Part-2: A Detailed “Here’s what I saw” account of Mr.Bill Gates’ talk- Bill Gates Speaks at IIT Delhi - November 5th 2008

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The Speech
This Part-2 details Mr.Bill Gates' speech- reported as heard and remembered by the blogger- Mr.Nalin ( nsnsns(at)gmail(dot)com ). Please see earlier posts- Part-0 for Event Background and Part-1 for Venue Details and other people in this event.

Mr.Bill Gates kicked off the talk by Dreamspark- Microsoft's scheme of giving for free, it's latest development tools to students in colleges and high-schools.

Mr.Gates then shifted gears to talk more about his own motivations for trying to solve global problems. Most of this article touches upon Mr.Gates's motivations and reasons- for doing what he is currently doing with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

During the 80s and 90s Microsoft was making a lot of money. But even at that time, Mr.Gates thought a lot about how he could contribute to alleviating the world’s problems. Mr.Gates believes that all the problems are because of overpopulation- that in many parts of the developing world, preventable infant and adult diseases kill so many people that people are unsure about the chances of survival of their children or are not sure if they and all their children will continue to live up to be healthy and fit that they have many children as a means of support and insurance against the diseases prevalent.

If healthcare was better people would live healthier lives. And when people rise above subsistence and survival- then, Mr.Gates feels that the population pressure will decrease and that in turn will- over time- help solve all of the world’s hunger, poverty and other problems.

And it is true that in 1960, the rate of child (children under age 5) mortality due to Measles was about 20 million infants and children annually and in 2004, even though the world’s population had more than doubled the rate of child mortality due to measles had more than halved- which is a big achievement- because measles is not as deadly and life threatening a disease as it once was.

(These numbers seemed somewhat alien; therefore the author, Mr. Nalin Savara verified this number; and here's a reference: http://www.results-resultats.ca/action/actions/2008/2008-02-en.aspx)

Mr. Bill Gates talked of Polio and India’s fight against polio- and the varying success rates of Polio eradication between different parts of India- and how more research-work and action was needed on that front.

But it’s also true that while capitalism is the best system developed till now, the way capitalism works, miniscule amounts of money are spent solving problems for those at the bottom of the pyramid.

For example, the amount of money spent annually researching polio and cures for polio till recently was about 10% of the money spent researching cures for baldness.

And it’s also true that till the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation chipped in, researchers could not typically expect rewards for their efforts. In US and even more outside the US, researchers just did not see rewards or money for solving the tough problems that affect the poorest, the most needy and the most deprived people in the world.

Mr.Gates also saw that currently it often takes long to get research-funds- and many long, tough-to-understand descriptions are submitted as the researcher goes through a tiring and exhausting process for meager funds.

So that’s why, when the last time they invited ideas to fund; they asked-for got two-page descriptions and got around four thousand short descriptions of various ideas from many researchers- and then they got 60 people to evaluate the ideas- and they told the judges the following:
(1) Each evaluator selects three ideas he liked best.
(2) Automatic US $100,000 funding to the idea each evaluator liked best- and the Gates’ Foundation would get back in a year to see how much progress was made.
(3) For the idea each evaluator liked second-best:
a. If the idea was from the US, then it would get $100,000 in funding if three evaluators liked it in their top three ideas.
b. If a idea was from outside USA then even one evaluator liking it as second best would get the idea $100,000 funding- because they want to get people all around the world working on ideas- they want researchers to be finding and developing solutions to the world’s most pressing problems, rather than worrying about funding.
c. For each idea selected as a third best idea by any researcher, more criteria will be applied- but whatever happens, Mr Gates felt that opening up the purse-strings would really get people digging into and researching ideas.

Mr.Gates further mentioned a idea submitted as a 2-page synopsis by a lady in India, which suggested a way of trying to control AIDS by creating nano-particles which resemble the AIDS causing HIV virus- and when nano-particles resembling the virus impersonate the virus and when the virus interacts with those, they cause the virus to get de-activated.

Mr.Gates further added that irrespective of the (credentials of the researcher and the) details, since this was presented as a outline only, they don’t know if it’ll be useful or not- but since the evaluator presented with the idea liked the idea; they gave the lady who proposed this idea $100,000 for her research- and they’ll get back to her in a year to see what progress she’s made on this front.

Mr.Gates continued, and told us they have funded atleast 6 or more ideas on finding a cure for AIDS… and in a few years- when the researches bear results- they start to find if the ideas were non-starters or how much closer they have come to finding a cure for AIDS.

He also talked of a instance when they found a youngster who after winning a contest was invited to work for Microsoft in USA for some months- and he was made Mr.Gates’ personal assistant. And this youngster from South India got a chance to do many cool things and these days the youngster is doing great, doing his Master’s Degree (Graduate Studies) in a US university, on his way to becoming a great software professional.

Mr.Gates went on to add that while he remembers fondly all that he and his friends did as teenage programmers back at high school, the opportunities and access to information they had was nothing like what is available to the youngsters and students of today. He mentioned when he was young, he would ask many questions and sometimes he’d get satisfyingly informative answers and many times he wouldn’t get as much information as he wanted- but today he has a son too (is he talking of his son Rory John Gates, born 1999 ?)- and when his son asks him questions he cant answer, Mr.Gates either gets the information himself from the internet… or he directs his son to go check it out on the internet… and added that the sheer amount of information and knowledge available on the internet is unbelievable and till a short time back, even specialists found it hard to get so much information on their fields…

He then invited the audience to field some questions to him…

Question-Answer Session Between Mr.Bill Gates and Audience at IIT-Delhi

Question: Neha Jain from NDTV Profit asked for Mr.Gates’ opinion on the election of Barack Obama and his opinions about the current recession as well as the effect Obama’s election would have on the current recession and it’s outcome.

Mr.Gates spent almost 10-12 minutes offering his own extremely optimistic views on the subject and he said that he feels that a fresh approach from Obama would help find new solutions to old problems.

Question: A student from IIT Delhi asked about what can we do about the world’s problems since we have more access than Mr.Gates and his 5-friends in his days.

Bill Gates' Answer:
- Youngsters in India have more familiarity with problems
- You people are closer to and exposed to the Challenges of Poverty
- Mr.Gates criticized the university curriculum in his own days and said that in the days Microsoft was wildly successful and he was making all his money he would bemoan and regret that his own University Education did not expose him more to the problems of the world, the challenges of poverty and how difficult life actually is in the real world.
- He said that given your own awareness of the hierarchy of problems that poverty and under-development creates, you should try to face these challenges and find solutions to the problems of underdevelopment and poverty.

Question: What do you say about Masters’ (Degrees), higher studies- how is that important ?

Bill Gates' Answer:
Mr.Gates said there are huge opportunities in the world today for research and for finding new solutions to problems. He said that a increasing percentage of students should go for their higher studies and PhDs and that even his Bill and Melinda Gates’ foundation tries to encourage and reward research results such that researchers focus on the problems of the developing world and the problems faced by those at the lower end of the economic strata.

Question: A student from IIT Delhi asked Mr.Gates about Microsoft Surface technology.

Bill Gates' Answer:
Mr.Gates answered that a digital camera as a electronic component could be had as cheaply as US $3 or $4 and that Microsoft through a combination of software and hardware would like a scenario, where a “surface”- like a table-top or whiteboad could have a camera behind it- that tracks the user’s hand touches and movements- and uses that information about the user’s hand or touch movements as a input device for a computer.
Mr.Gates mentioned how the cost of surface technology had decreased from almost US$1800 in v1.0 to around US$400 in the current version- and how, someday surface technology would make it easy for students, researchers and many others to collaborate at a distance even across continents.

Question: Mr.Gates answered one more question from a youngster in a engineering institute in Delhi, who asked why Microsoft doesn’t support open source.

Bill Gates' Answer:
Mr. Gates replied that Microsoft has a variety of pricing models and that Microsoft as far as possible gives out a lot of software for free to students and educational institutes and tries to make it’s money from big-corporations. So for example, he said that if you (student) may get a lot of development tools free while if we are giving our software to say a Oil-Refinery with support and maintainence contracts, then we will charge them money for it.
He added that he believes Open-Source and Microsoft’s own commercial software efforts are complimentary to each other and each has it’s own place in the world and that he personally is not against Open Source software but Microsoft has to support a variety of licensing and pricing models to survive as a corporation and to support research and development and so that it can support and help students and researchers in universities.

Question: A reporter from DNA asked Mr.Gates:
a. What is the approximate Dollar-figure for the software Microsoft’s dream-sparks program plans to donate.
b. What are Mr.Bill Gates’ views on the impact of the upcoming slowdown and possible economic recession on the outsourced software majors from India.

Bill Gates' Answer:
Mr.Gates mentioned that while they expect over 10 million student developers to benefit; with programs like these you just cant put a dollar figure since Microsoft does this for students and not by calculating the value of the software.
About effect of recession on Indian IT majors; Mr.Gates said that based on the exchanges he has had with India’s IT giants, he feels that the market demand for IT services will remain and that he feels that given the IT majors are playing a long-term game; he feels that the Indian IT Giants will continue to hire and grow- because of their own long-term visions- and the current recession will be like another speed-bump which will come and go.

Please do feel free to comment here OR to mail me- nsnsns(at)gmail(dot)com