Few people have had more of an impact on our civilization over the past 100 years than Bill Gates. His invention of the personal computer has completely transformed nearly every single possible dimension of the the human experience — and continues to do so to this day in ways we do not yet comprehend. For years now, the name Bill Gates has been synonymous with enormous wealth, but ever since his retirement from Microsoft in 2008 Gates’ passion has moved away from computers and towards making the world a better place. Earlier this evening 60 Minutes and Charlie Rose profiled Bill Gates and his remarkable philanthropical work with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The following is an excerpt from the 60 Minutes transcript:
Gates’ most urgent goal: help the millions of children under five who die every year, one every 20 seconds from preventable diseases.
CHARLIE ROSE: “No one alive that I know of has said, ‘My goal is to eradicate a disease and then another disease and then another disease.’ This is somebody that dreams high.”
BILL GATES: “Yeah, because I’m excited about that. And it’s doable.”
Today, Gates spends most of his time here, at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle. He runs it with his father, Bill Sr., and his wife, Melinda, whom he credits with being a driving force behind the foundation. There are over 1,100 employees to help them decide which programs to fund, but Gates still visits sites around the world to see what’s working and what’s not. The grants here go towards school nutrition, improving agriculture and, most important to Gates, life-saving vaccines.
BILL GATES: “Well, whenever you see a mother bringing a sick child into a facility, it’s easy to relate to, ‘What if that was my child?’ You realize, how crazy it is that with the world being rich enough to afford all sorts of frivolous things, that those basic things still aren’t being provided.”
You can watch the full 60 Minutes profile of Bill Gates below. To learn more about the Bill And Melinda Gates Foundation be sure to visit GatesFoundation.org, and follow the foundation on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter.
