TED Talk “How We Can Help Hungry Kids, One Text at a Time”: Speech Summary, Text, & Analysis

Come and find out what Su Kahumbu has to say about solving global food insecurity, one text message at a time. In her 3-minute TED talk, she will explore how text messaging can help us reduce childhood stunting, the consequences it can have, and how it can create a healthier and more stable future.

TED Talk “How We Can Help Hungry Kids, One Text at a Time” Speech Summary

We analyzed Kahumbu’s TED talk using the free, AI-powered communication coach, Yoodli. Try it out at http://www.yoodli.ai and view the speech here.

• Thelma and Louise are an example of the speaker’s badass friends.
• Cows have been getting a lot of negative attention due to methane emissions and climate change, but the speaker is passionate about trying to redeem their reputation by showing how important they are for food security.
• Childhood stunting is a problem in Africa, especially due to lack of essential amino acids, which come primarily from animal-derived sources.
• Zoonotic diseases are a threat and can be transmitted between animals and humans.
• Smallholder farmers are essential to food security, but they are limited in terms of knowledge and resources.
• Innovative solutions, such as SMS and cutting-edge genomics can help empower smallholder farmers and address food security issues.
• By harnessing the power of smallholder farmers, food security and stunting can be addressed in Africa.

TED Talk “How We Can Help Hungry Kids, One Text at a Time” Speech Text

Using AI, the Yoodli speech coach platform provides this TED talk, “How We Can Help Hungry Kids, One Text at a Time”:

"I want to introduce you to my badass friends. Meet Thelma and Louise. (Laughter) I’m passionate about cows. And although they’ve been getting a lot of crap lately due to methane emissions and climate change, I hope that I can redeem their reputation in part by showing you how incredibly important they are in solving one of the world’s biggest problems: food security. But more importantly, for Africa — it’s resultant childhood stunting.

Nutritional stunting manifests itself in a reduction of growth rate in human development. And according to UNICEF, stunting doesn’t come easy. It doesn’t come quickly. It happens over a long period of time during which a child endures painful and debilitating cycles of illness, depressed appetite, insufficient nutrition and inadequate care. And most kids simply can’t endure such rigors. But those that do survive, they carry forward long-term cognitive problems as well as losses of stature. The numbers of stunted children under the age of five, in most regions of the world, has been declining. And I really hate to say this, but the only place where they haven’t been declining is here, in Africa. Here, 59 million children, three in 10 in that age group, struggle to meet their genetic potential — their full genetic potential. Protein is one of our most important dietary requirements, and evidence shows that lack of essential amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, in young children’s diets, can result in stunting. Essential amino acids are called essential because we can’t synthesize them in our bodies. We have to get them from our foods and the best sources are animal-derived: milk, meat and eggs. Most protein consumed on the African continent is crop-based. And although we have millions of smallholder farmers rearing animals, livestock production is not as easy as we think.

The big livestock gaps between rich countries and poor countries are due to poor animal health. Endemic livestock diseases, some of them transmissible to humans, threaten not only livestock producers in those poor countries, but all human health across all countries. This is a global pathogens network. It shows the pathogens found across the world according to the Enhanced Infectious Diseases database. And it shows those pathogens that share hosts. In a nutshell, we share pathogens, and thus diseases, with the species we live closest to: our livestock. And we call these zoonotic diseases. Recent reports show that the deadly dozen zoonotic diseases kill 2.2 million people and sicken 2.4 billion people annually. And Jimmy says, “The greatest burden of zoonoses falls on one billion poor livestock keepers.” We totally underestimate the importance of our smallholder farmers.

We’re beginning to recognize how important they are and how they influence our medical health, our biosafety and more recently, our cognitive and our physical health. They stand at the frontline of zoonotic epidemics. They pretty much underpin our existence. And they need to know so much, yet most lack knowledge on livestock disease prevention and treatment.So how do they learn? Apart from shared experiences, trial and error, conventional farming extension services are boots on the ground and radio — expensive and hard to scale in the face of population growth. Sounds pretty gloomy, doesn’t it? B

ut we’re at an interesting point in Africa. We’re changing that narrative using innovative solutions, riding across scalable technologies. Knowledge doesn’t have to be expensive. My company developed an agricultural platform called iCow. We teach farmers best livestock practices using SMS over simple, low-end phones. Farmers receive three SMSs a week on best livestock practices, and those that execute the messages go on to see increases in productivity within as short a time as three months. The first increases in productivity, of course, are improved animal health. We use SMS because it is retentive. Farmers store their messages, they write them down in books, and in effect, we’re drip-feeding agricultural manuals into the fields.

We recognize that we are all part of the global food network: producers and consumers, you and me, and every farmer. We’re focusing now on trying to bring together producers and consumers to take action and take responsibility for not only food security, but for food safety. This beautiful animal is an African-Asian Sahiwal crossed with a Dutch Fleckvieh. She’s milkier than her Sahiwal mom, and she’s sturdier and more resistant to disease than her Fleckvieh father. In Ethiopia and Tanzania, the African Dairy Genetic Gains program is using SMS and cutting-edge genomics and pioneering Africa’s first tropically adapted dairy breeding centers and dairy performance recording centers. Farmers contribute their production data — milking records, breeding records and feeding records — to the ADGG platform. This stage is synthesized through algorithms from some of the top livestock institutions in the world before it lands back in the farmers’ hands in actionable SMSs. Customized data, customized responses all aimed at increasing productivity based on the potential on the ground.

We’re at a very interesting place in agriculture in Africa. By the end of this year, we’ll have almost one billion mobile phone subscriptions. We have the power in our hands to ensure that livestock production systems are not only healthy, productive and profitable, but that farmers are knowledgeable, and more importantly, that our farmers are safe. Working with smallholder farmers is one of the best ways to guarantee food security. Working with smallholder farmers is one of the best ways to guarantee each and every child their full opportunity and ability to reach their full genetic potential. And harnessing the power of millions of smallholder farmers and their badass cows like mine, we should be able to bring a halt to stunting in Africa. Thank you. (Applause) Thank you."

TED Talk “How We Can Help Hungry Kids, One Text at a Time” Speech Analysis

If you were impressed by Kahumbu’s TED talk about how to help hungry kids through texting, you can create an account on Yoodli for free.

There you can upload or record a speech on any topic and get feedback and improvement ideas.

Su Kahumbu’s Word Choice

Kahumbu’s word choice analytics were extremely insightful. She used less no filler words at all, which is quite a feat. It’s normal to have a few fillers and many people struggle with how to stop using filler words. Her TED talk was less than 1% of repetition and weak words, too.

In terms of areas of improvement, Yoodli highlighted an instance of non-inclusive language. The AI speech coach suggests removing “profanity” (in this case, the word “crap”) which would be an easy fix.

Su Kahumbu’s Delivery

The delivery analytics of Kahumbu’s speech were also great. She had a perfect speaking pace at 132 words per minute, which is relaxed and conversational. She also used a few natural pauses so the audience had time to comprehend important statements. Kahumbu’s body language — namely her facial expressions and hand gestures — stood out as a success, too.

The only thing Yoodli highlighted was Kahumbu’s eye contact and centering. However, we know that she was speaking live and that the video analyzed is just a record. This explains why she scored low in those two areas (through no fault of her own).

The Bottom Line

You don’t need to be a TED speaker to take advantage of Yoodli’s free speaking analytics. Check out your own speech analytics — you might be surprised at what you find.