Hans Rosling

Who they were

Hans Rosling, Swedish academic (born 1948)

Early life

Rosling was born in 1948 in Uppsala, Sweden. He studied medicine at Uppsala University and later earned a master's degree in public health.

Path and career

Rosling worked as a physician in Mozambique during the 1980s, where he investigated an epidemic of konzo (a paralytic disease linked to cassava consumption). He returned to Sweden and became a professor of international health at Karolinska Institute.

He became internationally famous for his TED talks, which presented global poverty, health, and development data through colorful, moving visualizations that challenged common stereotypes. His book *Factfulness* (2018, published posthumously) promoted data-driven thinking about world progress.

Why this date

Hans Rosling appears on our February 7 calendar for 2017 as a death entry.