Speakers Bart Weetjens: Product developer

Bart Weetjens works with locals in Morogoro, Tanzania to run a world-class facility that trains rats to do something astonishing: sniff out land mines. (The African giant pouched rat, the species used in the project, is wide­spread in the region.) The rats that pass the train­ing -- and the same rigorous testing applied to land mine-sniffing canines -- become what Weetjens calls "HeroRATS."

Weet­jens is now applying a similar approach to other fields, training rats to diagnose tuber­cu­lo­sis in hospitals.

Email to a friend »