Explore Challenges
- 7 March 2012: Global health in the 21st Century
- Adapting to an urban future
- Educating for tomorrow
- Digital technology in Africa
- Persistent poverty in Britain
- Can the UK ever be sustainable?
- Plastic pollution in the oceans
- Natural disasters: how can we improve?
- Not In My Back Yard
- Digital Divide in the UK?
- Importing goods, exporting drought?
- Britain’s ageing population
- Engineering our climate
- The future shape of Capitalism
- Migration: skills and the job market
- Razing the Rainforest
- London under water
- Concreting the countryside
- Future of low carbon energy.
- Africa in the 21st Century
War, Kofi Annan, AIDS, HIV/AIDS, Thames Estuary, United Nations, Rainforests, becta, malaria, connected Africa, plastic pollution, digital technology, Economic Growth, renewables,, rainforest, OLPC, development, online, design, flood risk
Challenges of the 21st Century
7 March 2012: Global health in the 21st Century
Can societies strike a balance between combating the dangers of viral outbreaks and pandemics, while maintaining the hopes of eradicating established diseases, such as malaria and HIV/AIDS, which continue to claim millions of lives each year?Join our expert international panel to explore this issue and put your questions to them.
Discussion will be chaired by FERGUS WALSH, BBC Medical Correspondent.
DR W IAN LIPKIN
Director of The Centre for Infection and Immunity at Columbia University. He is internationally renowned as a ‘microbe hunter’,who has worked as advisor on films such as Steven Soderbergh's Contagion.
PROFESSOR PETER PIOT
Founding Executive Director of UNAIDS and former Under Secretary-General of the United Nations. He is currently Director of London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
DR MARIE CHARLES
Widely regarded as one of the key innovators in global healthcare. Founder of Global Medic Force, a non-profit global leader that engages healthcare professionals to rapidly transfer their expertise on HIV care and infectious diseases to emerging nations.
Adapting to an urban future
ROBERT NEUWIRTH
DOUG SAUNDERS
PETER BISHOP
SAMIRA AHMED (chair)
Humans are rapidly becoming an urban species.
Global population has passed 7 billion, 3.5 billion people are urbanised and over 1 billion people now live in slums.
How will urban centres keep pace with predicted continuing growth? What are the visions of tomorrow’s cities?
Educating for tomorrow
Living in an increasingly globalised society offers both opportunities and challenges.
How can education best prepare young Britons to fulfil their potential in a rapidly changing world?
Digital technology in Africa
NICHOLAS NEGROPONTE
ERIK HERSMAN
HERMAN CHINERY-HESSE
RORY CELLAN-JONES (chair)
How can digital technologies such as mobiles and laptops offer the countries of Africa realistic economic, educational and development opportunities.
Interview with Ken Banks, Frontline SMS
Interview with Tim Unwin, UNESCO Chair in ICT4D
Persistent poverty in Britain
FRANK FIELD MP
JOHN BIRD MBE
JULIA UNWIN MBE
MARK EASTON (chair)
Britain is the world’s fifth richest country, yet poverty in Britain is rising. With paid work failing to reduce poverty for many, how can Britain best tackle this growing issue?
Interview with Kate Wareing, Oxfam
Can the UK ever be sustainable?
SIR STUART ROSE
Rt Hon HILARY BENN MP
ANDY HOBSBAWM
JO CONFINO (chair)
Our way of life is placing an increasing burden on the planet, but how realistic are visions of a sustainable future? How can business, politics and the creative industries help create a sustainable future?
Interview with Tim Smit, Eden Project
Interview with Professor Tim Jackson
Plastic pollution in the oceans
DAVID DE ROTHSCHILD
DR SIMON BOXALL
PETER DAVIS
DAVID SHUKMAN (chair)
Our throw away society is polluting large areas of the world's oceans with plastics, threatening marine life and food chains. How did it get there? What are the practical solutions? Is it time to re-evaluate waste as a resource?
Natural disasters: how can we improve?
CAMERON SINCLAIR
DAME BARBARA STOCKING
MARTIN BELL (chair)
How can we improve our response to natural disasters and ensure lessons learnt benefit vulnerable communities worldwide in the long-term?
Not In My Back Yard
DAME FIONA REYNOLDS
JIM STEER
ANTONY OLIVER
JULIAN GLOVER (chair)
With pressure on the UK’s ageing energy and transport infrastructures mounting, is it time to put projects of national importance ahead of local concerns? Or does this bypass our democratic right to object?
Interview with Ken Livingstone
Interview with Shaun Spiers, CEO of CPRE
Digital Divide in the UK?
MARTHA LANE FOX
PROFESSOR TANYA BYRON
RORY CELLAN-JONES (chair)
Does the internet's rapid evolution and increasing role in daily life threaten to leave some sections of society behind?
Importing goods, exporting drought?
ANDY WALES
ROBIN FARRINGTON
GEORGE ALAGIAH (chair)
The scale of global water consumption needed to produce what we use and consume has a dramatic impact around the world. From the food we eat to the clothes we wear, discover the hidden cost of Britain's consumption?
Britain’s ageing population
ANGELA EAGLE MP
GEORGE MAGNUS
SAMIRA AHMED (chair)
As the baby boom generation approach retirement, Britain's population is ageing.
Discover the changing nature of retirement; the importance of older people in the workforce; the increasing pressures on public services and how Britain is adapting to an ageing society.
Engineering our climate
PROFESSOR DAVID KEITH
DR PAUL JOHNSTON
TOM CLARKE (chair)
Geo-engineering, the deliberate manipulation of the earth's climate, is not a solution to climate change.
But can it be an effective means to delay its impact? Should we be researching it as 'Plan B'?
What is geo-engineering?
60 second guides: cloud reflectivity, Carbon Capture Storage, suphur screens, artificial trees
The future shape of Capitalism
VINCE CABLE MP
JOHN MICKLETHWAIT
EVAN DAVIS (chair)
Will the recent financial crisis and the downturn in the global economy change the shape of capitalism as we know it today?
Interview with Professor Tim Jackson, Prosperity without growth
Migration: skills and the job market
SIR ANDREW GREEN
PHILIPPE LEGRAIN
KHALID KOSER
JONTY BLOOM (chair)
Too often controversy surrounding UK migration and what impacts migrants have on our economy and society is based on myth, fear and falsehood.
Explore some of the issues and misconceptions around changing European workforce patterns in the 21st Century.
Razing the Rainforest
SENATOR MARINA SILVA
WARREN EVANS
SIMON COUNSELL
SIR GORDON CONWAY (chair)
How can we best conserve the world's rainforests in the face of enormous challenges from palm oil, timber trade, green colonialism and biofuels?
London under water
ALEX NIXON
DAVE WARDLE
ROWAN DOUGLAS
EVAN DAVIS (chair)
What is the threat of flooding to London’s people and infrastructure? How will current defences cope with enhanced flood risk to the capital over the next 30 years?
Concreting the countryside
SIR PETER HALL
MARTIN CROOKSTON
SIMON JENKINS (chair)
How should we accommodate the housing expansion in London and SE England? Should we be building on greenfield or brownfield land?
What are Eco Towns?
Wayne Hemingway - Tour of Staiths Housing Project
Future of low carbon energy.
LORD JOHN BROWNE
MALCOLM WICKS MP
SIR GORDON CONWAY (chair)
With countries across the world working towards a low carbon future, how can global investment be encouraged to forward low carbon technologies?
Interview with Professor Chris Rapley, Director of the Science Museum
Interview with Andy Hobsbawm
Africa in the 21st Century
KOFI ANNAN
SIR BOB GELDOF
SIR GORDON CONWAY (chair)
Kofi Annan, former Secretary General of the United Nations, and humanitarian Sir Bob Geldof discuss the major challenges facing the countries of Africa in the 21st century.
60 second guide: Trade Vs Aid
60 second guide: Climate change impact in Africa