[afro-nets] If you have not visited this site, you should

[Claudio Schuftan <claudio@hcmc.netnam.vn>]

If you have not visited this site, you should
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http://gapminder.org


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About Gapminder

Gapminder is a non-profit venture for development and provision
of free software that visualise human development. This is done
in collaboration with universities, UN organisations, public
agencies and non-governmental organisations. Gapminder is a
Foundation registered at Stockholm county administration board.
It was founded by Ola Rosling, Anna Rosling Rönnlund and Hans
Rosling on 25 February 2005, in Stockholm. Gapminder Foundation
will advance software development that have been done earlier by
the non-profit company Gapminder Ltd. Funding has been and is
mainly by grants from Sida for the Trendalyzer project. Being a
producer of global public goods Gapminder benefit from free and
creative inputs from pilot-testers and other end-users in many
institutions and organisations.


History

It all started in 1998 from an idea to enhance the understanding
of world health. We developed prototype software showing time
series of health statistics as moving graphics and varying life
conditions as 360° photo panoramas from homes, schools and
health facilities. From the prototype emerged the Dollar Street
project with Save the Children Fund in Sweden and the World
Health Chart project with WHO. Within the later project
Gapminder developed the free software Trendalyzer that turns
boring time series of development statistics into attractive
moving graphics. The software import data from excel and showing
moving graphics on the screen, as exported Flash files or as
images in PowerPoint and in other formats. Collaboration with
United Nations Division of Statistic and UNDP, started in 2003
with the aim to visualize the fulfillment of millennium
development goals with a World Development Chart 2003 powered by
a Trendalyzer version. In the last two years Trendelyzer has
been rewritten in Flash to enable the use of moving graphics
directly on WebPages. The main project during the coming three
years is a collaboration with UN Statistic Division with the aim
to visualize UN common database with Trendalyzer on a testsite
and hence to improve the software for wider use