Speaker 1: Pushkin, I'm may Have Higgins, and this is Solvable Interviews
Speaker 1: with the world's most innovative thinkers working to solve the
Speaker 1: world's biggest problems. My name is Steve Davis and the
Speaker 1: President and CEO of PATH, and my solvable is that
Speaker 1: we can in the next couple of decades eliminate or
Speaker 1: eradicate five to ten diseases that are causing enormous human
Speaker 1: suffering today. So our solvable today is a scary one
Speaker 1: and an exciting one, eliminating or eradicating a number of
Speaker 1: horrific diseases. If you want to freak yourself out and
Speaker 1: you've got some time, you could check out the roll
Speaker 1: call of the top diseases on the World Health Organizations
Speaker 1: hit List. That list includes ebola and zeka and something
Speaker 1: called disease X, which represents the knowledge that a serious
Speaker 1: international epidemic could be caused by something that we don't
Speaker 1: even know about yet. Disease X sounds terrifying, but of
Speaker 1: course there are plenty diseases that we do know about
Speaker 1: which we can try to fight, and they're the ones
Speaker 1: you're going to hear Steve Davis talk about in this episode.
Speaker 1: These diseases are some of the world's biggest killers, and
Speaker 1: the organization Steve runs Path is working to either eradicate
Speaker 1: or eliminate them. So top of Steve's list is polio.
Speaker 1: Polio is one of the most feared diseases of the
Speaker 1: twentieth century. It can cause permanent paralysis, and it's potentially deadly.
Speaker 1: There's no cure for polio, but there is a vaccine.
Speaker 1: Successful vaccination programs mean the US has been polio free
Speaker 1: since nineteen seventy nine, and globally the number of reported
Speaker 1: cases has fallen by ninety nine percent in thirty years.
Speaker 1: But as you hear Steve say, the hardest part is
Speaker 1: getting to the last few cases to wipe out the
Speaker 1: disease for good. Another disase that is close to eradication
Speaker 1: is malaria. It can feel like a flu, or it
Speaker 1: can be a lot more severe, requiring urgent treatment and
Speaker 1: actually endangering your life. The drive to wipe out malaria
Speaker 1: is one of the best known, and the World Health
Speaker 1: Organization publishes an annual report on the disease. However, last
Speaker 1: year they wrote that after great success in reducing infections,
Speaker 1: there'd be no progress made between twenty fifteen and twenty seventeen.
Speaker 1: In twenty seventeen, there were two hundred and nineteen million
Speaker 1: cases of the illness and it kills more than four
Speaker 1: hundred thousand people. Steve also mentions riverblindness, and that's caused
Speaker 1: by a parasitic worm transmitted to humans when they're bitten
Speaker 1: by infected black flies. Riverblindness is found most often on
Speaker 1: the African continent, but it's also in Yemen, Brazil, and Venezuela.
Speaker 1: More than two hundred million people are at risk of riverblindness,
Speaker 1: the world second leading infectious cause of blindness, so obviously
Speaker 1: it can cause vision loss, but also severe skin diseases
Speaker 1: and neurological damage. There's no vaccine for it, but countries
Speaker 1: have been doing huge work to control and treat new infections.
Speaker 1: Columbia was the first country in the world to be
Speaker 1: verified and declared free of river blindness, then Ecuador in
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen, Mexico in two thousan fifteen, and Guatemala in
Speaker 1: two thousand and sixteen. Steve Davis describes himself as a
Speaker 1: transformative innovator with a passion for global health and saving lives,
Speaker 1: and he goes about doing this daily in his role
Speaker 1: as President and CEO of PATH. Now, I love the
Speaker 1: way this organization started out back in the nineteen seventies.
Speaker 1: There was a bunch of researchers in Seattle looking to
Speaker 1: help Chinese manufacturers make better quality condoms. Isn't not just
Speaker 1: classic Seattle behavior and that was it. From their start
Speaker 1: in family planning, PATH have now become a global charitable
Speaker 1: conglomerate developing devices, medicines and services. Steve says PATH exists
Speaker 1: because access to good health too often depends on where
Speaker 1: we were born, our race, gender, ethnicity, age, and class.
Speaker 1: His organization tries not only to improve individual health but
Speaker 1: also the delivery of healthcare in developing countries. That includes
Speaker 1: helping to build digital systems like mapping and data analytics
Speaker 1: tools that are used to fight ebola in the Democratic
Speaker 1: Republic of Congo. The scope of Path's work is vast
Speaker 1: now unusually as an NGEO, almost all of their work
Speaker 1: involves the private sector. That could be biopharma or digital
Speaker 1: distribution anything. They try to bring private sector assets and
Speaker 1: their ideas to bear on these huge global problems which
Speaker 1: might not otherwise seem commercially attractive. We'll hear more now
Speaker 1: this conversation with Jacob Weisberg. Okay, here we go. There
Speaker 1: are many many diseases that kill hundreds of millions of
Speaker 1: people a here that are actually preventable, that we know
Speaker 1: how to treat it and hopefully how to even prevent it,
Speaker 1: but that the problem is we're not getting enough access
Speaker 1: to the people that need it the most of the
Speaker 1: tools and the solutions. So the opportunity is now we
Speaker 1: are in this extraordinary moment in history, or we're actually
Speaker 1: pursuing to actually get rid of some of the oldest
Speaker 1: killers on the face of the earth. What's brought you
Speaker 1: to this problem? Well, I'm neither technologist by heart or
Speaker 1: a doctor, but I do know and I believe in
Speaker 1: the power of technology and human spirit together can conquer
Speaker 1: a lot of things. And we've seen that already. And
Speaker 1: what's so exciting is I think we're in a space
Speaker 1: square in a time and history where those two things
Speaker 1: have come together to actually vanish some of the world's
Speaker 1: oldest killers. And I'm very inspired by the fact that
Speaker 1: not only do we have political will and commitment at
Speaker 1: a scale around a few of these diseases that we've
Speaker 1: never seen before, we also have the technology, including both
Speaker 1: the biochemical technology of better vaccines, better medicines. But really
Speaker 1: importantly now is we have the digital tools to get
Speaker 1: to know where to go, to map, to do geospatial awareness,
Speaker 1: to all the things that it takes to actually identify
Speaker 1: where the outbreak is or where the problem is and
Speaker 1: how to get to them. And then of course we
Speaker 1: also have a lot of political commitments, so we have
Speaker 1: countries that are more capable to go after these diseases
Speaker 1: and commitments to that. But in all of human history,
Speaker 1: if I've got this right, we've only eradicated one disease, smallpox,
Speaker 1: and that was maybe forty plus years ago. So what
Speaker 1: is it about technology or what leap have we made
Speaker 1: that makes you're solvable eliminating or eradicating five to ten
Speaker 1: diseases in a few decades conceivable? Yeah, Well, it is
Speaker 1: fascinating that in all of human history there's been only
Speaker 1: one human disease that we've eradicated, and that is smallpox.
Speaker 1: And I should be sure to distinguish between eradication, which
Speaker 1: is completely eliminating the disease and really the potential for
Speaker 1: the disease versus elimination, which is seeing how that get
Speaker 1: in a region. We've really gotten rid of the problem,
Speaker 1: and it is actually so the number has gotten so
Speaker 1: low that it is it really will be very difficult
Speaker 1: for it to re enter that region. But what's happened
Speaker 1: is I think a few things. One is, human health
Speaker 1: has just improved vastly over the last number of decades,
Speaker 1: and we've produced children mortality by about forty percent in
Speaker 1: the last twenty years. We've seen a lot of other improvements,
Speaker 1: and that is actually giving us sort of a platform
Speaker 1: to actually go after the really hard stuff, which is
Speaker 1: to eliminate eradicate diseases. Secondly, there's been a large commitment
Speaker 1: in the global community over the last twenty years to
Speaker 1: global health and including what we see and in the
Speaker 1: SDGs as around human health. The SDGs are the Sustainable
Speaker 1: Development Goals, These commitments by countries around the world, including
Speaker 1: a commitment to improved human health in a significant way.
Speaker 1: I think the biggest two things really are that we
Speaker 1: have money in the system, whether it's commitments made by governments,
Speaker 1: commitments made by large foundations to actually target the eradication
Speaker 1: of polio, the eradication of guinea worm, and the elimination
Speaker 1: of malaria in many regions of the world. The elimination
Speaker 1: of rabies, elimination of river blindness. And this is a
Speaker 1: new level of commitment, including a political commitment, a funding
Speaker 1: commitment that is enabled a lot of this to happen.
Speaker 1: And then finally, I would say maybe the biggest game
Speaker 1: changer is the digital revolution that's enabled us to understand
Speaker 1: the data better, to target the communities, better to isolate cases,
Speaker 1: easier to share information better. All of that comes together
Speaker 1: to make a very powerful combination toward elimination or eradication.
Speaker 1: You mentioned a few different human diseases which I'm really
Speaker 1: interested in, But what's the next one do you think
Speaker 1: to be eradicated? Is it polio? Yeah? The likely two
Speaker 1: diseases for eradication the next few years. Actually, we're just
Speaker 1: literally in the final stages is polio, which there's a
Speaker 1: large global commitment too. It's not quite getting to the
Speaker 1: finish line as fast as we thought, but we'll get
Speaker 1: there in the next couple of years. We're down to
Speaker 1: I think about thirty cases a total in the world
Speaker 1: in three countries, and then guinea worm is very likely
Speaker 1: again given very large commitment to that effort. And then
Speaker 1: there's a suite of about fifteen diseases that the WHO,
Speaker 1: the World Health Organization, has put on a list for
Speaker 1: potential for either elimination or eradication. Some of those are
Speaker 1: quite hard to do. Probably the one we're working with
Speaker 1: the most is malaria, which is a huge problem in
Speaker 1: the world still. It kills around four hundred to five
Speaker 1: hundred thousand people a year, and yet we do have
Speaker 1: many many countries that are year by year being declared
Speaker 1: malaria free. And so just this last year, I think
Speaker 1: four countries in the last two years have been declared
Speaker 1: malaria free. And that's the kind of work we now
Speaker 1: have to keep working on. There's a kind of paradox
Speaker 1: around the effort to finally eliminate or eradicated disease, isn't
Speaker 1: there in that when you're down to just a few cases,
Speaker 1: you spend a lot of money on those few cases,
Speaker 1: and you could spend that saved money to save a
Speaker 1: lot more lives targeting a much more prevalent disease. How
Speaker 1: do you deal with that in the community and philanthropic
Speaker 1: world and the scientific world that you live in. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: disease elimination and particularly disease eradication is not a no brainer.
Speaker 1: I mean it's obviously not a no brainer in terms
Speaker 1: of how hard it is and to pull all this
Speaker 1: together and also get the social and cultural peace right
Speaker 1: along with the technology and data peace. But it's also
Speaker 1: not a no brainer from a sort of political and
Speaker 1: financial strategy, because in fact, the last cases become astronomically
Speaker 1: expensive because either the hardest to get, and so a
Speaker 1: lot of effort needs to go into finding them and
Speaker 1: isolating them and getting rid of them. And some people
Speaker 1: could argue the money we're spending to eliminate or excuse me,
Speaker 1: eradicate polio, we could have taken that and done something
Speaker 1: else with a different disease or a different set of problems.
Speaker 1: But there's three reasons why I think make the compelling
Speaker 1: case why we need to pursue this. One is still
Speaker 1: you know, the potential to end the suffering and death
Speaker 1: of people in the world who are vulnerable at diseases
Speaker 1: that you and I aren't because we've made the commitment
Speaker 1: here to do that is the moral reason we have
Speaker 1: to We know how to do it. Let's go finish
Speaker 1: the job, and let's make sure people are valued equally.
Speaker 1: There's a second reason, which is the potential for ongoing
Speaker 1: cost saving. So the estimation is in the tens to
Speaker 1: twenty billion numbers around what it will save the world
Speaker 1: once we eliminate polio from having to treat it and
Speaker 1: manage it over the time. And then the final I
Speaker 1: think is a strong belief that we need to demonstrate
Speaker 1: to the world that we can actually get this job done,
Speaker 1: because then when we go back to the global community,
Speaker 1: whether it's taxpayers or legislators or funders, there is a
Speaker 1: commitment that we can actually set a target, get it done,
Speaker 1: and go after the next one. Yeah. I mean nobody
Speaker 1: wants to march behind the banner that says let's almost
Speaker 1: eliminate polio, right, I mean you need a level of
Speaker 1: inspiration around an ambitious goal that says people have been
Speaker 1: suffering for centuries from this, let's get rid of it forever. Yeah.
Speaker 1: That's why I think it's exciting solvable because it's eminently doable,
Speaker 1: although wildly difficult. But it's also there's a little bit
Speaker 1: like the moment is now that we haven't ever had
Speaker 1: this experience before. I mean, yes, there was one and
Speaker 1: huge success called smallpox. But the idea that we can
Speaker 1: sit at tables which I'm actually sitting at and talking
Speaker 1: about which disease and how in what countries can we
Speaker 1: eliminate it or could we take a global eradication strategy
Speaker 1: is pretty remarkable in the scheme of things. So you
Speaker 1: talked about data as the thing that really enables the
Speaker 1: breakthrough here, But for data, you need good reporting. In
Speaker 1: these countries where many of these diseases they are most prevalent,
Speaker 1: don't have developed medical systems, they don't necessarily have good reporting.
Speaker 1: I mean, I love the idea that we can visualize
Speaker 1: these hotspots and pinpoint them, but how do we necessarily
Speaker 1: know how it's happening. Well, again, getting the right data
Speaker 1: and digital capabilities and infrastructure around these problems is not
Speaker 1: trivial problem to solve. And the good news, I think
Speaker 1: is there's quite a bit of energy and again investment
Speaker 1: now know how in countries to do this. And the
Speaker 1: other is that these systems that are being built are
Speaker 1: not only being built around an elimination disease strategy, but
Speaker 1: they're improving hopefully the national health system altogether. And so
Speaker 1: the promises that we'll have improvement both around a disease
Speaker 1: area and for the whole health system. But you know,
Speaker 1: quality is always a challenge. Can we get the right
Speaker 1: tools to the right people, Can we measure and validate
Speaker 1: numbers in a correct way. But you know, we've certainly
Speaker 1: seen through the polio eradication efforts, and my group helped
Speaker 1: set up the emergency operations centers and did the geospatial mapping,
Speaker 1: et cetera for some of the recent abola outbreaks in
Speaker 1: the Democratic Republic of Congo. And while that's a very
Speaker 1: difficult problem in it, there's all sorts of complications. The
Speaker 1: data quality of what we know, where we know it,
Speaker 1: how fast we know it is actually quite remarkable how
Speaker 1: much it's improved. Who sets the priorities of which diseases
Speaker 1: we go after? There are different places in the world,
Speaker 1: they affect different constituencies. You have a quick list that
Speaker 1: it's polio, guinea worm. You seem to know what the
Speaker 1: order is. Yeah, Well, the official list is the WHO,
Speaker 1: the World Health Organization and all of the member states
Speaker 1: of the United Nations onto that. So that that and
Speaker 1: that's where my list is. Here's the numbers. But then
Speaker 1: there's you know, things that influence those selections. Certainly one
Speaker 1: of them is just the state of the science. Do
Speaker 1: we have a good vaccine do we have the right
Speaker 1: diagnostic tools. All those things will matter in terms of feasibility.
Speaker 1: And then the other is the again the funding and
Speaker 1: political commitment, and that can be at a regional level.
Speaker 1: So India recently stepped up and has committed to we
Speaker 1: are going to eliminate malaria. Zambia has recently put a
Speaker 1: declaration from their president that they're going to eliminate malaria
Speaker 1: in their region and so. And that then comes with
Speaker 1: both domestic funding and also global funding to support those efforts,
Speaker 1: and that that actually obviously influences where on those lists
Speaker 1: we end up putting our energy and time. The big
Speaker 1: pharmaceutical companies work in their profit driven enterprises, and we've
Speaker 1: had this problem with incentives that the poor people who
Speaker 1: suffer most from disease are not buyers of expensive pharmaceuticals.
Speaker 1: Are we getting better at dealing with the pharmaceutical companies
Speaker 1: and getting them to do the kind of research we
Speaker 1: need to create drugs. There's no question we're doing better.
Speaker 1: And I sit with the CEOs of many of those
Speaker 1: companies and see the progress we've made over the last
Speaker 1: fifteen years due to a lot of different efforts and
Speaker 1: leadership that we are making vast improvements, both in terms
Speaker 1: of commitments to research and development, to commitments to access,
Speaker 1: to commitments to participation in these global undertakings. That said,
Speaker 1: you know better is a relative term. We still have
Speaker 1: some work to do, and it's it's still not a
Speaker 1: slam dunk. There are several things that you're absolutely correct.
Speaker 1: The vast majority of these diseases are diseases, which are
Speaker 1: diseases are the poor, and that the reason rich people
Speaker 1: aren't getting most of diseases. I mean, for instance, HIV
Speaker 1: is not on either of those lists, but HIV is
Speaker 1: a disease that the rich and the poor world both have,
Speaker 1: and therefore there's incentive for investments in those kinds of diseases.
Speaker 1: Where there's not as much incentives, we've created mechanisms to
Speaker 1: enable pharmaceutical companies and biotech and other companies to engage.
Speaker 1: So we've either there's like the END Fund, the end
Speaker 1: E and D Fund, which has been set up to
Speaker 1: provide more incentives to go after some of diseases they're
Speaker 1: My organization works on a number of vaccines that are
Speaker 1: not there's no really market force for them, but if
Speaker 1: we can get some philanthropic money to de risk that innovation,
Speaker 1: then that companies are willing to do it and do
Speaker 1: it quite well. So we're working on a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of different ways to ensure that there's a market if
Speaker 1: somebody does invest, to find ways to subsidize or de
Speaker 1: risk some of this for some companies, and literally just
Speaker 1: to get the companies at the table able to commit
Speaker 1: to it as part of their larger scientific commitment. It
Speaker 1: must just drive you crazy to see people dying of
Speaker 1: disease in the developing world, and then people in the
Speaker 1: developed world have these superstitions against vaccination, which very much
Speaker 1: controversy right now. But why is that happening? And if
Speaker 1: they knew what you knew, would people not be resistant
Speaker 1: to vaccinating their children. Absolutely, to disconnect between being rural
Speaker 1: Ethiopian a couple of days and where you know a
Speaker 1: mother will be desperate to get her child to a
Speaker 1: vaccine campaign and to get that vaccination, and then I
Speaker 1: will fly home to my home state in Washington State,
Speaker 1: where we have measles outbreaks and all sorts of things
Speaker 1: from the anti vACC movement, And there is a concern
Speaker 1: and a great concern for those of us working in
Speaker 1: the field that the larger what's called vaccine hesitancy, that
Speaker 1: you know, kind of concern whether it's some of it's
Speaker 1: coming out of a lot of disinformation that's been propagated
Speaker 1: by social media and other plays, but some of it
Speaker 1: is coming from just more concern about in some ways
Speaker 1: a victim of success that the more we've been able
Speaker 1: to innovate, we are vaccinating against more and more diseases.
Speaker 1: So suddenly parents are like, wait a minute, how many
Speaker 1: shots of is my kid going to get? And then
Speaker 1: some of it is is simply you know, we have
Speaker 1: had some challenges in parts of the world where the
Speaker 1: vaccine didn't go well. There was corruption in China and
Speaker 1: the Philippines recently, and that doesn't help. So we're in
Speaker 1: this larger work of trying to get more people in
Speaker 1: a place. I mean, vaccines are effective, they're cost effective,
Speaker 1: they're preventable, they're great global health tool. But we are
Speaker 1: fighting another battle now, which is once we get it's
Speaker 1: hard enough to get the scientific tool and get access
Speaker 1: figured out and great demand for these and get them
Speaker 1: remain cold old until they get out to a village
Speaker 1: and get the village leaders to the commitment for social
Speaker 1: change there and then to have this larger noise about
Speaker 1: vaccines is a new problem we're actually having to face.
Speaker 1: I like that you said that the solvable is to
Speaker 1: eradicate or eliminate the range of five to ten diseases
Speaker 1: over a few decades. I noted that when Mark Zuckerberg
Speaker 1: set up his foundation, he said the goal was to
Speaker 1: eliminate all disease, and it just seemed to me so
Speaker 1: unrealistic given what we were just talking about, that there's
Speaker 1: been one human disease eradicated. It's not a miscalculation or
Speaker 1: misunderstanding on his part. Yeah, I mean, of all thes R,
Speaker 1: I don't know what Mark was talking about it. I mean,
Speaker 1: it looks good on a headline, but maybe if a
Speaker 1: future I hope the planet lasts that long. But in
Speaker 1: there's some future where maybe we understand the body so differently,
Speaker 1: or we understand sort of fundamental organic chemistry so differently
Speaker 1: that this all changes. But first of all, we have
Speaker 1: new diseases popping up. There's thousands of diseases in the world,
Speaker 1: and now most of them most of us don't know about,
Speaker 1: or rarely do we get them. And they morph and
Speaker 1: they keep changing and they keep arising. So we need
Speaker 1: to be hyper focused on the things that we can
Speaker 1: get done and not overstate the case. And I also
Speaker 1: think that we have a hard enough time actually just
Speaker 1: getting people to believe that there is the opportunity to
Speaker 1: generally improve human health, which has been proved vastly, but
Speaker 1: there's still a lot of you know, sort of negative
Speaker 1: headlines about it. It's all a waste of money. And
Speaker 1: then the second is the belief that we can even
Speaker 1: eliminate one disease. There's still some people doubting whether we'll
Speaker 1: get all across the line on polio. So I'm sticking
Speaker 1: with one, one or two at a time. What's going
Speaker 1: to happen when polio is finally eradicated? Is there going
Speaker 1: to be a ceremony? Is there going to be an award?
Speaker 1: Is there going to be a day of global celebration?
Speaker 1: I mean there should be, right, I suspect there's you know,
Speaker 1: somebody's thinking about that already. It's like they think about
Speaker 1: the queen's funeral and they've got a plan, but they
Speaker 1: can't talk about it. Look, first of all, it's a
Speaker 1: long process. So just to be clear that who makes
Speaker 1: these declarations and there's a long protocol on what it
Speaker 1: takes to declare something eliminated and then eradicated, and there's
Speaker 1: a waiting period, so it takes a number three years
Speaker 1: after the last case. So if that occurs, it's they
Speaker 1: will know at a long time and ahead and of advance.
Speaker 1: But you know, there are two things there should be
Speaker 1: if we are successful we the global community, there should
Speaker 1: be a cause for human celebration. It's a commitment to
Speaker 1: science and human suffering ending and something to celebrate. But
Speaker 1: what's actually most interesting about that is to figure out
Speaker 1: sort of how to take that energy and those assets
Speaker 1: and that political movement and that science and what do
Speaker 1: we do next with that? And so we're already in
Speaker 1: conversations about the so called polio legacy. What happens with
Speaker 1: all that capacity that it just doesn't go away and
Speaker 1: we can go tackle the next thing and the next thing,
Speaker 1: and how that's managed than the transition is going to
Speaker 1: be important. See what are some of the things our
Speaker 1: listeners can do? And I'm talking about listeners who aren't
Speaker 1: Bill Gates and who aren't epidemiologists, but who just care
Speaker 1: about this problem, want to contribute to the solvable you've
Speaker 1: been talking about. Well, I think there's three things that
Speaker 1: listeners can do in this but one is find out more.
Speaker 1: I think this is one of those areas that for
Speaker 1: some reason, I think it's got lost in the storyline.
Speaker 1: I sometimes talk about the focus on the trend lines,
Speaker 1: not always the headlines, and even though they're less interesting sometimes,
Speaker 1: but this trend line is good that we are making
Speaker 1: progress on a lot of human diseases and we can
Speaker 1: eliminate and eradicate them, So, you know, learn more about
Speaker 1: that incredibly interesting trend line that's happening in their lifetime.
Speaker 1: Second of all, there's all sorts of ways you can participate,
Speaker 1: everything from how Rotary members end up being very active
Speaker 1: in both the polio and the malaria campaign. There's ngeos
Speaker 1: and organizations around the world doing work in this area,
Speaker 1: and they can identify those and get online and attract
Speaker 1: them and support them. And I guess the third, which
Speaker 1: I actually in some ways is the biggest, is just
Speaker 1: believe we can get this done. You know, we live
Speaker 1: in a time of a lot of concern about the
Speaker 1: future of the species and the planet, and there's legitimate issues,
Speaker 1: but there again, there's a lot of evidence that we
Speaker 1: can do a lot of pretty miraculous things when we
Speaker 1: get our heads together and our acts together, and those
Speaker 1: things can lead to the next great thing. And I
Speaker 1: think turning kind of outrage at the world we live
Speaker 1: in too, optimism is the challenge ahead of us, and
Speaker 1: I would love to see more optimists. And this is
Speaker 1: a great proofpoint that there should be some optimism. Steve,
Speaker 1: thanks for joining us. Unsolvable. Thank you. Combining political will,
Speaker 1: new technology, medical know how I'm private business is a
Speaker 1: juggling act that not many people could handle. So it
Speaker 1: was incredible to hear about Steve's work. So many feelings right,
Speaker 1: Like it's scary to know that new diseases are popping
Speaker 1: up all the time, but it's also bolstering to hear
Speaker 1: that when we take the time to look, the trajectory
Speaker 1: is headed in the right way. More and more humans
Speaker 1: are beating diseases and it's a good track to be on.
Speaker 1: And how about that solvable that Steve offers us at
Speaker 1: the end of his interview, about believing that this can
Speaker 1: be done and turning our outrage into optimism. That's a
Speaker 1: sentiment that could sound trite, but it's actually a really
Speaker 1: courageous way to face all of the precarity that we're
Speaker 1: facing as a species and as a planet, and it
Speaker 1: was so fun to hear him dunking on Mark Zuckerberg.
Speaker 1: The Best Solvable is a collaboration between Pushkin Industries and
Speaker 1: the Rockefella Foundation, with production by Laura Hyde, Hester Kant,
Speaker 1: Laura Sheeter, and Ruth Barnes from Chalk and Blade. Pushkin's
Speaker 1: executive producer is Neia LaBelle, Research by Sheer, Vincent, engineering
Speaker 1: by Jason Gambrell and the great folks at GSI Studios.
Speaker 1: Original music composed by Pascal Wise and special thanks to
Speaker 1: Maggie Taylor, Heather Fine, Julia Barton, Carli Mgliori, Jacob Weisberg,
Speaker 1: and Malcolm Gladwell. You can learn more about solving today's
Speaker 1: biggest problems at Rockefeller Foundation dot org, slash solvable. I'm
Speaker 1: Mave Higgins. Now go solve it.