FA: Can you briefly tell us about yourself and your background?
HR: I am a Swedish medical doctor, academic, statistician and public speaker. I am the professor of International Health at Karolinska Institute and co-founder and chair man of Gapminder Foundation, which developed the Trendalyzer software system.
FA: As the Co-Founder of Gapminder Foundation, what inspired you to create a statistics software?
HR: I wanted to make the major global trends easy to understand for many and show that the old division of countries into only two groups is no longer relevant.
FA: Who are the main targets of "Trendalyzer" and how can it help developing countries that have fundamental problems in their current systems?
HR: Gapminder develops educational material for high schools and colleges. "Developing countries" usually refer to Russia, Brazil, Saudi, China, Iran and South Korea, but even the UN has no definition. All countries are helped by identifying other countries that are at a similar development level.
FA: Would it be possible to use your software in Afghanistan? If yes, how can it improve the economical gap and educational literacy in Afghanistan?
HR: Gapminder sold the bubble animation software to Google that now makes Google public data available with data for all countries. Generic graphing softwares like Tablaux also make moving bubbles available.
FA: Based on your experience working in developing countries, what do you think are the main challenges for those countries in providing the right statistics and analyzing the data?
HR: Upper middle income countries have detailed register data available, like Turkey and Mexico. Lower middle and low income countries depend more on data from national surveys and lack subnational data for many issues. Collides countries lack also national survey. The world can no longer be understood by describing developing countries.
FA: What do you think about Women's Annex operations in Afghanistan in improving digital literacy and sustainable education in Afghanistan's schools?
HR: I have too little knowledge about it but I understand that Afghanistan today ranges from no schools to advanced new educational approach.
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