The 2018 Project for Awesome is here.

You can go to project for awesome dot com slash live right now to join the 48 hour Livestream extravaganza or donate at project for awesome dot com slash donate.

Okay, so get this.

Yesterday, about 353,000 babies were born.

That's amazing.

It's like the population of Honolulu, Hawaii.

Quick pause to note the cute nous of a Honolulu is worth of babies, although, of course, the city populated entirely by babies would be a disaster due to babies being, you know, tremendously incompetent.

Here's the thing that gets me about newborn babies.

They have no skills like Forget about walking.

They haven't even discovered their own hands.

And yet many of the 353,000 babies born yesterday are like eight or nine years away from understanding that their home planet is part of the solar system that is rotating around a star called The Sun like humans have been around for 250,000 ish years, and it took 249,500 of those years for us to figure out that the Earth was definitely not the center of the universe.

We spent 99.8% of human history not knowing something that most babies born yesterday will be ableto understand.

Like six months after they learned how to tie their own shoes, it seems to me like the central hope of human history.

We are so good at accumulating, sharing and passing on knowledge that the baby's born yesterday may within a few decades know how to solve problems that tow us, feel totally unfixable.

Those babies born yesterday were born into the healthiest and best educated moment in human history.

There more than twice as likely to survive to adulthood than Children born in 1990 far more likely to go to school.

They're less likely to experience extreme poverty or malnutrition, and that has not happened by accident or because progresses natural.

It has happened because we, as a species, have decided to prioritize Children.

But I would argue we haven't prioritized them nearly enough.

266,000 Children are expected to die of malaria this year, 728 of them were born yesterday.

An additional 14,000 Children born yesterday will die before the age of five, and most of them will die from easily treatable or preventable illnesses.

Diarrhea, pneumonia, starvation.

I know that the challenges of delivering healthcare in poor communities are exceptionally complex.

It's not just a matter of having enough food or medicine.

There are challenges when it comes to sanitation and staffing and transportation and storage.

I don't want to pretend that the problems are simple, but I think the solution is simple.

The more we as a species make the health of our most vulnerable Children of priority, the more likely they are to lead healthy lives.

Our community has worked with partners in health and save the Children for over 10 years now.

And we have seen and supported save the Children's work in refugee camps and also providing healthcare and educational opportunities and nutritional support for Children in poverty or in crisis.

And partners in health does extraordinary work providing health care to the poor.

From Sierra Leone to Haiti, they're both highly rated charities known for their efficiency and effectiveness, and for the first half of the project for awesome until noon on Saturday, all your donations at project for awesome dot com slash donate will go to support them.

And because of overwhelming support from matching donations, every dollar you donate will count as $4.

So let's do what we can to give all the babies born yesterday a healthy life.

Plus, you can get amazing perks from the P for a commemorative coin to this amazing poster to secret episodes of Dear Hank and John and the Anthropocene reviewed.

Also, Sarah and I are making a project for awesome only podcast called The Statue Got Me High, and Sarah and Catherine are hosting a version of Dear Hank and John called Dear Sarah and Catherine.

Or you can get some pressed pennies.

We take horrible, worthless pennies and turn them into magnificent souvenirs, including one that honors the late great fireball Wilson Roberts.

All that and so much more at Project for awesome dot com slash Donate and then, during the second half of the Project for Awesome will be raising money for charities chosen by you.

You can submit your project for awesome videos right now at Project for awesome dot com, and also you can vote for Project for Awesome videos and help us decide where the money goes and Finally, the 48 hour project for Awesome Live Stream starts now at project for awesome dot com slash live.

It is gonna be so much fun, Hank, I can't believe this is the 12th project for Awesome.

I grow old, I grow old, I shall where the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

I will see you in the live stream.