Grand Challenges in Global Health

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Just watching Charlie Rose talking about Grand Challenges in Global Health with the director of The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. What's fascinating is that the idea for the 14 global challenges, and the $250 million in additional funding came out of a speech given in 1900 by David Hilbert laying out the 23 mathematical problems that were "difficult without being totally inaccessible". In that speech in 1900, Hilbert remarks that, "The mathematicians of past centuries were accustomed to devote themselves to the solution of difficult particular problems with passionate zeal. They knew the value of difficult problems." Let's hope that we do as well.

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