Getting it right on Bruno Sánchez-Andrade Nuño

Fridges, Ozone and Diplomats

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

How did something as scientifically rooted and complex as Ozone depletion chemistry, whose effect was hard to measure, poorly understood at the moment, and with strong commercial dependencies, turn out to be named by the UN as the “single most successful international agreement?” Was it the science, the way we presented it? The public understanding of the complexity? How is it different from the climate change case? Both cases, climate change and ozone depletion, are at the core a “tragedy of the commons” cases were the individual upside benefit is local, and the common downside damage is global. We emit CO2, or used CFC aerosols, because we want to use the car, or use fridges. There is a local benefit. Our actions, however, impact the global common space, everywhere, regardless if they participated in the emissions or not. Furthermore, the damage happens after some time, slowly, so it is much harder to be conscious of the global downsides than it is to be aware of the immediate local benefits.

Saving babies with hot wax

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Not all success stories of impact science in this book involve multi-national global agreements over decades, like the cases in previous pages on climate change or the ozone layer. The following successful example is more on the power an individual can have. Thus, in a more personal sense, very inspiring. This is the story of Jane Chen and her company “Embrace.”

In 2007, Jane was attending a new course at her MBA in Stanford titled “Entrepreneurial Design for Extreme Affordability.” The course aims to design solutions to problems that otherwise have very expensive solutions. Jane and her group chose to tackle neonatal mortality. The most common cause of death of infants is preterm birth (defined as babies born prematurely before their 37 weeks after conception). There are around 15 million preterm births globally every year. In the developed world, the survival rate is 90%, while in the developing world it is the staggering opposite, 10% survival rate. It is estimated that up to 75% of these babies could survive if supplied constant warmth, breastfeeding, and protection from infections. In fact, in developed countries, the most common treatment is to put the preterm baby in an incubator with a temperature regulator to keep the baby at constant warmth. These are profoundly sad numbers that reflect a very harsh reality that is essentially exclusive to underdeveloped conditions. In fact, one of the signs of development is how quickly neonatal and child mortality improves as countries evolve and can afford better health facilities, as people—especially women—receive better education and as governments can provide better public services[i]. In essence, what Jane set up to do is to break the dependency of infant survivability and poverty. To try to find a very cheap and easy way to dramatically reduce the preventable deaths of millions of babies across the world. No small task.

Walking the Path, Blind

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

When looking at this model of impact science, going from the curious profile pushing knowledge generation, to the impact profile pulling from the solution mindset, I look for failure cases and I look for success cases. I think we can learn from both. And I also look for cases in the middle, either because it shows signs of both, or because it’s still evolving. A prime case of that is Mark Pollock’s case, and the Druid Collective.

Teaching How to change the World

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Virtually all scientists come from academic institutions, such as universities. However, most universities only train research scientists, with little space for non-research career paths, this is especially the case for “pure sciences” like physics, biology, chemistry, or math. Usually there are a few sessions about other careers, programs to transfer into, other degrees such as journalism or teaching, but usually this is the exception rather than a possible option. Most scientists we can identify today as impact scientists, are more the result of a path that started in universities, perhaps includes some graduate or postgraduate experience, but then felt their path was not leading in the right direction of impact, so they had to steer off into the unknown. It often includes a phase of uncertainty or reconversion, and definitely was not something recommended when studying. Thankfully, this is changing. This change was probably helped both by the “Data Science” revolution, but also the millennial generation, known for being particularly minded about social impact[i], getting to university age. This section explores some of these efforts from the educational space to create the profile of a scientist much closer to impact, not only focused on research or academia.