Bill Gates, for years, was a regular attendee and speaker at Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT)’s annual conference of faculty members involved in computer science research at universities around the world. Gates finally returned after a few years owing to his full-time work at his foundation. In his speech, which he summarized in a blog post on LinkedIn today, Gates shared his vision for a world free of poverty and disease and detailed, to a degree, how this can be accomplished.
Bill Gates essentially focused on three areas when he was asked by researchers in different fields on how their work might overlap and what that could mean to the world’s neediest populations.
Bill Gates on the problem’s of poorest people
Bill Gates believes that the largest problems facing the world’s poorest two billion people are health and agriculture. He sees advances in these areas coming from computer science to genetics, materials science, and energy. He strongly believes that in order to eradicate disease, stochastic modeling is necessary. He explained this modeling as “running a lot of computer simulations where you randomize different variables and study the outcome — is helping us understand the impact of the various factors so we can get the right mix of tools to fight different diseases.”
He also said that geneticists will be crucial in developing crops that are more nutritious, disease-resistant, and drought-tolerant. He concluded with the fact that no matter your field of research there will always be crossover.
Attract more people into technical fields
Bill Gates believes that there is a need for a constant stream on new people entering the sciences to ensure fresh energy and ideas and they need to come from a broad spectrum of ethnicities, income levels, and countries. In order to facilitate this, he calls for the strengthening of educational alliances that allow the best and the brightest from poorer countries access to the education they need. Additionally, he believes that “Western” universities need to bring more women into their programs.
Show experts how they can help solve these problems
“Scientists aren’t the only ones who can help solve problems in the poor world. Savvy people in businesses, non-profits, and governments can find ways to deliver solutions at scale.”
Bill Gates believes that these people may need incentives like grants and prizes in order to get them working towards the betterment of the world’s forgotten two billion.
The Gates Foundation has a program called Grand Challenges in Global Health, which is designed to help experts from various fields see how they can help save lives in the poorest countries. That’s just one example, though, and the world could use a lot more.”
