gapminderdev.org

What It Is

Gapminder (gapminderdev.org) is an independent non-profit public foundation based in Sweden. Its core mission is to eliminate the widespread systematic cognitive bias people hold about global development issues, and promote a fact-based worldview built on authoritative data. The organization is unaffiliated with any political group, religious institution or commercial interest, and focuses on turning complex global development statistics into accessible tools and teaching materials for the general public.

Core Features & Pricing

The website offers three core free tools:

• Worldview Upgrader lets you test your knowledge of global issues including poverty, climate change, and education, helps you spot your own cognitive biases, and issues a certificate of "worldview upgrade" upon completion;
• Animating Data visualizes long-term macro trends in global development through dynamic interactive data displays;
• Dollar Street uses hundreds of real-life photos of households across different income levels to help break down the stereotypes that media often perpetuates about people from different countries.

All tools and teaching materials are permanently available for free. The project operates entirely on public donations, and charges users no fees at all.

Pros, Cons & Who It’s For

On the plus side: the content is neutral and objective, all resources are completely free, tools are designed to be intuitive and easy to understand, it fits perfectly for educational use, and allows non-commercial redistribution and remixing. On the downside: there is no Chinese interface, which makes it less user-friendly for Chinese-speaking general users, and the small team size means responses to user inquiries are often slow.

This website is an excellent resource for teachers and students of global development issues, for the general public who want to correct their cognitive biases and learn about the real world, and also for media professionals who need objective data to support their work.

Accessibility in China

The site is currently directly accessible on domestic Chinese networks, no VPN or proxy is required, and all public features work normally.