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I am an ideas activist.

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That means I fight
for ideas I believe in

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to have their place in the sun,

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regardless of which side
of the equator they were born.

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As well I should.

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I myself am from that part of the world

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often euphemistically referred to
as either "the Global South"

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or "the developing world."

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But let's be blunt about it:

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when we say those words,
what we really mean is the poor world --

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those corners of the world
with ready-made containers

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for the hand-me-down ideas
of other places and other people.

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But I'm here to depart
a little bit from the script

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and to try and convince you

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that these places are actually
alive and bubbling with ideas.

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My real issue is: Where do I even start?

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So maybe Egypt, Alexandria,

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where we meet Rizwan.

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When he walks outside his souk,

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walks into a pharmacy for heart medicine

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that can prevent the blood
in his arteries from clotting,

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he confronts the fact that,

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despite a growing epidemic

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that currently accounts for 82 percent
of all deaths in Egypt,

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it is the medicines that
can address these conditions

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that counterfeiters,
ever the evil geniuses they are,

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have decided to target.

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Counterfeiters making knockoff medicines.

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Luckily for Rizwan,

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my team and I,

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working in partnership with the largest
pharmaceutical company in Africa,

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have placed unique codes --
think of them like one-time passwords --

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on each pack of the best-selling
heart medicine in Egypt.

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So when Rizwan buys heart medicine,

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he can key in these one-time passwords

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to a toll-free short code

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that we've set up on all
the telecom companies in Egypt

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for free.

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He gets a message --
call it the message of life --

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which reassures him

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that this medicine is not one of the 12
percent of all medicines in Egypt

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that are counterfeits.

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From the gorgeous banks of the Nile,

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we glide into the beautiful
Rift Valley of Kenya.

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In Narok Town, we meet Ole Lenku,
salt-of-the-earth fellow.

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When he walks into an agrodealer's shop,

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all he wants is certified
and proper cabbage seeds

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that, if he were to plant them,

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will yield a harvest rich enough

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that he can pay for
the school fees of his children.

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That's all he wants.

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Unfortunately,

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by the reckoning of most
international organizations,

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40 percent of all the seeds
sold in Eastern and Southern Africa

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are of questionable quality,

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sometimes outrightly fake.

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Luckily for Ole,

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once again, our team has been at work,

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and, working with the leading
agriculture regulator in Kenya,

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we've digitized the entire
certification process

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for seeds in that country,

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every seed -- millet, sorghum, maize --

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such that when Ole Lenku
keys in a code on a packet of millet,

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he's able to retrieve
a digital certificate

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that assures him that the seed
is properly certified.

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From Kenya, we head to Noida in India,

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where the irrepressible Ambika

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is holding on very fast to her dream
of becoming an elite athlete,

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safe in the knowledge that

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because of our ingredients
rating technology,

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she's not going to ingest
something accidentally,

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which will mess up her doping tests

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and kick her out of the sports she loves.

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Finally, we alight in Ghana,

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my own home country,

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where another problem needs addressing --

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the problem of under-vaccination
or poor-quality vaccination.

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You see, when you put some vaccines
into the bloodstream of an infant,

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you are giving them a lifetime insurance

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against dangerous diseases
that can cripple them or kill them.

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Sometimes, this is for a lifetime.

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The problem is that vaccines
are delicate organisms really,

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and they need to be stored
between two degrees and eight degrees.

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And if you don't do that,
they lose their potency,

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and they no longer confer the immunity

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the child deserves.

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Working with computer vision scientists,

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we've converted simple markers
on the vials of vaccines

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into what you might regard
as crude thermometers.

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So then, these patterns change slowly
over time in response to temperature

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until they leave a distinct pattern
on the surface of the vaccine,

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such that a nurse,
with a scan of the phone,

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can detect if the vaccine was stored
properly in the right temperature

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and therefore is still good for use

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before administering this to the child --

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literally securing the next generation.

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These are some of the solutions at work
saving lives, redeeming societies,

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in these parts of the world.

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But I would remind you

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that there are powerful ideas behind them,

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and I'll recap a few.

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One, that social trust
is not the same as interpersonal trust.

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Two, that the division between
consumption and regulation

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in an increasingly interdependent world

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is no longer viable.

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And three, that decentralized autonomy,

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regardless of what our blockchain
enthusiasts in the West --

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whom I respect a lot -- say,

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are not as important as reinforcing
social accountability feedback loops.

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These are some of the ideas.

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Now, every time I go somewhere
and I give this speech

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and I make these comments
and I provide these examples,

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people say, "If these ideas
are so damn brilliant,

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why aren't they everywhere?

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I've never heard of them."

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I want to assure you,

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the reason why you have not
heard of these ideas

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is exactly the point I made
in the beginning.

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And that is that there are
parts of the world

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whose good ideas simply don't scale

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because of the latitude
on which they were born.

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I call that "mental latitude imperialism."

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(Laughter)

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That really is the reason.

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But you may counter and say, "Well,
maybe it's an important problem,

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but it's sort of an obscure problem
in parts of the world.

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Why do you want
to globalize such problems?

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I mean, they are better local."

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What if, in response, I told you

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that actually, underlying each
of these problems that I've described

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is a fundamental issue
of the breakdown of trust

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in markets and institutions,

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and that there's nothing more global,
more universal, closer to you and I

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than the problem of trust.

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For example, a quarter of all the seafood
marketed in the US is falsely labeled.

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So when you buy a tuna
or salmon sandwich in Manhattan,

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you are eating something that could be
banned for being toxic in Japan.

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Literally.

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Most of you have heard of a time
when horsemeat was masquerading as beef

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in burger patties in Europe?

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You have.

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What you don't know is that a good chunk
of these fake meat patties

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were also contaminated with cadmium,
which can damage your kidneys.

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This was Europe.

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Many of you are aware of plane crashes
and you worry about plane crashes,

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because every now and then, one of them
intrudes into your consciousness.

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But I bet you don't know

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that a single investigation uncovered
one million counterfeit incidents

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in the aeronautical
supply chain in the US.

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So this is a global problem, full stop.

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It's a global problem.

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The only reason we are not addressing it
with the urgency it deserves

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is that the best solutions,

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the most advanced solutions,
the most progressive solutions,

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are, unfortunately, in parts of the world
where solutions don't scale.

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And that is why it is not surprising

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that attempts to create this same
verification models for pharmaceuticals

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are now a decade behind
in the USA and Europe,

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while it's already available in Nigeria.

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A decade, and costing
a hundred times more.

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And that is why, when you walk
into a Walgreens in New York,

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you cannot check the source
of your medicine,

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but you can in Maiduguri
in Northern Nigeria.

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That is the reality.

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(Applause)

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That is the reality.

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(Applause)

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So we go back to the issue of ideas.

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Remember, solutions are merely
packaged ideas,

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so it is the ideas
that are most important.

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In a world where we marginalize the
ideas of the Global South,

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we cannot create globally inclusive
problem-solving models.

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Now, you might say, "Well, that's bad,

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but in such a world
where we have so many other problems,

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do we need another cause?"

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I say yes, we need another cause.

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Actually, that cause will surprise you:
the cause of intellectual justice.

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You say, "What? Intellectual justice?
In a world of human rights abuses?"

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And I explain this way:

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all the solutions to the other problems
that affect us and confront us

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need solutions.

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So you need the best ideas
to address them.

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And that is why today I ask you,

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can we all give it one time
for intellectual justice?

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(Applause)