AARP FOUNDATION: New center to champion nursing in America

02/08/2008 - 05:00:27pm

Each year nursing schools turn away thousands of qualified applicants because they don’t have enough skilled faculty members to teach them. By 2020, the American health care system is expected to face a shortage of more than one million nurses.

Trying to expand the pipeline, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has awarded a $10 million grant to the AARP Foundation to pursue an aggressive agenda to elevate the visibility of the nursing shortage.

JIM GIBBS: Teaching a love of reading

02/08/2008 - 12:04:36pm

Jim Gibbs and Eugene Jennings. Photo by Pauline Lubens/Mercury News.

It's not every third grader who gets a Stanford professor of cultural anthropology as his personal tutor.

Eugene Jennings, eight years old, is lucky to have James Lowell Gibbs, Jr., helping him improve his reading. "This is their second year together, and they have developed a comfortable rapport that resembles a friendship more than it does a teacher-student relationship," writes San Jose Mercury News reporter Jeff Thomas in an article headlined, "Learning a Love of Reading.".

Push for "encore accounts" gaining steam

01/31/2008 - 04:28:46pm

“Encore accounts” to finance individuals’ transition to their encore careers are getting increased attention from presidential candidates on the campaign trail.

To be fair, none of them are actually mentioning “encore careers” in their proposals, at least not yet. But the attention could spur support for incentives directly aimed at helping people prepare for work that matters in the second half of their lives.

JOHN B. SHOVEN: New way to think about old age

01/30/2008 - 12:45:30pm

Stanford professor John B. Shoven has a provocative proposal for figuring "inflation-adjusted age."

In the latest issue of Foreign Policy, Shoven argues that, just as a 1960 dollar is not the same as a 2008 dollar, neither is a 1960 lifespan the same as a 2008 lifespan. Since 1960, Shoven points out, the average lifespan of a Chinese person has increased by 36 years, a South Korean by 24 years, a Mexican by 17 years and a French person by nearly a decade.

"Just as with the dollar, it is time to introduce inflation-adjusted ages as a superior method for measuring age," Shoven writes. Instead, he suggests mortality risk -- the chance a person has of dying within the next year -- as a more accurate view of health, productivity and life expectancy.

In Memoriam: Cowboy Fred Ortiz

01/29/2008 - 10:55:49am

Those of us who met Cowboy Fred Ortiz at the 2006 Purpose Prize Summit will never forget the man with the cowboy hat, beard, ponytail, and earring, always dressed in a color coordinated suit, shirt, and tie -- complete with a pocket handkerchief.

We were saddened to hear that Cowboy Fred this week lost his battle with cancer. He was 65.

NEW YORK TIMES' NICHOLAS KRISTOF: The new social entrepreneurs

01/28/2008 - 04:33:29pm

Robert Chambers. Photo by Alex Harris.

There’s one word that cries out for a red pencil in Nicholas Kristof’s otherwise excellent Sunday column about social entrepreneurs, ”The Age of Ambition.”

“Young.”

PURPOSE PRIZE INNOVATION: Farm to Family inspires imitators

01/25/2008 - 01:44:10pm

Gary Maxworthy won a 2007 Purpose Prize for his success in getting fresh fruits and vegetables to low-income families that often received only processed foods from neighborhood food banks.

Now, Solid Ground, a nonprofit in Washington State is starting fresh produce distribution statewide, using the model Maxworthy developed for Farm to Family.

"They had read about my Purpose Prize story," Maxworthy says. "I volunteered to help them."

BILL GATES: "What do I still want to accomplish?"

01/25/2008 - 01:39:13pm

Bill Gates. AP Photo by Peter Dejong

Bill Gates got headlines this week with his call for corporations to adopt a new form of "creative capitalism" in a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. But he also issued a more personal call to action, made more credible by his own career shift to devote his full time to the Gates’ foundation work on global health, poverty and education.

"The passing of time requires each of us to take stock,” Gates said. “What have I accomplished so far? And what do I still want to accomplish?"

HUGH PRICE: Mobilize Retired Physicians to Fight Childhood Obesity

01/23/2008 - 05:10:07pm

Image from HealthyBodyWeight.com

Hugh Price is calling for retired physicians and healthcare workers to join a "crusade" to combat childhood obesity.

Price, the former head of the National Urban League and now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, makes a compelling case that the need is both massive and urgent, with more than 25 million overweight and obese children headed for a life of serious health problems -- at a huge cost to society.

BILL'S ENCORE: A Call to Action

01/23/2008 - 11:31:58am

The countdown to Bill Gates' encore career has begun, with the Microsoft chairman set to leave his day-to-day responsibilities at the software company this summer to devote full time to his foundation's work on global health, poverty and education.

But the world's richest man is already laying down markers for what kind of encore it will be. He is set to give a speech Thursday at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland entitled, "A New Approach to Capitalism in the 21st Century."