Bill Gates

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May 30, 2013 | 1:15 PM | By  | 

Dambisa Moyo counter-attacks Bill Gates’ critique of her work as ‘evil’ | 

You will remember from yesterday, that Bill Gates is not a fan of Zambian economist Dambisa Moyo (see below video). Responding to a question about Moyo’s book Dead Aid, which criticizes Western aid interventions in Africa, Gates claimed the book is ‘promoting evil.’

Well, it turns out that Moyo is not happy with what Gates has to say about her book. Moyo issued a pithy response to what she described as a personal attack by Gates.

“To say that my book ‘promotes evil’ or to allude to my corrupt value system is both inappropriate and disrespectful,” writes Moyo in a blog post this morning.

Dr. Dambisa Moyo

The short blog post makes two points to refute the remarks made by Gates. First, Moyo says that the book serves as a debating point on aid. She says that both she and Gates agree on the goal to improve the livlihoods of Africans in a sustainable way. Her goal was to raise concerns about the limitations of aid.

The second point made by Moyo addresses Gates’ claim that she does not know much about aid. Moyo is quick to point out her experience in the classroom, a PhD, and out, World Bank Consultant. She concludes that her experience being raised in Zambia provides her with a unique first-hand insight into poverty in Africa and the impacts of aid. It is the very same selling point that Moyo used in promoting her book.

“To cast aside the arguments I raised in Dead Aid at a time when we have witnessed the transformative economic success of countries like China, Brazil and India, belittles my experiences, and those of hundreds of millions of Africans, and others around the world who suffer the consequences of the aid system every day,” says Moyo.

Gates is not alone in claiming Moyo’s analysis is seriously flawed. 

Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Basics, aid, Bill Easterly, Bill Gates, Carr, Dambisa Moyo, Debates, development, Easterly, Edward Carr, Gates, Jeffrey Sachs, moyo, Sachs
May 17, 2013 | 10:50 AM | By  | 

Washington Post Q & A with Bill Gates: ‘Death is something we understand extremely well’ | 

Bill Gates Malaria Forum

The Washington Post’s chief policy wonk blogger Ezra Klein has published his conversation with Bill Gates about global health. Most of the discussion is focused on exploring how the Gates Foundation attempts to use data and better metrics to improve the fight against diseases of poverty.

Ezra Klein: Your Foundation is known for taking a particularly data-driven approach to its work. So how do you know what’s actually working when you’re in failed states with very little data-collection capacity?

Bill Gates: Of all the statistics in health, death is the easiest, because you can go out and ask people, “Hey, have you had any children who died, did your siblings have any children who died?” People don’t forget that. If you say to them, “Did your kids get vaccines or not,” they might have done it and not remember, or they might think, “Oh, this person wants me to say yes, maybe I look bad if I don’t say yes.” Death is something we really understand extremely well.

Read the rest at WaPo.

FILED UNDER: Basics, Bill Gates, Ezra Klein
May 13, 2013 | 8:40 AM | By  | 

Bill Gates on 60 Minutes | 

Nothing new, but below is a nice 60 Minutes interview of Bill Gates by Charlie Rose regarding his philanthropic endeavors and interest in technology.

One apparent glitch (likely due to sloppy editing – and now corrected in the video below) was when Gates appeared to say he hoped to eradicate tuberculosis in six to seven years. Gates has hopes of doing that for polio, but I’ve never heard him (or anyone) talk about eradicating TB – which infects one of three people on the planet and is increasingly drug-resistant. CBS has since corrected the video:

Here’s what Gates thought about the experience of being interviewed, on Gates Notes.

FILED UNDER: Basics, Bill Gates
May 7, 2013 | 1:00 PM | By  | 

Bill Gates’ humanitarian plan for world (vaccination) domination | 

Bill Gates vaccine
UN

Bill Gates loves vaccines.

He says so all the time. The media, as well as the social media hipsterverse, regularly report on this love affair, usually cheering along with Gates in favor of the cause of polio eradication — a cause which was advanced recently at a meeting he and other glitterati convened in Abu Dhabi, the world’s richest city.

Gates says the very foundation of his foundation comes from his realization in the 1990s that kids were dying for lack of access to a vaccine we in the rich world take for granted. As a result, boosting vaccination worldwide became the prime mover, the raison d’être, for what would soon be the world’s biggest philanthropy.

Yet few appreciate today just how revolutionary, and unlikely, was the start of this love affair.

Promoting this powerful, fundamental tool for children’s health may look now like an obvious humanitarian thing for a philanthropist to do. But it wasn’t either obvious or that celebrated when the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation started down this path (pun intended) in the 1990s.

The Gates Foundation’s push for a revolution in immunization was greeted, from the outset, by a weird combination of controversy and apathy. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Health, Amie Batson, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, GAVI, Kate Elder, Médecins Sans Frontières, Orin Levine, PATH, Seth Berkley, vaccines
May 3, 2013 | 10:45 AM | By  | 

Geekwire: The new chief of Nathan Myhrvold’s ‘Global Good’ project | 

Nathan Myhrvold
Nathan Myhrvold
Tom Paulson

My buddy Todd Bishop at Geekwire reports that Nathan Myhrvold, with support from Bill Gates, has appointed a new chief for their Global Good project.

Here’s a story Humanosphere did last fall on Myhrvold’s project entitled Patent Troll, Inventor and now Do-Gooder. Includes a podcast Q&A with Myhrvold in which we discuss the controversial polymath’s foray into philanthropy. Here’s what Todd says:

The position of “Vice President of Global Good” at Intellectual Ventures made news even before it was filled. The Bellevue company, with its massive patent holdings and controversial licensing practices, is a lightning rod in the tech industry. The very title of the job was viewed as highly dubious or at least ironic by the company’s many critics.

That resulted in a feisty response from IV chief Nathan Myhrvold, defending what he described as his aspirations to roll out life-changing technologies in the developing world, in partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Asset Trust.

MV-Headshot_1_400_400_70_c1

Maurizio Vecchione

So who got the job? It was filled by Maurizio Vecchione, a veteran entrepreneur and inventor with experience ranging from telemedicine to nanotechnology. A native of Switzerland who grew up in Italy before coming to the U.S., Vecchione has been involved in nine startups and some 50 product launches over the past three decades. He relocated from California to take the Global Good job.

Read the rest of Todd’s story at Geekwire.

FILED UNDER: Business, Bill Gates, Global Good, Nathan Myhrvold
April 15, 2013 | 12:11 PM | By  | 

Philanthrocapitalists propose a Social Progress Index | 

Metrics Mania
Metrics Mania
Flicky, Beto Ruis Alonso

Measurement, in case you didn’t know it, is the new black for the aid and development community.

It’s true that innovation, as a buzzword anyway, hasn’t gone out of fashion yet and social entrepreneurship is still hot – despite the fact that few seem able to define it.  But measurement is definitely this year’s favored wrap for the hip humanitarian.

Bill Gates’ annual letter this year was all about the need for better metrics and data in the fight against poverty and inequity. Bono, dutifully following suit at a recent TED talk, said he is actually sexually excited by data now and considers himself less just an anti-poverty activist and more of a factivist.

Measurement is it, fo shizzle! Nobody who wants to be anybody in fighting poverty and injustice talks about doing anything anymore if it can’t be measured.

Last week, at the Skoll World Forum in London, came more evidence of this trend. The Skoll Foundation and their gathering of social entrepreneurs helped launch yet another humanitarian yardstick – the Social Progress Index.

And who could argue against such a thing? Who wouldn’t want to be able to quantify the impact of an aid or development project?

Answer: Nobody

The only problem is that it’s not that easy to actually measure this stuff – equality, opportunity, security, happiness and well-being.

“These are tough concepts to measure,” said Michael Green, a renowned economist in London who with Matthew Bishop, a journalist at the Economist magazine, is one of the leading proponents of philanthrocapitalism (which, like social enterprise, I also think is ill-defined … but that’s another story).

“We need a new way to measure social progress that is independent of economic indicators,” said Green, who with Bishop is proposing just such a new measurement tool with this new Social Progress Index. It’s still just an idea to test out, he said, but we’re clearly in need of a better yardstick for aid and development. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Basics, aid, Bill Gates, Bono, development, Matthew Bishop, measurement, metrics, Michael Green, philanthrocapitalism, Skoll World Forum
February 22, 2013 | 12:45 PM | By  | 

Is Bill Gates getting lovable? | 

This picture from July 1959 shows Mary (Maxwell) Gates and her 3 1/2-year-old son, Bill, in a picture that first appeared on the pages of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
This picture from July 1959 shows Mary (Maxwell) Gates and her 3 1/2-year-old son, Bill, in a picture that first appeared on the pages of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
MOHAI, Seattle PI

I had to laugh when Jake Ellison, a friend and colleague who (again) works for SeattlePI.com, called to ask me that question.

“Would you say Bill Gates is getting more lovable?” Jake asked, saying he intended to quote me. I assumed he was going to edit out the profanity and also that I would be one of many. Little did I know my answers would become the backbone of his story.

Fair enough. I believe in the new media approach of transparency, and the obligation journalists have to stop hiding behind the pretense of objectivity. Spoiler alert: I do think Trey’s public image is getting to be somewhat lovable. But I’m not sure he’ll like hearing that…. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Basics, Bill Gates, Bill Gates Sr.
January 31, 2013 | 11:32 AM | By  | 

“Here’s to the geeks” – Bill Gates on Colbert Report | 

Bill Gates was on the Colbert Report to talk about the foundation’s humanitarian work and his annual letter. It’s encouraging to hear the audience cheer for reductions in global child mortality and ridding the world of polio! And Bill seemed to be having fun. Stephen Colbert asked Bill if he thought data was more important than passion and, perhaps surprising to some, Bill said passion, commitment is more important. But data and measurement, he said, makes passion more effective.

At one point, Colbert also asked Bill if he realized he wasn’t as cool as the late Steve Jobs. “You don’t have the cool factor, no offense,” said Colbert. Bill acknowledged he probably wasn’t as cool as Jobs. Bill: “It’s okay … He had his own style; I guess mine is a little geekier.” Actually, I think that made Bill look pretty cool.

FILED UNDER: Basics, Bill Gates, Stephen Colbert