All that fuss about Bill Gates

So I was going to write some great big yarn about how significant it was that Bill Gates will take another step further away from his geek roots in 2008. But then I wrote 1300 words about it on Friday for the Weekend AFR, and well, that was enough. But I notice this morning that Cameron did my work for me with this post. (Oh, and Cam, get that eye of yours off the web! T.M.I. !!! :)

However, the other comment to make is that I've not yet seen too much discussion about Billy G's humanitarian work. It seems the tech community's missed the big picture, and that's fact that an entire generation in Africa is being wiped out by HIV/AIDS.

This might be a plug, but I've started supporting Watoto, which provides homes and a future for ophaned children in Uganda. What struck me was a statistic from Watoto that every day, the equivalent of 20 jumbo jets worth of people die in Africa, and it barely rates a mention. Not enough oil over there to worry about, maybe? So at least from the macro perspective, Gates has his priorities right.

Comments

[Cameron Reilly]

hey mate Watoto is good, but Father Bob and I also need your help working with Aussies in need. Come join FATHER BOB'S NINJAS.

....sheesh I entered a URL there are my comment got knocked back! WTF...

[Brad Howarth]

As much as it is easy to pin it to Gates for Microsoft's various practices and failings, and as cynical as some might be about his charity work ("well, with all that money, he has to do something ..."), Gates' work in Africa on issues relating to HIV/AIDS should be remembered as one of the great personal humanitarian crusades. HIV/AIDS in Africa is a topic that almost no one seems to want to know about these days (I know - try selling stories on the topic to Australian magazine editors...), but Mark's stat re the jumbo jets is painfully correct. It's not just the immediate human cost of a life lost either - AIDS kills the most productive members of society, and hits all levels of the socio-economic strata, limiting any afflected nation's chances for economic improvement. Not to mention all the kids that are left orphaned as a result ...

[Iain Scott]

It's impossible to be cynical about philanthropy on the Gates scale. Most philanthropy goes towards researching western diseases, but the Gates foundation -- helped, of course, by Warren Buffet's donation this week -- will dramatically change the way the west looks at treatment of preventable diseases in the developing world -- not just HIV/AIDS but also TB, malaria and others. And finally we will start to see some of the biggest recent technological advances in ICT and medical research being put to very good use.