Bill Gates is probably one of the most known person in today’s world. But when asked about “what you know about Bill Gates”, most people can barely say anything out of the two: He’s the richest man in the U.S with a net worth of 78.9 billion; he is the co-founder of Microsoft, one of the most successful software companies so far.
But there are a lot of things about Bill Gates you probably didn’t know – I am not talking about those crazy celebrity anecdotes. People considers Bill Gates as the most influential figure in the 21 century because of Microsoft, but in fact it is what Bill Gates did outside of Microsoft that makes him becomes who he is – in fact, he has devoted himself to philanthropic work through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in the past two decades, and he has always committed to facilitating the research and development of the new technology so as to solve the problems the society are facing. Here are three facts that will reveal another side of Bill Gates to you and make you understand why Bill Gates is an awesome guy.
Bill and Melinda Gates. Source: catchnews.com
Giving Pledge
In June 2010, Bill Gates and his long time philanthropy sidekicks Warren Buffet formally launched “Giving Pledge”, a campaign seeking to encourage the billionaires of the world to give away at least 50 percent of their wealth to philanthropy or charitable causes either during their lifetime or in their will. Unlike a legal agreement, the pledge is a moral commitment among the pledgers. The aim is to create a platform to facilitate the conversation about philanthropy and an idea hub for the committed to share thoughts on how to give back community in the best possible way.
In only two months after the announcement of the campaign, the Giving Pledge had secured an impressive $125 billion from its first 40 pledgers on the Forbes 400 list of the wealthiest Americans. By March 2016, 142 individuals or families has signed on to the Giving Pledge. Among the pledgers includes Larry Ellison, co-founder and executive chairman of Oracle Corporation, Michael Rubens Bloomberg, CEO, owner and founder of Bloomberg, Azim Premji, chairman of Wipro Limited, etc.
Source: newsflicks.com
Breakthrough Energy Coalition
How will the world’s richest person tackle the problem of global warming? At the climate change summit in Paris, Bill Gates announced the new initiative, Breakthrough Energy Coalition, which is association of private investors who are committed to help clean-energy firms to bring their innovative ideas out of the lab and into the marketplace. By launching of the Coalition, Bill Gates and 28 other members pledged seven billion dollars into the investment fund, who include Virgin Group’s Richard Branson, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Alibaba’s Jack Ma, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and other billionaires from ten countries.
“The renewable technologies we have today, like wind and solar, have made a lot of progress and could be one path to a zero-carbon energy future. But given the scale of the challenge, we need to be exploring many different paths — and that means we also need to invent new approaches,” Gates says in the video in the blog post announcing the coalition. “Private companies will ultimately develop these energy breakthroughs, but their work will rely on the kind of basic research that only governments can fund. Both have a role to play.”
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
In 2000, Bill Gates and his wife, Melinda Gates, started the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation about 15 years ago, with the aim to to enhance healthcare and reduce hunger and extreme poverty in developing countries, and to expand educational opportunities and access to information technology in the U.S. The foundation is backing GAVI Alliance, a global public-private partnership of scientists, health experts, government leaders, businesses, and philanthropic organizations and other organizations in India, Nigeria, and Ethiopia to provide vaccines for people, especially children in need. The charity also committed more than US$3 billion in HIV grants to organizations around the world and more than US$1.6 billion to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
Bill Gates at the climate conference Source: IAN LANGSDON/POOL/EPA
In addition to the health-related programs, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation also supports programs that help small farming families in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia to increase agricultural productivity in sustainable way and sell more crops. The program adopts a comprehensive approach that partners with governments, nongovernmental organizations, and the private sector to provide the farmers with greater access to high-quality seeds, reliable markets and information on productive farming techniques and technologies, and advocate for agricultural policies that support farmers in their efforts to better feed themselves and their communities.
In March 2005, Gates received an honorary knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II. Gates was bestowed with the KBE Order (Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) for his contributions in reducing poverty and improving health in the third word countries.
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