I am an ideas activist. That means I fight for ideas I believe in to have their place in the sun, regardless of which side of the equator they were born. As well I should. I myself am from that part of the world often euphemistically referred to as either "the Global South" or "the developing world." But let's be blunt about it: when we say those words, what we really mean is the poor world -- those corners of the world with ready-made containers for the hand-me-down ideas of other places and other people.
我是點子活動家。 意思就是,我會為了 我所相信的點子而戰, 讓它們在太陽底下有一席之地, 不論這些點子是在 赤道的哪一邊誕生的。 我也該這麼做。 我的家鄉,在世界上通常被稱為 「南方世界」或「開發中世界」。 但,就直說吧: 當我們說出那些詞時, 我們要說的其實是貧窮世界—— 世界上的這些角落都是 從其他地方的其他人 那邊取得現成的點子。
But I'm here to depart a little bit from the script and to try and convince you that these places are actually alive and bubbling with ideas. My real issue is: Where do I even start? So maybe Egypt, Alexandria, where we meet Rizwan. When he walks outside his souk, walks into a pharmacy for heart medicine that can prevent the blood in his arteries from clotting, he confronts the fact that, despite a growing epidemic that currently accounts for 82 percent of all deaths in Egypt, it is the medicines that can address these conditions that counterfeiters, ever the evil geniuses they are, have decided to target. Counterfeiters making knockoff medicines.
但,我來這裡要談的有些不同, 我想要試著說服各位, 這些地方其實充滿了點子。 我真正的問題在於: 我該從何談起? 也許埃及的亞歷山大港吧, 這是瑞茲旺。 當他走出他的露天市場, 走去藥房買心臟藥物, 避免他的動脈栓塞, 他要面對的事實是, 儘管這種疾病越來越盛行, 佔目前埃及 82% 的死因, 而治療這些疾病的藥物 就被有著才智的邪惡偽造者看上, 成為目標。 偽造者會製造假藥。
Luckily for Rizwan, my team and I, working in partnership with the largest pharmaceutical company in Africa, have placed unique codes -- think of them like one-time passwords -- on each pack of the best-selling heart medicine in Egypt. So when Rizwan buys heart medicine, he can key in these one-time passwords to a toll-free short code that we've set up on all the telecom companies in Egypt for free. He gets a message -- call it the message of life -- which reassures him that this medicine is not one of the 12 percent of all medicines in Egypt that are counterfeits.
瑞茲旺很幸運, 我和我的團隊 與非洲最大的製藥公司合作, 將獨一無二的代碼—— 可以把它想成是一次性密碼—— 放在埃及賣得最好的 心臟藥物的包裝上。 當瑞茲旺在購買心臟藥物時, 他便能將那些一次性密碼, 透過免付費電話輸入, 這是我們和埃及的所有 電信業者合作設立的機制, 免費使用。 他會得到一個訊息—— 可以稱為是救命的訊息—— 跟他保證 這件藥物不屬於埃及所有藥物中 那 12% 的假貨。
From the gorgeous banks of the Nile, we glide into the beautiful Rift Valley of Kenya. In Narok Town, we meet Ole Lenku, salt-of-the-earth fellow. When he walks into an agrodealer's shop, all he wants is certified and proper cabbage seeds that, if he were to plant them, will yield a harvest rich enough that he can pay for the school fees of his children. That's all he wants. Unfortunately, by the reckoning of most international organizations, 40 percent of all the seeds sold in Eastern and Southern Africa are of questionable quality, sometimes outrightly fake. Luckily for Ole, once again, our team has been at work, and, working with the leading agriculture regulator in Kenya, we've digitized the entire certification process for seeds in that country, every seed -- millet, sorghum, maize -- such that when Ole Lenku keys in a code on a packet of millet, he's able to retrieve a digital certificate that assures him that the seed is properly certified.
我們從尼羅河的壯麗河岸 滑進到肯亞的美麗裂谷中。 這位是納羅克鎮的 優秀鎮民歐雷林庫。 當他走進農業經銷商的店, 他想要的只是有認證的 真甘藍菜種子, 如果他種下這些種子, 豐富的產出就足以 讓他支付他孩子的學費。 他要的就只有這樣。 不幸的是, 根據大部分國際組織的計算, 賣到東非和南非的種子當中 有 40% 的品質很可疑, 有時根本就是假貨。 歐雷很幸運, 同樣的,我們的團隊也有介入, 和肯亞主要的農業監管機構合作, 我們把該國的整個種子認證過程 數位化, 每一個種子都不例外—— 黍、高粱、玉米—— 這麼一來, 當歐雷林庫將黍類種子 包裝上的代碼輸入後, 他就能夠取得一個數位認證, 向他確保那包種子 有經過妥善的認證。
From Kenya, we head to Noida in India, where the irrepressible Ambika is holding on very fast to her dream of becoming an elite athlete, safe in the knowledge that because of our ingredients rating technology, she's not going to ingest something accidentally, which will mess up her doping tests and kick her out of the sports she loves.
從肯亞,我們朝向 印度的諾伊達前進, 在那裡,活力旺盛的安比卡 能堅持追尋她的夢想: 成為出色的運動員, 她感到安全,因為她知道 有我們的成份評分技術在, 她就不會意外吃下不該吃的東西, 讓她過不了禁藥檢測, 因而被踢出她最愛的運動圈。
Finally, we alight in Ghana, my own home country, where another problem needs addressing -- the problem of under-vaccination or poor-quality vaccination. You see, when you put some vaccines into the bloodstream of an infant, you are giving them a lifetime insurance against dangerous diseases that can cripple them or kill them. Sometimes, this is for a lifetime. The problem is that vaccines are delicate organisms really, and they need to be stored between two degrees and eight degrees. And if you don't do that, they lose their potency, and they no longer confer the immunity the child deserves. Working with computer vision scientists, we've converted simple markers on the vials of vaccines into what you might regard as crude thermometers. So then, these patterns change slowly over time in response to temperature until they leave a distinct pattern on the surface of the vaccine, such that a nurse, with a scan of the phone, can detect if the vaccine was stored properly in the right temperature and therefore is still good for use before administering this to the child -- literally securing the next generation.
最後,我們來到迦納, 我的祖國, 在那裡,有另一個 問題需要處理—— 接種疫苗的比率太低, 或疫苗品質太差。 當疫苗被注入到嬰兒的血液當中, 就是給予這名嬰兒一生的保證, 確保能夠抵抗可能會讓他們 癱瘓或死亡的危險疾病。 有時,這能維持一生。 問題是,疫苗其實 是很脆弱的有機體, 必須要保存在 2~8 度的環境中。 如果沒有這麼做,就會失去效力, 不再能給予孩子 他們應得到的免疫力。 我們和電腦視覺科學家合作, 將疫苗瓶上的簡單標識轉換 成為類似天然溫度計的東西。 這些模式會根據溫度 隨時間緩慢地改變, 直到它們在疫苗瓶的表面 留下明確的模式, 之後,護士可以用手機掃瞄, 偵測出疫苗是否有 儲存在正確的溫度底下, 在為孩子施打疫苗之前, 就先判斷疫苗是否可以使用, 真正確保下一代的安全。
These are some of the solutions at work saving lives, redeeming societies, in these parts of the world. But I would remind you that there are powerful ideas behind them, and I'll recap a few. One, that social trust is not the same as interpersonal trust. Two, that the division between consumption and regulation in an increasingly interdependent world is no longer viable. And three, that decentralized autonomy, regardless of what our blockchain enthusiasts in the West -- whom I respect a lot -- say, are not as important as reinforcing social accountability feedback loops. These are some of the ideas.
在世界的這些地區, 有一些實施中的解決方案 能夠拯救生命,挽救社會。 但,我要提醒各位, 在它們背後有著強大的點子, 讓我重述其中幾項。 第一,社會信任 和人際信任是不同的。 第二,在越來越 相互依賴的世界中, 消費和規制之間的分歧 已經不再可行。 第三,分散式的自治, 不管在西方的區塊鏈熱衷者—— 我很尊敬他們—— 重要性不如強化 社會問責性回饋循環。 上述是其中一些想法。
Now, every time I go somewhere and I give this speech and I make these comments and I provide these examples, people say, "If these ideas are so damn brilliant, why aren't they everywhere? I've never heard of them." I want to assure you, the reason why you have not heard of these ideas is exactly the point I made in the beginning. And that is that there are parts of the world whose good ideas simply don't scale because of the latitude on which they were born. I call that "mental latitude imperialism."
每當我到某個地方做這樣的演說、 提出這些意見、提供這些例子, 大家就會說: 「若這些點子這麼棒, 為何沒有散播出去? 我從未聽過它們。」 我要向各位保證, 你們還沒有聽過這些點子的原因, 正是我在一開始所提出的論點。 那個論點就是, 在世界上的某些地區, 那些好點子無法做大, 因為它們誕生地緯度限制了它們。 我稱之為「心理緯度帝國主義」。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
That really is the reason.
那真的就是背後的原因。
But you may counter and say, "Well, maybe it's an important problem, but it's sort of an obscure problem in parts of the world. Why do you want to globalize such problems? I mean, they are better local." What if, in response, I told you that actually, underlying each of these problems that I've described is a fundamental issue of the breakdown of trust in markets and institutions, and that there's nothing more global, more universal, closer to you and I than the problem of trust. For example, a quarter of all the seafood marketed in the US is falsely labeled. So when you buy a tuna or salmon sandwich in Manhattan, you are eating something that could be banned for being toxic in Japan. Literally. Most of you have heard of a time when horsemeat was masquerading as beef in burger patties in Europe? You have. What you don't know is that a good chunk of these fake meat patties were also contaminated with cadmium, which can damage your kidneys. This was Europe. Many of you are aware of plane crashes and you worry about plane crashes, because every now and then, one of them intrudes into your consciousness. But I bet you don't know that a single investigation uncovered one million counterfeit incidents in the aeronautical supply chain in the US.
但,各位可能會反駁說: 「嗯,也許那是個重要的問題, 但似乎只是世界上 某些偏僻地區的問題。 何必把它們全球化? 維持地方性不是更好?」 那如果,我的回應是告訴你, 在我剛才所描述的 每一個問題背後, 都可追溯到一個根本的議題: 對於市場和制度的信任在瓦解, 沒有任何問題比信任問題更 全球性、更普遍、與你我更切身。 比如,在美國的海鮮市場中 有四分之一的標籤是造假的。 當你在曼哈頓購買 一個鮪魚或鮭魚三明治, 你可能就吃下了在日本 因為有毒而遭禁的成份。 真的。 大部分人應該都聽過 在歐洲有段時間,馬肉被拿來 頂替漢堡中的牛肉,是吧? 你們聽過,但你們不知道, 這些假肉餅當中有很大一部分 也受到鎘污染, 鎘會傷害你的腎臟。 這是歐洲。 許多人都知道飛機會墜機, 你們會擔心墜機, 是因為偶爾,就會有一個 墜機事件闖進你的意識當中。 但,我敢說你們不知道, 一項調查發現, 在美國的空中供應鏈中 有一百萬件偽造事件。
So this is a global problem, full stop. It's a global problem. The only reason we are not addressing it with the urgency it deserves is that the best solutions, the most advanced solutions, the most progressive solutions, are, unfortunately, in parts of the world where solutions don't scale. And that is why it is not surprising that attempts to create this same verification models for pharmaceuticals are now a decade behind in the USA and Europe, while it's already available in Nigeria. A decade, and costing a hundred times more. And that is why, when you walk into a Walgreens in New York, you cannot check the source of your medicine, but you can in Maiduguri in Northern Nigeria. That is the reality.
所以這是個全球性的問題,絕對是。 是全球性的。 我們之所以沒有 用它應得的急迫性來處理它, 只因為最佳的解決方案, 最先進的解決方案, 最進步的解決方案, 很不幸就存在於世界上 解決方案無法做大的那些地區。 那就是為什麼,並不意外, 如今歐美在嘗試針對藥品 做出同樣的驗證模型, 但卻已經落後了十年, 奈及利亞已經有了。 十年,且成本還要高至少一百倍。 那就是為什麼在紐約的沃爾格林 連鎖藥局,無法確認藥的來源, 但在北奈及利亞的 邁杜古里卻可以。 那就是現實。(掌聲)
(Applause)
那就是現實。
That is the reality.
(Applause)
(掌聲)
So we go back to the issue of ideas. Remember, solutions are merely packaged ideas, so it is the ideas that are most important. In a world where we marginalize the ideas of the Global South, we cannot create globally inclusive problem-solving models. Now, you might say, "Well, that's bad, but in such a world where we have so many other problems, do we need another cause?" I say yes, we need another cause. Actually, that cause will surprise you: the cause of intellectual justice. You say, "What? Intellectual justice? In a world of human rights abuses?" And I explain this way: all the solutions to the other problems that affect us and confront us need solutions. So you need the best ideas to address them. And that is why today I ask you, can we all give it one time for intellectual justice?
我們再回到點子的議題上。 別忘了,解決方案 只是包裝過的點子, 所以,最重要的是點子。 在這個世界中,我們 忽視南方世界的點子, 我們無法創造出全球 通用的問題解決模型。 各位可能會說:「嗯,那真糟, 但,在這個世界上, 我們還有許多其他問題, 我們還需要另一個目標嗎?」 我會說是,我們需要另一個目標。 事實上,那個目標會讓你們 驚訝:智慧正義的目標。 你們會說:「什麼?智慧正義? 在人權被濫用的世界裡?」 我會這樣解釋: 其他問題的解決方案, 若會影響我們、 對抗我們,就也需要解決方案。 需要用最好的點子來處理它們。 那就是為什麼, 今天我想要問大家: 我們大家能不能一起給予 智慧正義一次機會?
(Applause)
(掌聲)