TEDxJohannesburg 07 November 2010
2010-11-07T09:09:00
Francois Bonnici Speaking at 2010 TEDxJohannesburg
What would your talk at TEDxJohannesburg focus on?
Nearly four million babies die every year in the world in their first month of life (the newborn period):
- 99.9% of these take place in low & middle income countries and are mostly preventable
- these newborn deaths account for more than 40% of under 5 year childhood mortality
- these deaths exceed the number of deaths from HIV/AIDS and are just as preventable
Two-thirds of these deaths could be averted with basic, affordable solutions, using life-saving approaches and technologies that have been known and tested for several decades, yet these are inaccessible or inappropriate or in low and middle income countries, where almost all these deaths occur. The research and investment is totally skewed towards developed economies and not into low-cost and appropriate solutions.
What alternative solutions exist?
Where can we experience you as a speaker?
Brief biography
Dr François Bonnici is the Senior Adviser for the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship (www.schwabfound.org) and a Global Leadership Fellow Alumnus of the World Economic Forum. He has worked in clinical medicine, managed public health programs, built public private partnerships, managed development funding, and consulted to UNICEF, governments ministries, for-profit social businesses, and non-profit social ventures. He is also currently assisting UNICEF and the National Department of Health to develop a national newborn care implementation package to improve newborn care in district hospitals in South Africa.
Bringing together his passion for health and social innovation together with leading child and newborn health experts, they established a social venture to develop medical devices appropriate for low resource settings. Powerfree Education and Technology (www.pet.org.za) recently won the INDEX Design for Life Award for its first device, a Fetal Heart Rate Monitor.
One of his missions has been to stimulate the social economy in Africa and establish an environment to allow social enterprises to thrive in South Africa. To achieve this he held the first meeting on Social Entrepreneurship in South Africa in 2008, co-founded the African Social Entrepreneurs Network (www.asenetwork.org) in 2009 and is a Trustee of Unltd South Africa (www.unltdsouthafrica.org/). He also advises international social venture funds and foundations on their blended value investments on the African continent and is a guest lecturer at UCT Graduate School of Business on social enterprise.
Originally trained as a doctor in South Africa, he also read for a Masters degree in Public Health (London) and a MBA focusing on social enterprise(Oxford) graduating top of his class at both the University of Cape Town Medical School and at Oxford’s Said Business School as a Rhodes Scholar.
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