Keith Oberg, executive director of Bikes for the World, discusses the disproportionate significance of access to a bicycle in the developing world and explains how his organization has helped give old bikes from America a new life, and purpose, abroad.

Keith Oberg combined his love of cycling with a career commitment to international economic development to found Bikes for the World, currently the nation’s largest charitable “re-purposer” of bicycles, where he now serves as Executive Director. Keith earlier spent 15 years as a program officer for the Inter-American Foundation, an independent US government agency supporting non-profit community and self-help efforts in Latin America and the Caribbean. A long-time recreational and commuter cyclist, Keith has been active on multiple boards of directors promoting cycling as environmentally and economically sustainable transportation locally and around the globe, including stints as Board Secretary (and co-founder) of Phoenix Bikes, a youth earn-a-bike program and community bike shop in Arlington VA, and chairman (1992-97) of the NY-based Institute for Transportation and Development Policy.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx