a meeting of 1,000 of the world’s business leaders and visionaries each year. Talks given at the conference were recorded and recently made available to the public, generating more than 40 million viewings across the world.

This week, Forbes fellows and students watched a talk by global health professor Hans Rosling from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden. The presentation, recorded during the February 2006 TED conference, attempted to debunk common misconceptions in global healthcare, arguing that counties in the same region may have drastically different levels of healthcare.

Rosling warned that generalizations, such as the assumption that the level of healthcare in all African countries is the same, would not result in progress.

TED was brought to Forbes by Forbes RCA Sam Ritchie ’09. Ritchie, who has been attending the TED conference in California for the past four years, introduced the conferences to Forbes Master and classics professor Christian Wildberg, who agreed that it would be great to bring TED to Forbes, Ritchie said.

The TED conferences were a way to “make college night distinct,” Ritchie said, adding that if it “proves to be a valuable tool” at Forbes, he would hope to pursue it in other residential colleges.

Ritchie said he also hopes to be able to link TED talks to relevant classes on the student course guide. Ritchie noted that the real-world examples featured in the TED talks would stimulate students’ interests in learning about certain topics and would give students a better idea of which classes to take.

Rosling emphasized the need for data to be available to the public via internet to enable the public to more fully understand and follow developments in global health. Alex Stephen ’10, who is also a layout staffer for The Daily Princetonian, said that he liked how the lecture focused on “making statistical data available to the public, rather than focusing specifically on global health issues.”

“I am glad I got a chance to see it and am interested in upcoming lectures,” Josephine Walker ’10 said.

She added that she thought that having it during dinner at Forbes went well with the project goal of “bringing knowledge to people.”