Grad2B Salute #2 – The Gates Foundation, Bill and Melinda

Can anyone gain enough personal power to change our world for the better? This is the second in our GRAD2B “Salute Series”— recognizing great educators and entrepreneurs from all periods of history, from all nations, and from all walks of life. These individuals— not necessarily professors or teachers themselves— are those who have raised the quality of life of humanity, through education. Some are immensely wealthy, some poor, some renowned, some obscure. They have one thing in common: their pivotal roles in improving the lives of others, through moral will, personal influence, and self-sacrifice. Today, we salute two remarkable persons. And it all begins with knowledge.

Today, GRAD2B salutes (the incredibly generous and altruistic) entrepreneur-founders of the Gates Foundation, Bill and Melinda.

If a Hollywood screenwriter made up a story like this, the studio notes would be: “Way over the top, too crazy, blows the suspension of disbelief, impossible.”

But it’s real, this astonishing rise of entrepreneur William Henry Gates the third.

90 Billion dollars. And a heartfelt decision by Bill and Melinda, to give it all back.

Born on Oct. 28, 1955, in Seattle, Bill Gates grew up in the lap of learning.

His late mother, Mary Gates, was an important educator, a schoolteacher, a University of Washington regent, and chairwoman of United Way International. His father, William H. Gates II, studied to become a Seattle attorney.

Bill Gates attended public elementary school, and the private Lakeside School. As a boy of 13, he discovered software— and plunged into programming computers, crude as they were at that time.

In 1973, Gates entered Harvard University as a freshman, where he lived down the hall from Steve Ballmer, now Microsoft’s chief executive officer.

While at Harvard, Gates developed a version of the programming language BASIC for the first microcomputer – the MITS Altair.

In his junior year, Gates left Harvard to devote his energies to Microsoft, a company he had begun in 1975 with his childhood friend Paul Allen.

Together, convinced that the computer would be a valuable tool on every office desktop and in every home, they were driven to develop software for personal computers. This concept was ground-breaking.

Computers were then considered office machines, corporate tools, not for personal use. Bill Gates’ was driven by his vision for personal computing. He never let go. His success created Microsoft… and indeed, the rest of the global software industry has flourished since.

That in itself would be enough for a place in history. But it would be only in the history of business.

Here is the surprise, and the great distinction— Philanthropy is even more important to both Bill and Melinda Gates. Helping others.

Gates was married on Jan. 1, 1994, to Melinda French Gates.

Melinda Gates is one of the most powerful women in the world (according to the Forbes business magazine (ranked 12th in 2006).

Melinda was born in Dallas Texas in 1964 as Melinda Ann French. She received her bachelors degree, in economics and computer science, at the Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.

She kept learning, and earned an MBA (Master of Business Administration) from the highly-prestigious Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business in 1987.

Bill and Melinda, together, have used the remarkable power of their education and wealth to endow their foundation with their billions. And they also spend something even more precious— their time on earth— to support philanthropic initiatives in the areas of global health and learning.

Their conjoined goal is that in the 21st century, advances (in these life-or-death issues of life quality and survival) will be available for all people, everywhere.

So, that is their goal? Just how much do they mean it?

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has committed more than $3.6 billion USD to organizations working in global health.

…And more than $2 billion to improve learning opportunities— including the Gates Library Initiative to bring computers, Internet Access and training to public libraries in low-income communities in the United States and Canada.

…And more than $477 million to community projects in the Pacific Northwest.

…And more than $488 million to special projects and annual giving campaigns.

Bill and Melinda work hard to fire up charity support, beyond their own considerable resources. They were in Washington, D.C., recently, to rally government support for global health initiatives (and promote their new Living Proof Project).

Bill Gates said, “Out of 6 billion people, there’s about 2 billion that are still outside of that positive cycle of improvement and need the generosity of the U.S. government to get on it.”

For Americans, a big problem with foreign aid is that Americans don’t know that aid does make a difference. Most Americans have no idea that their money is having an impact at all.

Melinda Gates said, “When we travel in places like Africa, we see incredible changes, and incredible signs of hope — particularly in the area of AIDS or childhood vaccinations. We hear more the negative stories, and we want to make sure people understand, no, these have been incredible investments.”

Through the Living Proof Project, the Gates want to get the word out about the success stories they see. And hopefully, said Bill Gates, “get that 2 billion down to 1 billion, and eventually have it so each country is taking care of itself.”

The couple outlined specific goals for global health aid — and the methods for achieving those goals. Top on their list is cutting childhood deaths in half worldwide by 2025, i.e. from 9 million to 5 million in 15 years.

Their own foundation believes it can make that happen through vaccinations, fighting malaria, better maternity and neonatal care, and providing treatments for illnesses such as diarrhea and pneumonia.

But Bill and Melinda Gates don’t stop there. They also support many other little-known foundations, worldwide.

There are many wonderful foundations you’ve never heard of— served by dedicated people who sacrifice their lives, and their educations, not to the pursuit of riches, but to the fight for the health of billions of humans in dire critical need.

For example, the Gates support the International Center for Diarrheal Disease Research in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The fundamental mission of the Center (commonly known as the Centre for Health and Population Research) is to develop and disseminate solutions to major health and population problems facing the world, with emphasis on simple and cost-effective methods of prevention and management. (Especially addresses diarrhoeal diseases and related problems.)

The main message that Bill and Melinda Gates want to get across? People in developing countries want the same things we all do for our children, starting with good health.

Here’s something the Gates know, that you likely do not know— malaria is the NUMBER ONE KILLER OF CHILDREN.

Yes, not AIDS, not Hepatitis, or even the bombs of war… malaria has long been Africa’s forgotten killer— a disease that receives little attention from the Western world.

But now there is hope that this scourge of rural Africa can be prevented through the use of a pro-active vaccine, the development of which is now being speeded up through field trials in Gambia and Mozambique funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Malaria strikes 300 million people every year, mainly in the farming parts of Africa where mosquito eradication programmes are nonexistent. Of those infected, over one million die, most of them children below the age of ten. For want of sleeping nets, or other prevention of any type.

Efforts to create a vaccine against this scourge have been going on for 15 years, but due to a lack of both interest and funding, those efforts have slowed in recent times.

Now the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, together with pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline, are undertaking a series of vaccine immunisation trials in rural Manhica, Mozambique and in Gambia. This happened because the Gates Foundation’s injection of close to $200 million USD.

That is the sheer power of money. And how rare, that kind of personal money, projected by altruism? Bill and Melinda Gates are living proof.

Money gained through the utility of innovation through education, which in turn empowers entrepreneurship— driven by good-hearted conviction. Not squandering it all on a glamor life of shallow jet-setting. Just giving it all back.

Their Foundation is the culmination of the hope of sharing health and knowledge and opportunity with our fellow humanity. That is the awesome power of education. And of good will.

That’s why GRAD2B (in our awe) humbly salutes Bill and Melinda, of the Gates Foundation.

And it all begins with knowledge!

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