100 People: A World Portrait

The World as 100 People infographic by JackHagley.

I came across this infographic again and felt compelled to find out more about its origin.

The 100 people: A World Portrait 

The milestone of the world reaching 7 billion people inspired a group of people to further previous research about the people in our world. They have spent the last five years asking students to simplify complex statistics by introducing us to the people that represent their part of the world. Using media this project is helping to illustrate information about where people come from but also the challenges people face. The project focuses a lens on ten areas of critical global concern that affect us all: water, food, transportation, health, economy, education, energy, shelter, war and waste.

If the World were 100 PEOPLE:

50 would be female
50 would be male

26 would be children
There would be 74 adults,
8 of whom would be 65 and older

There would be:
60 Asians
15 Africans
14 people from the Americas
11 Europeans

33 Christians
22 Muslims
14 Hindus
7 Buddhists
12 people who practice other religions
12 people who would not be aligned with a religion

12 would speak Chinese
5 would speak Spanish
5 would speak English
3 would speak Arabic
3 would speak Hindi
3 would speak Bengali
3 would speak Portuguese
2 would speak Russian
2 would speak Japanese
62 would speak other languages

83 would be able to read and write; 17 would not

7 would have a college degree
22 would own or share a computer

77 people would have a place to shelter them
from the wind and the rain, but 23 would not

1 would be dying of starvation
15 would be undernourished
21 would be overweight

87 would have access to safe drinking water
13 people would have no clean, safe water to drink

The harsh reality is that today there are still people who are dying of starvation or are undernourished; that so many do not have a place to shelter them; and that clean and safe water to drink remains such a problem. How can we change this? How can technology and social media help to bring people together to solve this? 

One man interviewed said "All the people in the world need to get together and speak with the same mouth. If people learn to speak the same language, in the same way. They could care about each other and there wouldn't be so many problems." Video and images are a starting point.




To find out more about this project visit: http://www.100people.org/

Using technology for social good

This is a topic I will come back to as it is a fine example of how technology can be used innovatively at very little cost and yet make a major impact.


Jennifer Pahlka (@pahlkadot) is the founder of Code for America, which matches software geniuses with US cities to reboot local services. This is an amazing initiative that takes this talent to build apps, to communicate with the community to solve issues in their own area. What has ordinarily taken government projects many months if not years to achieve is being completed at a fraction of the cost. Social media channels are used to spread the word. Members of the community then get involved with community projects as volunteers.

For example Adopt-a-Hydrant lets citizens claim responsibility for shoveling out hydrants during snowstorms. 

"In the midst of winter snowstorms, buried hydrants cause dangerous delays in the ability of fire fighters to respond to fire emergencies. To check and clear thousands of hydrants across the city of Boston, would be a timely, costly, and burdensome process. Adopt-a-Hydrant lets governments turn to the community. This map-based web app allows individuals, small businesses, and community organizations to volunteer to be responsible for shoveling out specific hydrants. These apps may only take a couple of days to create and then through social media spread virally"

That was just its beginning. Now it's being used in multiple cities for multiple purposes such as keeping storm drains clear and checking that tsunami siren alarms in Hawaii each have a working battery. 

Call for action

Links

https://www.facebook.com/codeforamerica

https://twitter.com/codeforamerica

https://www.youtube.com/user/CodeforAmerica

http://www.codeforamerica.org/apps/local-service.html#