Rethinking Poverty: Videos from TED

For all you video-watchers like me out there, I just found out that TED has a whole section dedicated to speakers on poverty. You can view them all here:

TED Theme: Rethinking Poverty

From the site, a description to give you an idea of what you're in for:

The catchphrase goes, "Make poverty history." But how? These speakers' innovative ideas may convince you to forget the traditional models -- grants, aid, charity -- and consider business, technology and trade instead.

Jacqueline Novogratz, founder of the Acumen Fund, argues for a combination of philanthropy and investment -- highlighting personal dignity and choice as the path to progress. Academic and policymaker Ashraf Ghani, meanwhile, urges us to rethink capital in terms of security, social connectivity and education. And Hans Rosling's dazzling, animated statistics reveal the true discrepancies between emerging and developed economies.

Iqbal Quadir explains how he improved a Bangladeshi business model -- by replacing cows with a new component: mobile phones. Majora Carter details her efforts to bring green space to the blighted South Bronx, offering an eye-opening look at how flawed urban policy allows ghettos to exist. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, meanwhile, lets us in on a secret: business in impoverished countries is viable, and a "few smart people" have already made millions of dollars.

Two of the videos that I've seen and liked so far are Hans Rosling on world poverty statistics, [in fact there are two-- here is the follow-up], and Bjorn Lomborg on priorities (he answers the question, "If we had $50 billion to allocate into one issue, which would be the most cost-effective?"