We brought La Cura to TED Global 2013 in Edinburgh, Scotland.

From the TED Blog:

“I started to understand that this industrial process which we call medicine was not really about me. It was a reduced version of me with all the human complexity taken out of it.”

So Iaconesi decided to use his technical know-how, hack these files, and open them up for anyone to see on the website La Cura. He asked anyone in the world to send him a cure, be it medical or otherwise.

“I asked all the people in the world to join me in my disease and help me in any way they could,” he said, “and together rediscover our complexity as human beings.”

and

“The solutions came from all over planet, spanning thousands of years of human history and traditions,” says Iaconesi.

In the end, Iaconesi had a successful surgery to remove the cancer. “I’m fine, really,” he says. Meanwhile, he implemented many of the non-medical cures submitted to him, and credits these with healing him as well. The experience gave him a new appreciation of human complexity, and of the need for open access.

“[My cures] were created by people’s desire to be a part of a society whose well-being depends on the well-being of all of its members,” says Iaconesi. “I will only stress a single point: Who cares about all of the openness if it’s not matched by radical anthropological and cultural change?”

Here are some images from the conference (click links to see original image and credits)

La Cura on TED Blog