The Great Bill Gates

Microsoft chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates announced in a press conference June 15 afternoon that he would be shifting priorities, leaving his full-time position at Microsoft in two years to focus his efforts on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Gates reitered that he is not retiring from the software business, calling the change a re-ordering of priorities. He states:

"With great wealth comes great responsibility,"

(...) "A responsibility to give back to society."

Gates will retain his position as company chairman, and plans to spend some of his time at Microsoft. Microsoft CTO Ray Ozzie will take over Gates' role as Chief Software Architect starting immediately.

By Nate Mook, BetaNews June 15, 2006, 4:49 PM

Bill Gates is another role model to me, not only because he is the most successful entrepreneur in the world, but also for his philanthropist spirit.

There are many people with tons of money, but not all of them are willing to share it, and to invest it in order to improve the world we live in. That's why I find him a reference to follow. He is absolutely compromised with the underprivileged. In fact, he is one of the world's biggest (if not the biggest) donor.

These are some wonderful things his done (appart from partially leaving Microsoft):

• The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation said Sunday that it would sharply increase its investment in malaria research, awarding $258.3 million in grants to hasten ways of preventing and treating the disease. Counting the new money, the Gates Foundation will soon be providing more than a third of the world's annual research budget for malaria, eclipsing the U.S. government as the leading funder of such work. Malaria kills an estimated 1.2 million people a year, the large majority of them African children who have yet to reach their sixth birthday, and the toll has risen sharply over the past two decades.
• Bill Gates has pledged $57m over five years to help protect young people in Africa against the threat of HIV and Aids. The donation from the Bill and Melissa Gates Foundation is the biggest by a private foundation to support Aids prevention among young people.
• Bill Gates and wife Melinda have given $5billion to their private Foundation, in order the money to be spent on those who most need it.
• Bill Gates foundation is donating $750m over the next five years to get life-saving vaccines to children in developing countries, for the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (Gavi).
• Bill Gates donated $550 000 worth of software, cash and consulting to Peru.
• Bill Gates donated $22.6m to UNC to fund a drug trial aimed at curing African sleeping sickness. More than 300,000 people in Africa are infected with the life-threatening parasite, and an estimated 60 million are at risk.
• Bill Gates has given $50 million to be used for screening and treating cervical cancer in developing countries, where access to testing is not always available. More than 370,000 women worldwide develop cervical cancer each year.
• Bill Gates is donating $15 million to the Computer History Museum, the biggest gift in the history of the Silicon Valley institution, which maintains the world's largest collection of computing artifacts.
• Bill Gates creates the NewSchools Venture Fund $29,640,000.00 over 41 months to support work with charter management organizations, and extend the model of scalable high quality schools through the development of hybrid organizations.
• ....

I dream of becoming a great entrepreneur someday. But my biggest dream is to use the power, influence and wealth, my venture would give me, to help others; especially children all over the world.

I think that we all have the power to change the world, and I am going to do my best trying to do it!

Thanks Bill Gates for the wonderful example you are as a businessman and as a person!