Emily Oster: What do we really know about the spread of AIDS?

http://www.ted.com Emily Oster re-examines the stats on AIDS in Africa from an economic perspective and reaches a stunning conclusion: Everything we know about the spread of HIV on the continent is wrong.

TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world’s leading thinkers and doers are invited to give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes — including speakers such as Jill Bolte Taylor, Sir Ken Robinson, Hans Rosling, Al Gore and Arthur Benjamin. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, politics and the arts. Watch the Top 10 TEDTalks on TED.com, at
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/top10

“The Search” – John Battelle speaks at Google NYC

John Battelle, co-founding editor of Wired and founder of The Industry Standard visits the Google New York office to speak about his book The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture (12/7/05).

This video is part of the Authors@Google series. Credits: Speaker:John Battelle, Host:Google NYC

Global Philanthropy Forum 2007: Plenary 1

Plenary 1: Thinking Differently- Blending the Private and Social Sectors

[Moderator] Iqbal Paroo, CEO, Omidyar Network
Brizio Biondi-Morra, President, Fundación AVINA
Marc Benioff, Chairman and CEO, Salesforce.com
Jacqueline Novogratz, Founder and CEO, Acumen Fund
Kurt Hoffman, Director, Shell Foundation [United Kingdom]

Part of the Global Philanthropy Forum 2007, a project of the World Affairs Council of Northern California.

Social Impact Investing – Maria Ortero

Maria Otero is president and CEO of ACCION International, a leading global microfinance institution that seeks to open the financial systems in developing countries to reach the poor. ACCION provides technical assistance, equity investment and financial services to 27 of the most advanced microfinance institutions in the world, which ACCION helped start and/or grow. Most of these microfinance institutions are regulated, are members of the ACCION Network, and together reached 1.9 million borrowers at the end of 2005, with an active loan portfolio that exceeded $1 billion. Ms. Otero first joined ACCION in 1986 as director of its lending program in Honduras, where she lived for three years. She…

Global Philanthropy Forum 2007: Plenary 4

Plenary 4: Unusual Alliances to Halt Climate Change

[Moderator] Stephen Heintz, President, Rockefeller Brothers Fund
Billy Parish, Co-Founder and Coordinator, Energy Action Coalition
Ernest C. Shea, President, Natural Resource Solutions LLC; Project Coordinator; 25×25
Kenneth Colburn, Senior Consultant, Center for Climate Strategies
Richard Cizik, Vice President for Governmental Affairs, National Association of Evangelicals
Thomas R. Jacob, Government Affairs Manager, Western Region, DuPont Company

Part of the Global Philanthropy Forum 2007, a project of the World Affairs Council of Northern California.

MIT Clean Tech/GABA Lecture with Dr. Hermann Scheer

German American Business Association of California, Inc. and the MIT Club of Northern California Clean Technology Program invite you to this joint event. Towards Energy Autonomy New Politics for Renewable Energy.
This is also the topic of Hermann Scheer’s latest book. Hermann Scheer will discuss how policy models fostering renewable energy can pave the way for energy autonomy. He will also discuss the current trends regarding the upcoming review of the German EEG (feed-in-tariff) which is due by the end of 2007 / beginning 2008 and which has created the largest solar energy market in the world.

“DNA and the Brain” – Dr. James Watson speaks at Google

James D. Watson, Nobel Laureate and Chancellor of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, describes the years leading up to his 1953 discovery of the structure of DNA, for which he won the Nobel Prize with Drs. Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins (1962). Dr. Watson explains that the key to uncovering the causes of brain disorders such as schizophrenia, depression, fragile X syndrome, Alzheimers, etc. is in our genes. He depicts the strides being made by scientists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a research institution in the biological sciences, as they search to find the genetic basis of
neurological disorders. CSHL scientists’ seach to root out disease genes related to mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia…