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Last broadcast on Mon, 18 May 2009, 01:06 on BBC World Service (see all broadcasts).
Synopsis
Bangladeshi entrepreneur IQBAL QUADIR on the magical impact of tiny loans.
German immunologist STEFAN KAUFMANN on why it’s hard to keep pandemics at bay.
American classicist JAMES O’DONNELL on the twilight years of the Roman Empire
THIS WEEK'S ILLUSTRATION
Technology empowers people who are spreading epidemics, by Emily Kasriel
MEET THE GUESTS
Businessman and founder and director of the Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship at MIT, IQBAL QUADIR, believes that introducing entrepreneurial microfinance projects into countries such as Bangladesh - where he implemented a successful mobile phone scheme - not only empowers the poor, it strengthens democracy overall.
Epidemics expert and founder of the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin, STEFAN KAUFMANN, plots the probability of new runaway pandemics and says that what we perceive as dangerous, and what actually constitutes real danger from virulent strains of diseases, are often two different things. He also discusses a new vaccine he’s working on to combat tuberculosis.
Classicist and Provost of Georgetown University, USA, JAMES O’DONNELL, maintains that so-called 'barbarian' successors to the Roman Empire actually left us with a very civilized legacy, introducing important innovations to Byzantium (modern day Istanbul) such as the codification of Roman law which has left its imprint to this day.
60 SECOND IDEA TO CHANGE THE WORLD
JAMES O’DONNELL believes there should be a universal tax on noise, aimed at reducing every person's decibel footprint. He says there should be a trade in percussion credits, meaning that giant construction firms and television game shows would effectively be required to subsidise string quartets, mathematicians, and philosophers. Except, of course, that the more quarrelsome philosophers would be penalized, and would wind up having to subsidise their more thoughtful colleagues! The revenues from the tax could be used to produce a cellular telephone that sends and receives a crystal clear signal anywhere in the world, but only if the user whispers into the phone.
IN NEXT WEEK'S PROGRAMME
Indian professor DEEPAK LAL on the role of Catholic Popes in ushering in Capitalism.
Scottish writer and stand up comic AL KENNEDY on the uses and abuses of language.
And German behavioural biologist BERT HOLLDOBLER on the secret world of ants.
Broadcasts
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Sun 17 May 200909:06
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Sun 17 May 200920:06
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Mon 18 May 200901:06
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