TED Talks-Jamie Drummond: Let´s crowdsource the world´s goals-Video

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So let me start by taking you back,back into the mists of your memoryto perhaps the most anticipated year in your life,but certainly the most anticipated yearin all human history:the year 2000. Remember that?Y2K, the dotcom bubble,stressing about whose party you're going to go toas the clock strikes midnight,before the champagne goes flat,and then there's that inchoate yearningthat was felt, I think, by many, that the millennium,that the year 2000, should mean more,more than just a two and some zeroes.

Well, amazingly, for once, our world leadersactually lived up to that millennium momentand back in 2000 agreed to somepretty extraordinary stuff:visionary, measurable, long-term targetscalled the Millennium Development Goals.

Now, I'm sure you all keep a copy of the goalsunder your pillow, or by the bedside table,but just in case you don't,and your memory needs some jogging,the deal agreed then goes like this:developing countries promised to at least halveextreme poverty, hunger and deaths from disease,alongside some other targets, by 2015,and developed nations promised to help themget that done by dropping debts,increasing smart aid, and trade reform.

Well, we're approaching 2015,so we'd better assess, how are we doing on these goals?But we've also got to decide, do we like such global goals?Some people don't. And if we like them, we've got to decidewhat we want to do on these goals going forward.What does the world want to do together?We've got to decide a process by which we decide.

Well, I definitely think these goals are worth building onand seeing through, and here's just a few reasons why.Incredible partnerships between the private sector,political leaders, philanthropistsand amazing grassroots activistsacross the developing world,but also 250,000 people marched in the streetsof Edinburgh outside this very buildingfor Make Poverty History.

All together, they achieved these results:increased the number of people on anti-retrovirals,life-saving anti-AIDS drugs;nearly halved deaths from malaria;vaccinated so many that 5.4 million lives will be saved.And combined, this is going to resultin two million fewer children dying every year,last year, than in the year 2000.That's 5,000 fewer kids dying every day,ten times you lot not dead every day,because of all of these partnerships.So I think this is amazing living proof of progressthat more people should know about,but the challenge of communicating this kind of good newsis probably the subject of a different TEDTalk.Anyway, for now, anyone involved in getting these results,thank you. I think this proved these goals are worth it.

But there's still a lot of unfinished business.Still, 7.6 million children die every year of preventable,treatable diseases,and 178 million kids are malnourishedto the point of stunting, a horrible termwhich means physical and cognitive lifelong impairment.So there's plainly a lot more to do on the goals we've got.

But then, a lot of people think there are thingsthat should have been in the original packagethat weren't agreed back then that should now be included,like sustainable development targets,natural resource governance targets,access to opportunity, to knowledge,equity, fighting corruption.All of this is measurable and could be in the new goals.

But the key thing here is,what do you think should be in the new goals?What do you want?Are you annoyed that I didn't talk about gender equalityor education?Should those be in the new package of goals?

And quite frankly, that's a good question,but there's going to be some tough tradeoffsand choices here, so you want to hopethat the process by which the world decidesthese new goals is going to be legitimate, right?

Well, as we gather here in Edinburgh,technocrats appointed by the U.N. and certain governments,with the best intentions, are busying themselvesdesigning a new package of goals,and currently they're doing that through pretty much the same oldlate-20th-century, top-down, elite, closed process.

But, of course, since then, the Web and mobile telephony,along with ubiquitous reality TV formatshave spread all around the world.So what we'd like to propose is that we use themto involve people from all around the worldin an historic first: the world's first truly globalpoll and consultation, where everyone everywherehas an equal voice for the very first time.

I mean, wouldn't it be a huge historic missed opportunitynot to do this, given that we can?There's hundreds of billions of your aid dollars at stake,tens of millions of lives, or deaths, at stake,and, I'd argue, the security and futureof you and your family is also at stake.

So, if you're with me, I'd say there's three essential stepsin this crowdsourcing campaign:collecting, connecting and committing.

So first of all, we've got to ground this campaignin core polling data.Let's go into every country that will let us in,ask 1,001 people what they wantthe new goals to be, making special effortsto reach the poorest, those without accessto modern technology, and let's make sure that their viewsare at the center of the goals going forward.

Then, we've got to commission a baseline surveyto make sure we can monitor and progress the goalsgoing forward. The original goals didn't really havegood baseline survey data,and we're going to need the help of big data through all of this process to make surewe can really monitor the progress.

And then we've got to connect with the big crowd.Now here, we see the role for an unprecedented coalitionof social media giants and upstarts,telecoms companies, reality TV show formats,gaming companies, telecoms, all of them togetherin kind of their "We Are The World" moment.Could they come together and helpthe Millennium Development Goals get rebrandedinto the Millennial Generation's Goals?And if just five percent of the five billion pluswho are currently connected made a comment,and that comment turned into a commitment,we could crowdsource a force of 300 million peoplearound the world to help see these goals through.

If we have this collected data, and this connected crowd,based upon our experience of campaigningand getting world leaders to commit,I think world leaders will committo most of the crowdsourced recommendations.

But the question really is, through this processwill we all have become committed?And if we are, are we ready to iterate, monitorand provide feedback, make sure these promisesare really delivering results?

Well, there's some fantastic examples here to scale up,mostly piloted within Africa, actually.There's Open Data Kenya, which geocodesand crowdsources information about where projects are,are they delivering results.Often, they're not in the right place.And Ushahidi, which means "witness" in Swahili,which geocodes and crowdsources informationin complex emergencies to help target responses.This is some of the most exciting stuffin development and democracy,where citizens on the edge of a networkare helping to force open the processto make sure that the big global aid promisesand vague stuff up at the top really delivers for peopleat a grassroots level and inverts that pyramid.This openness, this forcing openness, is key,and if it wasn't entirely transparent already,I should be open: I've got a completely transparent agenda.

Long-term trends suggest that this centuryis going to be a tough place to live,with population increases, consumption patterns increasing,and conflict over scarce natural resources.And look at the state of global politics today.Look at the Rio Earth Summit that happened just last week,or the Mexican G20, also last week.Both, if we're honest, a bust.Our world leaders, our global politics,currently can't get it done.They need our help. They need the cavalry,and the cavalry's not going to come from Mars.It's got to come from us, and I see this processof deciding democratically in a bottom-up fashionwhat the world wants to work on togetheras one vital means by which we can crowdsourcethe force to really build that constituencythat's going to reinvigorate global governancein the 21st century.

I started in 2000. Let me finish in 2030.

Many people made fun of a big campaign a few years agowe had called Make Poverty History.It was a naive thought in many people's minds,and it's true, it was just a t-shirt sloganthat worked for the moment. But look.The empirical condition of living under a dollar and 25is trending down, and look where it gets to by 2030.It's getting near zero.Now sure, progress in China and Indiaand poverty reduction there was key to that,but recently also in Africa, poverty rates are being reduced.It will get harder as we get towards zero,as the poor will be increasingly locatedin post-conflict, fragile states,or maybe in middle income stateswhere they don't really care about the marginalized.But I'm confident, with the right kind of political campaigningand creative and technological innovation combinedworking together more and more as one,I think we can get this and other goals done.

Thank you. (Applause)

(Applause)

Chris Anderson: Jamie, here's the puzzle to me.If there was an incident today where a hundred kidsdied in some tragedy or where, say, a hundred kidswere kidnapped and then rescued by special forces,I mean, it would be all over the news for a week, right?You just put up, just as one of your numbers there,that 5,000 -- is that the number?

Jamie Drummond: Fewer children every day.

CA: Five thousand fewer children dying every day.I mean, it dwarfs, dwarfs everythingthat is actually on our news agenda, and it's invisible.This must drive you crazy.

JD: It does, and we're having a huge debate in this countryabout aid levels, for example, and aid alone is notthe whole solution. Nobody thinks it is.But, you know, if people saw the results of this smart aid,I mean, they'd be going crazy for it.I wish the 250,000 people who really did marchoutside this very building knew these results.Right now they don't, and it would be great to find a wayto better communicate it, because we have not.Creatively, we've failed to communicate this success so far.If those kinds of efforts just could multiply their voiceand amplify it at the key moments, I know for a factwe'd get better policy.The Mexican G20 need not have been a bust.Rio, if anyone cares about the environment,need not have been a bust, okay?But these conferences are going on,and I know people get skeptical and cynicalabout the big global summits and the promisesand their never being kept, but actually,the bits that are, are making a difference,and what the politicians needis more permission from the public.

CA: But you haven't fully worked out the Web mechanisms, etc.by which this might happen.I mean, if the people here who've had experienceusing open platforms, you're interested to talk with themthis week and try to take this forward.

JD: Absolutely. CA: All right, well I must say,if this conference led in some wayto advancing that idea, that's a huge idea,and if you carry that forward, that is really awesome,so thank you. JD: I'd love your help.

CA: Thank you, thank you.

(Applause)