Pope Francis:The Luck of the Pontiff-Eng/Sp version

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The Luck of the Pontiff


JAN. 22, 2014 ,Gail Collins


President Obama is going to visit the pope! He’s been to the Vatican before, but not with this pope, who is perhaps the only person in the world almost everybody likes.
Except Rush Limbaugh, which sort of makes it even better.
The president’s visit, which is scheduled for March, comes at an interesting intersection in the two men’s careers. Pope Francis can currently do no wrong, and Barack Obama can do no right. Recently, his administration decided to move its Vatican Embassy into a more secure building, and the outcry was so intense that you’d think Obama had ordered a re-creation of the Sack of Rome.
“A slap in the face to the 78 million Catholics in the United States,” one congressman screeched.
“Why would our president close our Embassy to the Vatican?” twittered Jeb Bush. “Hopefully, it is not retribution for Catholic organizations opposing Obamacare.”
As political tweets go, this is a keeper on two counts. First, we can once again marvel at Republican politicians’ ability to insert the Affordable Care Act into everything.
Second, we can mark the official end of the former governor of Florida’s career as the safe, sane fallback option in 2016.
But about the Vatican Embassy: the State Department has been trying to move it into a compound that includes the American Embassy to Italy. This will save money and improve security. Instantly, certain parties detected a plot.
Two former ambassadors to the Vatican, Ray Flynn (Clinton) and Jim Nicholson (Bush), penned a blistering op-ed for The Wall Street Journal in which they called the move “a colossal mistake” that would squish the Holy See’s separate identity. Diplomatically, they attributed more intense feelings to others. (“... many have seen the move as a deliberate slap at the Catholic Church and the pope; some may even detect veiled anti-Catholicism.”)
Fast-forward to many variations on the headline “Obama Insults Catholics.” The State Department pointed out that the new quarters would be in an entirely different building, with an entirely different entrance than the Italian Embassy. And that while the new embassy will not be in the Vatican, neither is the current one. Or that of any other country. The Vatican is only two-tenths of a square mile, and more than half of that is gardens.
“In fact, our new location is a tenth of a mile closer,” said Under Secretary of State Patrick Kennedy.
“It’s a clear diminishment of the importance of the Holy See post,” said Nicholson.
Cynics might wonder why we have an embassy for the Vatican in the first place. The total population is about 800 people, which is approximately one-eighth the seating capacity of Radio City Music Hall. It has virtually none of the attributes you find in an actual country. It doesn’t even have a cuisine.

But, obviously, nobody is going to disrespect the Vatican while Pope Francis is around. He won the world’s heart by quickly doing a few things that were so obvious, it’s amazing no previous pontiff figured them out. Such as: if you are going to talk about the poor all the time, you should try to avoid gold furniture.
Without changing any of the Church’s reactionary rules on contraception, homosexuality or abortion, Francis changed the tone just by saying that Catholics should stop obsessing about sex. I cannot imagine what the nuns who ran my old high school would have thought about that theory. Really, it’s hard to overestimate what an incredible time-saver this is.
And instead of just pleading for greater charity toward the poor, Francis decreed that the world needed to drop the idea that when the rich got richer, everybody eventually benefited. Trickle-down economics amounted to a “crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power.” This would have been where he lost Rush Limbaugh.
Ken Langone, the billionaire co-founder of Home Depot, told Cardinal Timothy Dolan that a rich benefactor to a rebuilding project at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York might hesitate to cough up his promised million-dollar donation because of the pope’s attitude. Cardinal Dolan said he assured Langone that while the pope loves the poor, “he also loves rich people.”
Republican budget guru Representative Paul Ryan said the pope’s apparent lack of enthusiasm for the capitalist system was due to an unfortunate upbringing. “The guy is from Argentina. They haven’t had real capitalism in Argentina,” he told The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Even if Francis was down on capitalism, no capitalists wanted to sound down on Francis. Meanwhile, President Obama has spent the last five years dodging calls for new taxes and protecting the insurance industry from health care reform. Stocks have been at an all-time high, and Wall Street hates him.

The moral is: It’s way easier to be pope.



Source: www.nytimes.com







Un pontífice que con algunas acciones obvias se ganó el corazón del mundo




Por Gail Collins | The New York Times

El Papa, camino a la audiencia general de los miércoles, en la Plaza San Pedro. Foto: Reuters







WASHINGTON.- ¡Barack Obama irá a visitar a Francisco! Ya estuvo antes en el Vaticano, pero nunca con este papa, tal vez la única persona del mundo que le cae bien a casi todos.

La visita del presidente norteamericano, programada para marzo, llega en un interesante momento de intersección en la carrera de ambos hombres: el papa Francisco la pega en todas y Obama no pega una. Hace poco, cuando su gobierno decidió mudar su embajada vaticana a un edificio más seguro, las quejas fueron tan intensas que cualquiera hubiera dicho que Obama había ordenado una recreación del Saqueo de Roma.

"Una bofetada en la cara de los 78 millones de católicos estadounidenses", clamó un congresista. "¿Por qué querría nuestro presidente cerrar la embajada en el Vaticano?", tuiteó Jeb Bush. "Esperemos que no sea un castigo a las organizaciones católicas por haberse opuesto al Obamacare", añadió.

Los tuits de los políticos se suceden y el tema es un golazo por dos razones. Primero, porque tenemos la oportunidad de maravillarnos, una vez más, de la capacidad de los republicanos para deslizar el tema del Obamacare en todas partes. Segundo, porque podemos dar oficialmente por terminada la carrera del ex gobernador de Florida como una opción de recambio segura y confiable para 2016.

Pero volviendo al tema de la embajada en el Vaticano: el Departamento de Estado ha intentado trasladarla al interior de un complejo en el que también está la embajada estadounidense en Italia. La mudanza ahorraría dinero y optimizaría la seguridad. En segundos, ciertos interesados olieron un complot.

Dos ex embajadores ante el Vaticano, Ray Flynn y Jim Nicholson, de las presidencias de Clinton y Bush, respectivamente, firmaron una virulenta nota de opinión en The Wall Street Journal, donde califican la mudanza de "error colosal" que pisotearía la identidad individual que tiene la Santa Sede.

Podemos saltearnos todas las demás variaciones del titular "Obama insulta a los católicos". El Departamento de Estado señaló que la nueva sede de la embajada ante el Vaticano ocuparía un edificio con entrada propia y separado enteramente de la embajada ante Italia. También informó que si bien la nueva embajada no estaría en el interior del Vaticano, la actual tampoco lo está, al igual que las del resto de los países. El Vaticano tiene menos de 45 hectáreas de superficie, y más de la mitad son jardines.

"De hecho, la nueva locación está más cerca de la Santa Sede", dijo el subsecretario de Estado, Patrick Kennedy. "Es una clara depreciación de la importancia de nuestra misión ante la Santa Sede", dijo Nicholson.

Los cínicos podrán preguntarse para qué queremos directamente una embajada ante el Vaticano, cuya población apenas supera las 800 personas, algo así como la décima parte de la platea del Radio City Music Hall. El Vaticano no tiene ninguno de los atributos de un país moderno: ni siquiera tiene su propia gastronomía.

Pero por supuesto que nadie se atreverá a faltarle el respeto al Vaticano mientras por ahí camine el papa Francisco, que se ganó el corazón del mundo haciendo un par de cosas que eran tan obvias que es asombroso que no se le hayan ocurrido a ningún papa anterior. Por ejemplo, que si uno va a hablar de los pobres todo el tiempo, es mejor evitar hacerlo desde sillones dorados.

Sin modificar ninguna de las reaccionarias normas de la Iglesia sobre la anticoncepción, la homosexualidad o el aborto, Francisco cambió el tono de las cosas diciéndoles simplemente a los católicos que dejen de obsesionarse con el sexo. Imposible sobrestimar el increíble ahorro de tiempo que eso implica.

Y en vez de pedir más caridad pa-ra los pobres, Francisco decretó que el mundo tenía que abandonar la idea de que cuando los ricos se hacen más ricos, tarde o temprano todos se benefician. La teoría económica del derrame es sinónimo de "una confianza burda e ingenua en la bondad de quienes ostentan el poder económico".

Ken Langone, el multimillonario fundador de Home Depot, le dijo al cardenal Timothy Dolan que un benefactor rico que quisiera contribuir con el proyecto de reconstrucción de la catedral neoyorquina de San Patricio podría dudar de su millonario desembolso debido a la actitud del Papa. Dolan le aseguró a Langone que si bien el Papa ama a los pobres, "también ama a los ricos".

El gurú presupuestario de los republicanos, el congresista Paul Ryan, dijo que la aparente falta de entusiasmo capitalista del Papa se debía a sus desafortunados orígenes. "El tipo es argentino. Nunca tuvieron verdadero capitalismo en la Argentina", le dijo Ryan a The Milwaukee Sentinel. Y aunque Francisco criticó el capitalismo, ningún capitalista quiere aparecer como un crítico del Papa. Mientras tanto, Obama se ha pasado por lo menos los últimos cinco años esquivando los pedidos de nuevos impuestos y protegiendo al negocio de las aseguradoras del impacto de la reforma de salud. La bolsa bate récords históricos y Wall Street lo detesta.

¿Moraleja? Es mucho más fácil ser papa.

Traducción de Jaime Arrambide.




Fuente: www.lanacion.com.ar

MUS/GralInt-En Marzo, vuelve Hugh Laurie al Luna Park

The following information is used for educational purposes only.



20.01.2014


En Marzo, vuelve Hugh Laurie al Luna Park



El ex protagonista de Dr. House se presentará el sábado 15 en el Palacio de los deportes


















































Fuente: www.lanacion.com.ar/Source: www.rollingstone.com.ar

GralInt-TED Talks-My philosophy for a happy life Sam Berns

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My philosophy for a happy life Sam Berns at TEDxMidAtlantic 2013

GralInt-TED Talks-Lizzie Velasquez (with subtitles)

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La emotiva conferencia de Lizzie Velasquez en TED

BUS/MANAG/GralInt-TED Talks-Sheryl Sandberg: So we leaned in ... now what?

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Sheryl Sandberg: So we leaned in ... now what?


Filmed Dec 2013 • Posted Jan 2014 • TEDWomen 2013




Sheryl Sandberg admits she was terrified to step onto the TED stage in 2010 -- because she was going to talk, for the first time, about the lonely experience of being a woman in the top tiers of business. Millions of views (and a best-selling book) later, the Facebook COO talks with the woman who pushed her to give that first talk, Pat Mitchell. Sandberg opens up about the reaction to her idea, and explores the ways that women still struggle with success.

As the COO at the helm of Facebook, Sheryl Sandberg juggles the tasks of monetizing the world’s largest social networking site while keeping its users happy and engaged.

A trailblazing journalist, Pat Mitchell is the president and CEO of the Paley Center for Media in New York and LA.


























































Transcript:




Pat Mitchell: Your first time back on the TEDWomen stage. Sheryl Sandberg: First time back. Nice to see everyone. It's always so nice to look out and see so many women. It's so not my regular experience, as I know anyone else's. PM: So when we first started talking about, maybe the subject wouldn't be social media, which we assumed it would be, but that you had very much on your mind the missing leadership positions, particularly in the sector of technology and social media. But how did that evolve for you as a thought, and end up being the TED Talk that you gave? So I was really scared to get on this stage and talk about women, because I grew up in the business world, as I think so many of us did. You never talk about being a woman, because someone might notice that you're a woman, right? They might notice. Or worse, if you say "woman," people on the other end of the table think you're asking for special treatment, or complaining. Or worse, about to sue them. And so I went through -- (Laughter) Right? I went through my entire business career, and never spoke about being a woman, never spoke about it publicly. But I also had noticed that it wasn't working. I came out of college over 20 years ago, and I thought that all of my peers were men and women, all the people above me were all men, but that would change, because your generation had done such an amazing job fighting for equality, equality was now ours for the taking. And it wasn't. Because year after year, I was one of fewer and fewer, and now, often the only woman in a room. And I talked to a bunch of people about, should I give a speech at TEDWomen about women, and they said, oh no, no. It will end your business career. You cannot be a serious business executive and speak about being a woman. You'll never be taken seriously again. But fortunately, there were the few, the proud -- like you -- who told me I should give the speech, and I asked myself the question Mark Zuckerberg might -- the founder of Facebook and my boss -- asks all of us, which is what would I do if I wasn't afraid? And the answer to what would I do if I wasn't afraid is I would get on the TED stage, and talk about women, and leadership. And I did, and survived. (Applause) PM: I would say, not only survived. I'm thinking of that moment, Sheryl, when you and I were standing backstage together, and you turned to me, and you told me a story. And I said -- very last minute -- you know, you really should share that story. SS: Oh, yeah. PM: What was that story? SS: Well, it's an important part of the journey. So I had -- TEDWomen -- the original one was in D.C. -- so I live here, so I had gotten on a plane the day before, and my daughter was three, she was clinging to my leg: "Mommy, don't go." And Pat's a friend, and so, not related to the speech I was planning on giving, which was chock full of facts and figures, and nothing personal, I told Pat the story. I said, well, I'm having a hard day. Yesterday my daughter was clinging to my leg, and "Don't go." And you looked at me and said, you have to tell that story. I said, on the TED stage? Are you kidding? I'm going to get on a stage and admit my daughter was clinging to my leg? And you said yes, because if you want to talk about getting more women into leadership roles, you have to be honest about how hard it is. And I did. And I think that's a really important part of the journey. The same thing happened when I wrote my book. I started writing the book. I wrote a first chapter, I thought it was fabulous. It was chock-full of data and figures, I had three pages on matrilineal Maasai tribes, and their sociological patterns. My husband read it and he was like, this is like eating your Wheaties. (Laughter) No one -- and I apologize to Wheaties if there's someone -- no one, no one will read this book. And I realized through the process that I had to be more honest and more open, and I had to tell my stories. My stories of still not feeling as self-confident as I should, in many situations. My first and failed marriage. Crying at work. Felling like I didn't belong there, feeling guilty to this day. And part of my journey, starting on this stage, going to "Lean In," going to the foundation, is all about being more open and honest about those challenges, so that other women can be more open and honest, and all of us can work together towards real equality. PM: I think that one of the most striking parts about the book, and in my opinion, one of the reasons it's hit such a nerve and is resonating around the world, is that you are personal in the book, and that you do make it clear that, while you've observed some things that are very important for other women to know, that you've had the same challenges that many others of us have, as you faced the hurdles and the barriers and possibly the people who don't believe the same. So talk about that process: deciding you'd go public with the private part, and then you would also put yourself in the position of something of an expert on how to resolve those challenges. SS: After I did the TED Talk, what happened was -- you know, I never really expected to write a book, I'm not an author, I'm not a writer, and it was viewed a lot, and it really started impacting people's lives. I got this great --- one of the first letters I got was from a woman who said that she was offered a really big promotion at work, and she turned it down, and she told her best friend she turned it down, and her best friend said, you really need to watch this TED Talk. And so she watched this TED Talk, and she went back the next day, she took the job, she went home, and she handed her husband the grocery list. (Laughter) And she said, I can do this. And what really mattered to me -- it wasn't only women in the corporate world, even though I did hear from a lot of them, and it did impact a lot of them, it was also people of all different circumstances. There was a doctor I met who was an attending physician at Johns Hopkins, and he said that until he saw my TED Talk, it never really occurred to him that even though half the students in his med school classes were women, they weren't speaking as much as the men as he did his rounds. So he started paying attention, and as he waited for raised hands, he realized the men's hands were up. So he started encouraging the women to raise their hands more, and it still didn't work. So he told everyone, no more hand raising, I'm cold-calling. So he could call evenly on men and women. And what he proved to himself was that the women knew the answers just as well or better, and he was able to go back to them and tell them that. And then there was the woman, stay-at-home mom, lives in a really difficult neighborhood, with not a great school, she said that TED Talk -- she's never had a corporate job, but that TED Talk inspired her to go to her school and fight for a better teacher for her child. And I guess it was part of was finding my own voice. And I realized that other women and men could find their voice through it, which is why I went from the talk to the book. PM: And in the book, you not only found your voice, which is clear and strong in the book, but you also share what you've learned -- the experiences of other people in the lessons. And that's what I'm thinking about in terms of putting yourself in a -- you became a sort of expert in how you lean in. So what did that feel like, and become like in your life? To launch not just a book, not just a best-selling, best-viewed talk, but a movement, where people began to literally describe their actions at work as, I'm leaning in. SS: I mean, I'm grateful, I'm honored, I'm happy, and it's the very beginning. So I don't know if I'm an expert, or if anyone is an expert. I certainly have done a lot of research. I have read every study, I have pored over the materials, and the lessons are very clear. Because here's what we know: What we know is that stereotypes are holding women back from leadership roles all over the world. It's so striking. "Lean In" is very global, I've been all over the world, talking about it, and -- cultures are so different. Even within our own country, to Japan, to Korea, to China, to Asia, Europe, they're so different. Except for one thing: gender. All over the world, no matter what our cultures are, we think men should be strong, assertive, aggressive, have voice; we think women should speak when spoken to, help others. Now we have, all over the world, women are called "bossy." There is a word for "bossy," for little girls, in every language there's one. It's a word that's pretty much not used for little boys, because if a little boy leads, there's no negative word for it, it's expected. But if a little girl leads, she's bossy. Now I know there aren't a lot of men here, but bear with me. If you're a man, you'll have to represent your gender. Please raise your hand if you've been told you're too aggressive at work. (Laughter) There's always a few, it runs about five percent. Okay, get ready, gentlemen. If you're a woman, please raise your hand if you've ever been told you're too aggressive at work. (Laughter) That is what audiences have said in every country in the world, and it's deeply supported by the data. Now, do we think women are more aggressive than men? Of course not. It's just that we judge them through a different lens, and a lot of the character traits that you must exhibit to perform at work, to get results, to lead, are ones that we think, in a man, he's a boss, and in a woman, she's bossy. And the good news about this is that we can change this by acknowledging it. One of the happiest moments I had in this whole journey is, after the book came out, I stood on a stage with John Chambers, the CEO of Cisco. He read the book. He stood on a stage with me, he invited me in front of his whole management team, men and women, and he said, I thought we were good at this. I thought I was good at this. And then I read this book, and I realized that we -- my company -- we have called all of our senior women too aggressive, and I'm standing on this stage, and I'm sorry. And I want you to know we're never going to do it again. PM: Can we send that to a lot of other people that we know? (Applause) SS: And so John is doing that because he believes it's good for his company, and so this kind of acknowledgement of these biases can change it. And so next time you all see someone call a little girl "bossy," you walk right up to that person, big smile, and you say, "That little girl's not bossy. That little girl has executive leadership skills." (Laughter) PM: I know that's what you're telling your daughter. SS: Absolutely. PM: And you did focus in the book -- and the reason, as you said, in writing it, was to create a dialogue about this. I mean, let's just put it out there, face the fact that women are -- in a time when we have more open doors, and more opportunities -- are still not getting to the leadership positions. So in the months that have come since the book, in which "Lean In" focused on that and said, here are some of the challenges that remain, and many of them we have to own within ourselves and look at ourselves. What has changed? Have you seen changes? SS: Well, there's certainly more dialogue, which is great. But what really matters to me, and I think all of us, is action. So everywhere I go, CEOs, they're mostly men, say to me, you're costing me so much money because all the women want to be paid as much as the men. And to them I say, I'm not sorry at all. (Laughter) At all. I mean, the women should be paid as much as the men. Everywhere I go, women tell me they ask for raises. Everywhere I go, women say they're getting better relationships with their spouses, asking for more help at home, asking for the promotions they should be getting at work, and importantly, believing it themselves. Even little things. One of the governors of one of the states told me that he didn't realize that more women were, in fact, literally sitting on the side of the room, which they are, and now he made a rule that all the women on his staff need to sit at the table. The foundation I started along with the book "Lean In" helps women, or men, start circles -- small groups, it can be 10, it can be however many you want, which meet once a month. I would have hoped that by now, we'd have about 500 circles. That would've been great. You know, 500 times roughly 10. There are over 12,000 circles in 50 countries in the world. PM: Wow, that's amazing. SS: And these are people who are meeting every single month. I met one of them, I was in Beijing. A group of women, they're all about 29 or 30, they started the first Lean In circle in Beijing, several of them grew up in very poor, rural China. These women are 29, they are told by their society that they are "left over," because they are not yet married, and the process of coming together once a month at a meeting is helping them define who they are for themselves. What they want in their careers. The kind of partners they want, if at all. I looked at them, we went around and introduced ourselves, and they all said their names and where they're from, and I said, I'm Sheryl Sandberg, and this was my dream. And I kind of just started crying. Right, which, I admit, I do. Right? I've talked about it before. But the fact that a woman so far away out in the world, who grew up in a rural village, who's being told to marry someone she doesn't want to marry, can now go meet once a month with a group of people and refuse that, and find life on her own terms. That's the kind of change we have to hope for. PM: Have you been surprised by the global nature of the message? Because I think when the book first came out, many people thought, well, this is a really important handbook for young women on their way up. They need to look at this, anticipate the barriers, and recognize them, put them out in the open, have the dialogue about it, but that it's really for women who are that. Doing that. Pursuing the corporate world. And yet the book is being read, as you say, in rural and developing countries. What part of that has surprised you, and perhaps led to a new perspective on your part? SS: The book is about self-confidence, and about equality. And it turns out, everywhere in the world, women need more self-confidence, because the world tell us we're not equal to men. Everywhere in the world, we live in a world where the men get "and," and women get "or." I've never met a man who's been asked how he does it all. (Laughter) Again, I'm going to turn to the men in the audience: Please raise your hand if you've been asked, how do you do it all? (Laughter) Men only. Women, women. Please raise your hand if you've been asked how you do it all? We assume men can do it all, slash -- have jobs and children. We assume women can't, and that's ridiculous, because the great majority of women everywhere in the world, including the United States, work full time and have children. And I think people don't fully understand how broad the message is. There is a circle that's been started for rescued sex workers in Miami. They're using "Lean In" to help people make the transition back to what would be a fair life, really rescuing them from their pimps, and using it. There are dress-for-success groups in Texas which are using the book, for women who have never been to college. And we know there are groups all the way to Ethiopia. And so these messages of equality -- of how women are told they can't have what men can have -- how we assume that leadership is for men, how we assume that voice is for men, these affect all of us, and I think they are very universal. And it's part of what TEDWomen does. It unites all of us in a cause we have to believe in, which is more women, more voice, more equality. PM: If you were invited now to make another TEDWomen talk, what would you say that is a result of this experience, for you personally, and what you've learned about women, and men, as you've made this journey? SS: I think I would say -- I tried to say this strongly, but I think I can say it more strongly -- I want to say that the status quo is not enough. That it's not good enough, that it's not changing quickly enough. Since I gave my TED Talk and published my book, another year of data came out from the U.S. Census. And you know what we found? No movement in the wage gap for women in the United States. Seventy-seven cents to the dollar. If you are a black woman, 64 cents. If you are a Latina, we're at 54 cents. Do you know when the last time those numbers went up? 2002. We are stagnating, we are stagnating in so many ways. And I think we are not really being honest about that, for so many reasons. It's so hard to talk about gender. We shy away from the word "feminist," a word I really think we need to embrace. We have to get rid of the word bossy and bring back -- (Applause) I think I would say in a louder voice, we need to get rid of the word "bossy" and bring back the word "feminist," because we need it. (Applause) PM: And we all need to do a lot more leaning in. SS: A lot more leaning in. PM: Thank you, Sheryl. Thanks for leaning in and saying yes. SS: Thank you. (Applause)

BUS/GralInt-TED Talks-Harish Manwani: Profit’s not always the point

The following information is used for educational purposes only.






Harish Manwani: Profit’s not always the point


Filmed Oct 2013 • Posted Jan 2014 • TED@BCG Singapore



You might not expect the chief operating officer of a major global corporation to look too far beyond either the balance sheet or the bottom line. But Harish Manwani, COO of Unilever, makes a passionate argument that doing so to include value, purpose and sustainability in top-level decision-making is not just savvy, it's the only way to run a 21st century business responsibly.

Harish Manwani joined Unilever as a management trainee in 1976; he is now the company's chief operating officer.



























































Transcript:





The entire model of capitalism and the economic model that you and I did business in, and, in fact, continue to do business in, was built around what probably Milton Friedman put more succinctly. And Adam Smith, of course, the father of modern economics actually said many, many years ago, the invisible hand, which is, "If you continue to operate in your own self-interest you will do the best good for society."

Now, capitalism has done a lot of good things and I've talked about a lot of good things that have happened, but equally, it has not been able to meet up with some of the challenges that we've seen in society. The model that at least I was brought up in and a lot of us doing business were brought up in was one which talked about what I call the three G's of growth: growth that is consistent, quarter on quarter; growth that is competitive, better than the other person; and growth that is profitable, so you continue to make more and more shareholder value. And I'm afraid this is not going to be good enough and we have to move from this 3G model to a model of what I call the fourth G: the G of growth that is responsible. And it is this that has to become a very important part of creating value. Of not just creating economic value but creating social value. And companies that will thrive are those that will actually embrace the fourth G. And the model of 4G is quite simple: Companies cannot afford to be just innocent bystanders in what's happening around in society. They have to begin to play their role in terms of serving the communities which actually sustain them. And we have to move to a model of an and/and model which is how do we make money and do good? How do we make sure that we have a great business but we also have a great environment around us? And that model is all about doing well and doing good.

But the question is easier said than done. But how do we actually get that done? And I do believe that the answer to that is going to be leadership. It is going to be to redefine the new business models which understand that the only license to operate is to combine these things. And for that you need businesses that can actually define their role in society in terms of a much larger purpose than the products and brands that they sell. And companies that actually define a true north, things that are nonnegotiable whether times are good, bad, ugly -- doesn't matter. There are things that you stand for. Values and purpose are going to be the two drivers of software that are going to create the companies of tomorrow.

And I'm going to now shift to talking a little bit about my own experiences. I joined Unilever in 1976 as a management trainee in India. And on my first day of work I walked in and my boss tells me, "Do you know why you're here?" I said, "I'm here to sell a lot of soap." And he said, "No, you're here to change lives." You're here to change lives. You know, I thought it was rather facetious. We are a company that sells soap and soup. What are we doing about changing lives? And it's then I realized that simple acts like selling a bar of soap can save more lives than pharmaceutical companies. I don't know how many of you know that five million children don't reach the age of five because of simple infections that can be prevented by an act of washing their hands with soap.

We run the largest hand-washing program in the world. We are running a program on hygiene and health that now touches half a billion people. It's not about selling soap, there is a larger purpose out there. And brands indeed can be at the forefront of social change. And the reason for that is, when two billion people use your brands that's the amplifier. Small actions can make a big difference.

Take another example, I was walking around in one of our villages in India. Now those of you who have done this will realize that this is no walk in the park. And we had this lady who was one of our small distributors -- beautiful, very, very modest, her home -- and she was out there, dressed nicely, her husband in the back, her mother-in-law behind and her sister-in-law behind her. The social order was changing because this lady is part of our Project Shakti that is actually teaching women how to do small business and how to carry the message of nutrition and hygiene. We have 60,000 such women now in India.

It's not about selling soap, it's about making sure that in the process of doing so you can change people's lives. Small actions, big difference.

Our R&D folks are not only working to give us some fantastic detergents, but they're working to make sure we use less water. A product that we've just launched recently, One Rinse product that allows you to save water every time you wash your clothes. And if we can convert all our users to using this, that's 500 billion liters of water. By the way, that's equivalent to one month of water for a whole huge continent. So just think about it. There are small actions that can make a big difference.

And I can go on and on. Our food chain, our brilliant products -- and I'm sorry I'm giving you a word from the sponsors -- Knorr, Hellman's and all those wonderful products. We are committed to making sure that all our agricultural raw materials are sourced from sustainable sources, 100-percent sustainable sources.

We were the first to say we are going to buy all of our palm oil from sustainable sources. I don't know how many of you know that palm oil, and not buying it from sustainable sources, can create deforestation that is responsible for 20 percent of the greenhouse gasses in the world. We were the first to embrace that, and it's all because we market soap and soup. And the point I'm making here is that companies like yours, companies like mine have to define a purpose which embraces responsibility and understands that we have to play our part in the communities in which we operate.

We introduced something called The Unilever Sustainable Living Plan, which said, "Our purpose is to make sustainable living commonplace, and we are gong to change the lives of one billion people over 2020." Now the question here is, where do we go from here? And the answer to that is very simple: We're not going to change the world alone. There are plenty of you and plenty of us who understand this. The question is, we need partnerships, we need coalitions and importantly, we need that leadership that will allow us to take this from here and to be the change that we want to see around us. Thank you very much. (Applause)

HEALTH/GralInt-TED Talks-Mark Kendall: Demo: A needle-free vaccine patch that's safer and way cheaper

The following information is used for educational purposes only.




Mark Kendall: Demo: A needle-free vaccine patch that's safer and way cheaper


Filmed Jun 2013 • Posted Jan 2014 • TEDGlobal 2013





One hundred sixty years after the invention of the needle and syringe, we’re still using them to deliver vaccines; it’s time to evolve. Biomedical engineer Mark Kendall demos the Nanopatch, a one-centimeter-by-one-centimeter square vaccine that can be applied painlessly to the skin. He shows how this tiny piece of silicon can overcome four major shortcomings of the modern needle and syringe, at a fraction of the cost.

Mark Kendall aims to shake up how vaccines are delivered with the Nanopatch.























































Transcript:


It's a pleasure to be here in Edinburgh, Scotland, the birthplace of the needle and syringe. Less than a mile from here in this direction, in 1853 a Scotsman filed his very first patent on the needle and syringe. His name was Alexander Wood, and it was at the Royal College of Physicians. This is the patent. What blows my mind when I look at it even today is that it looks almost identical to the needle in use today. Yet, it's 160 years old.

So we turn to the field of vaccines. Most vaccines are delivered with the needle and syringe, this 160-year-old technology. And credit where it's due -- on many levels, vaccines are a successful technology. After clean water and sanitation, vaccines are the one technology that has increased our life span the most. That's a pretty hard act to beat.

But just like any other technology, vaccines have their shortcomings, and the needle and syringe is a key part within that narrative -- this old technology. So let's start with the obvious: Many of us don't like the needle and syringe. I share that view. However, 20 percent of the population have a thing called needle phobia. That's more than disliking the needle; that is actively avoiding being vaccinated because of needle phobia. And that's problematic in terms of the rollout of vaccines.

Now, related to this is another key issue, which is needlestick injuries. And the WHO has figures that suggest about 1.3 million deaths per year take place due to cross-contamination with needlestick injuries. These are early deaths that take place.

Now, these are two things that you probably may have heard of, but there are two other shortcomings of the needle and syringe you may not have heard about. One is it could be holding back the next generation of vaccines in terms of their immune responses. And the second is that it could be responsible for the problem of the cold chain that I'll tell you about as well.

I'm going to tell you about some work that my team and I are doing in Australia at the University of Queensland on a technology designed to tackle those four problems. And that technology is called the Nanopatch. Now, this is a specimen of the Nanopatch. To the naked eye it just looks like a square smaller than a postage stamp, but under a microscope what you see are thousands of tiny projections that are invisible to the human eye. And there's about 4,000 projections on this particular square compared to the needle. And I've designed those projections to serve a key role, which is to work with the skin's immune system. So that's a very important function tied in with the Nanopatch.

Now we make the Nanopatch with a technique called deep reactive ion etching. And this particular technique is one that's been borrowed from the semiconductor industry, and therefore is low cost and can be rolled out in large numbers.

Now we dry-coat vaccines to the projections of the Nanopatch and apply it to the skin. Now, the simplest form of application is using our finger, but our finger has some limitations, so we've devised an applicator. And it's a very simple device -- you could call it a sophisticated finger. It's a spring-operated device. What we do is when we apply the Nanopatch to the skin as so -- (Click) -- immediately a few things happen. So firstly, the projections on the Nanopatch breach through the tough outer layer and the vaccine is very quickly released -- within less than a minute, in fact. Then we can take the Nanopatch off and discard it. And indeed we can make a reuse of the applicator itself.

So that gives you an idea of the Nanopatch, and immediately you can see some key advantages. We've talked about it being needle-free -- these are projections that you can't even see -- and, of course, we get around the needle phobia issue as well.

Now, if we take a step back and think about these other two really important advantages: One is improved immune responses through delivery, and the second is getting rid of the cold chain.

So let's start with the first one, this immunogenicity idea. It takes a little while to get our heads around, but I'll try to explain it in simple terms. So I'll take a step back and explain to you how vaccines work in a simple way. So vaccines work by introducing into our body a thing called an antigen which is a safe form of a germ. Now that safe germ, that antigen, tricks our body into mounting an immune response, learning and remembering how to deal with intruders. When the real intruder comes along the body quickly mounts an immune response to deal with that vaccine and neutralizes the infection. So it does that well.

Now, the way it's done today with the needle and syringe, most vaccines are delivered that way -- with this old technology and the needle. But it could be argued that the needle is holding back our immune responses; it's missing our immune sweet spot in the skin. To describe this idea, we need to take a journey through the skin, starting with one of those projections and applying the Nanopatch to the skin. And we see this kind of data. Now, this is real data -- that thing that we can see there is one projection from the Nanopatch that's been applied to the skin and those colors are different layers. Now, to give you an idea of scale, if the needle was shown here, it would be too big. It would be 10 times bigger than the size of that screen, going 10 times deeper as well. It's off the grid entirely. You can see immediately that we have those projections in the skin. That red layer is a tough outer layer of dead skin, but the brown layer and the magenta layer are jammed full of immune cells. As one example, in the brown layer there's a certain type of cell called a Langerhans cell -- every square millimeter of our body is jammed full of those Langerhans cells, those immune cells, and there's others shown as well that we haven't stained in this image. But you can immediately see that the Nanopatch achieves that penetration indeed. We target thousands upon thousands of these particular cells just residing within a hair's width of the surface of the skin.

Now, as the guy that's invented this thing and designed it to do that, I found that exciting. But so what? So what if you've targeted cells? In the world of vaccines, what does that mean? The world of vaccines is getting better. It's getting more systematic. However, you still don't really know if a vaccine is going to work until you roll your sleeves up and vaccinate and wait. It's a gambler's game even today.

So, we had to do that gamble. We obtained an influenza vaccine, we applied it to our Nanopatches and we applied the Nanopatches to the skin, and we waited -- and this is in the live animal. We waited a month, and this is what we found out. This is a data slide showing the immune responses that we've generated with a Nanopatch compared to the needle and syringe into muscle. So on the horizontal axis we have the dose shown in nanograms. On the vertical axis we have the immune response generated, and that dashed line indicates the protection threshold. If we're above that line it's considered protective; if we're below that line it's not. So the red line is mostly below that curve and indeed there's only one point that is achieved with the needle that's protective, and that's with a high dose of 6,000 nanograms. but notice immediately the distinctly different curve that we achieve with the blue line. That's what's achieved with the Nanopatch; the delivered dose of the Nanopatch is a completely different immunogenicity curve. That's a real fresh opportunity. Suddenly we have a brand new lever in the world of vaccines. We can push it one way, where we can take a vaccine that works but is too expensive and can get protection with a hundredth of the dose compared to the needle. That can take a vaccine that's suddenly 10 dollars down to 10 cents, and that's particularly important within the developing world.

But there's another angle to this as well -- you can take vaccines that currently don't work and get them over that line and get them protective. And certainly in the world of vaccines that can be important. Let's consider the big three: HIV, malaria, tuberculosis. They're responsible for about 7 million deaths per year, and there is no adequate vaccination method for any of those. So potentially, with this new lever that we have with the Nanopatch, we can help make that happen. We can push that lever to help get those candidate vaccines over the line. Now, of course, we've worked within my lab with many other vaccines that have attained similar responses and similar curves to this, what we've achieved with influenza.

I'd like to now switch to talk about another key shortcoming of today's vaccines, and that is the need to maintain the cold chain. As the name suggests -- the cold chain -- it's the requirements of keeping a vaccine right from production all the way through to when the vaccine is applied, to keep it refrigerated. Now, that presents some logistical challenges but we have ways to do it. This is a slightly extreme case in point but it helps illustrate the logistical challenges, in particular in resource-poor settings, of what's required to get vaccines refrigerated and maintain the cold chain. If the vaccine is too warm the vaccine breaks down, but interestingly it can be too cold and the vaccine can break down as well.

Now, the stakes are very high. The WHO estimates that within Africa, up to half the vaccines used there are considered to not be working properly because at some point the cold chain has fallen over. So it's a big problem, and it's tied in with the needle and syringe because it's a liquid form vaccine, and when it's liquid it needs the refrigeration.

A key attribute of our Nanopatch is that the vaccine is dry, and when it's dry it doesn't need refrigeration. Within my lab we've shown that we can keep the vaccine stored at 23 degrees Celsius for more than a year without any loss in activity at all. That's an important improvement. (Applause) We're delighted about it as well. And the thing about it is that we have well and truly proven the Nanopatch within the laboratory setting. And as a scientist, I love that and I love science. However, as an engineer, as a biomedical engineer and also as a human being, I'm not going to be satisfied until we've rolled this thing out, taken it out of the lab and got it to people in large numbers and particularly the people that need it the most.

So we've commenced this particular journey, and we've commenced this journey in an unusual way. We've started with Papua New Guinea.

Now, Papua New Guinea is an example of a developing world country. It's about the same size as France, but it suffers from many of the key barriers existing within the world of today's vaccines. There's the logistics: Within this country there are only 800 refrigerators to keep vaccines chilled. Many of them are old, like this one in Port Moresby, many of them are breaking down and many are not in the Highlands where they are required. That's a challenge. But also, Papua New Guinea has the world's highest incidence of HPV, human papillomavirus, the cervical cancer [risk factor]. Yet, that vaccine is not available in large numbers because it's too expensive. So for those two reasons, with the attributes of the Nanopatch, we've got into the field and worked with the Nanopatch, and taken it to Papua New Guinea and we'll be following that up shortly.

Now, doing this kind of work is not easy. It's challenging, but there's nothing else in the world I'd rather be doing. And as we look ahead I'd like to share with you a thought: It's the thought of a future where the 17 million deaths per year that we currently have due to infectious disease is a historical footnote. And it's a historical footnote that has been achieved by improved, radically improved vaccines. Now standing here today in front of you at the birthplace of the needle and syringe, a device that's 160 years old, I'm presenting to you an alternative approach that could really help make that happen -- and it's the Nanopatch with its attributes of being needle-free, pain-free, the ability for removing the cold chain and improving the immunogenicity. Thank you. (Applause)