Stay ConnectedDiscover the people and the projects trying to make the world a better place.
A weekly programme looking at common challenges around the world and the creative ways people are trying to tackle them.
Presenter Myra Anubi speaks to reporters, experts and innovators to investigate how effective different solutions are, share their successes and inspire listeners with what is possible.
Copyright: © (C) BBC 2022
Antibiotic resistant superbugs are a huge problem both in humans and in animals. Many animals reared for food are routinely fed antibiotics to prevent infections. Farmers across the world do it to protect their livestock and to safeguard their incomes. But some bugs are becoming resistant to these drugs because of their overuse – fuelling the rise of animal “superbugs” like MRSA that could potentially spread to humans. This means that animals and people can die from common infections because the antibiotics no longer work. In the Netherlands, the story of one sick little girl caused pig farmers to wake up to a huge pig MRSA infection that was spreading to humans. Recognising the problem, a couple of pig farmers started a movement that has resulted in the country cutting their antibiotics use in animals by 65% - and, crucially, without affecting their profits. World Hacks investigates how a group of pig farmers solved a massive problem in The Netherlands and whether other countries should urgently follow suit.
Presenter: Tallulah Berry Reporter/ Producer: Shoku Amirani
Image: Pig on a farm in The Netherlands / Credit: BBC
The availability of blood for transfusions saves lives after difficult births and operations. But in much of the developing world, hospitals have a blood shortage. One entrepreneur in Nigeria is working on a solution. She has developed an app that connects blood banks to hospitals, and has built a network of moped drivers to ferry blood around Lagos, the largest city in the country. World Hacks investigates whether her solution can save lives.
Also on the programme, the designers of a new “city tree” – large structures filled with moss that attempt to absorb pollution from the air.
Presenter: Mukul Devichand Reporters: Stephanie Hegarty and Dougal Shaw
Image: Moped driver in Lagos / Credit: BBC
How do you help female doctors get back to work when they've given up medicine to look after their families? It's a particular problem in Pakistan where the majority of medical graduates are women who stop working after they get married. Now a scheme has been set up employing them to hold video clinics with patients over the internet, enabling them to work flexibly from home. What's more they're aiming to improve access to health care in Pakistan by targeting their 'computer screen clinics' at people living in deprived parts of the country, where the shortage of female doctors is most acute.
Produced by Nick Holland Presented by Tallulah Berry
Image credit: BBC
Is a new urban cable car in Mexico more than just a means of public transport? As well as ferrying thousands of people a day, it's been strategically located to link up the poorest neighbourhoods to more affluent parts of the city. It's hoped it will bring growth to a forgotten district, reduce crime and become a means of bridging the social divide. World Hacks travels to Mexico City to see if it can achieve those goals and understand why cities are opting for this usual form of transport.
Presenter: Sahar Zand Producers: Elizabeth Cassin and Nick Holland
Image: Cable cars above Mexico City / Credit: BBC
Around the world, governments and researchers are experimenting with the introduction of universal basic income. From Finland and Spain to India, the idea of giving every citizen – whether working or not – a set amount of money per month is gaining momentum. It’s claimed to be a fairer and more efficient way of running a welfare system, but we’re only just starting to understand what actually happens when you introduce a basic income for everyone. We look at the evidence and try to establish whether it is an idea whose time has come.
Presenter: Mukul Devichand Producer: Jo Mathys
Image: An Indian man counts currency / Credit: Sajjad Hussain / AFP / Getty Images
Darius has been shot three separate occasions, but the third time was the last. He was met at his bedside by a stranger, who changed his life forever.
Victims of violence are, far more likely to be shot, stabbed or violently assaulted a second or third time - as the perpetrators of violence try to silence the victim.
In San Francisco, where Darius lived, specially trained case managers visit victims of violence at their bedsides in hospital and work with them to break that cycle of violence, offering practical advice and specialist services to the patients.
They claim that speaking with victims of violence immediately after an attack, when they are experiencing a 'teachable moment' they have a far greater chance of changing the patient's life forever.
Reporter Sam Judah meets Darius at the site of his third and final shooting, tracing his journey to the hospital, and his meeting with the youth worker who helped him turn his life around.
Image: Darius / Credit: BBC
How do you get children who're victims of emotional abuse or physical harm to open up about what's happened to them? In Mexico a psychologist, Julia Borbolla, encourages them to have a one-to-one chat with a cartoon alien that appears on a video screen in a room near her office. What the children don't realise is Julia hears every word of their conversation with the animated creature because she's secretly controlling it from the room next door.
She says children are more likely to reveal sensitive information to the cartoon alien than if they were face-to-face with a real person. World Hacks travels to Mexico City to assess whether the tool works and to meet people who're now operating it in public hospitals, women's shelters and within the country's judicial system.
(Photo: Psychologist Julia Borbolla Credit: BBC)
Methane emissions from the burps and farts of livestock accounts for around 15% of global greenhouse gas emissions. But the trick to reducing this could lie with some of Kenya’s smallholder farmers. By using very simple techniques to transform the way they manage their soil and animals, dairy farmers are helping their cows emit less methane per litre of milk they produce. And it’s all being paid for by big polluters, in what could become a major form of carbon offsetting. Is this a new frontier in the fight against climate change? World Hacks has been to rural Kenya to find out.
Presenter: Vincent Ni Reporter: Harriet Noble
World Hacks goes to Thailand to meet an army of volunteers on the front line in the fight against dangerous diseases, like Ebola and bird flu.
Nearly 100 years ago Spanish Flu infected a third of the world’s population and killed about 50 million people. With increased international travel, growing populations and environmental damage, experts warn that viruses now have the potential to spread faster, and we could be on course for another pandemic, with devastating consequences. Pandemics often originate in places where animals and people live in close contact, making it easy for animal diseases to spill over into humans, and where health systems may not be able to pick up on threats and respond quickly. In rural Thailand, 75% of people keep animals in their back gardens, making it hard to keep track of new outbreaks. In 2004, a strain of bird flu swept through the country, as well as Vietnam, Cambodia and Indonesia, infecting more than 125 people and killing about half of them. Vets at Chiang Mai University have started a project called PODD – the full name in Thai means “Look closely and you will see”. They’ve trained up 3,000 volunteers to take photos of dead animals and report any signs of sickness in their communities, helping spot dangerous outbreaks and contain them before they spread.
Presenter : Vincent Ni Reporter: Ruth Evans Producer: Charlotte Pritchard
Image: Vets from the PODD team test chickens during a suspected outbreak / Credit: BBC
A new school in San Francisco thinks it can massively accelerate the speed at which children can learn, using clever technology and smart algorithms to offer each child a bespoke education. AltSchool believes it can achieve results that were only previously possible by giving individual children their own personal tutor. The firm currently runs eight small ‘lab schools’ dotted around the country, all run from their California headquarters. But they have huge plans for expansion, and hope to sell their software to every school in the country. Sam Judah meets the pupils at one of the schools, and the CEO at AltSchool’s nerve centre, to find out what’s behind the company’s big idea.
Presenter: Mai Noman Producer: Sam Judah
Image: A pupil at AltSchool / Credit: BBC
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