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Remarks by Bill Gates, Chairman and Chief Software Architect, Microsoft Corporation
United Nations Development Program Press Conference
World Economic Forum
Davos, Switzerland
January 23, 2004
JOSE MARIA FIGUERES, FORMER PRESIDENT OF COSTA RICA AND CO-CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER OF THE WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM: Ladies and gentlemen good afternoon. Welcome to an important event or an announcement in what I would call another positive step forward in providing connectivity for the next five billion people on this planet.
This announcement speaks only so well of the efforts to solve the digital divide in which the World Economic Forum has been very much immersed with its members and partners, Microsoft at the head of these efforts, for many, many years and it also speaks so well of partnership which is the main angle of our overriding theme.
Despite the many improvements that we have seen in technology and connectivity over the last years, the fact is that it is still not getting out there to where it really counts in the way that we should to the rural poor of this world, to the urban marginalized communities on our planet. And although technology has made tremendous amounts of advancements in this respect we still have a lot to do.
Technology we consider to be a tool for development -- not an end in itself, but a real tool for development, for empowerment, giving people the opportunities to well-being that they so much deserve. If I may call it a technological passport which connectivity provides for the poor to travel out of their conditions and into better livelihoods. And that is what this partnership this afternoon between Microsoft and UNDP is all about. It draws on their competitive strengths -- Microsoft, being what it is and represents in the world, and UNDP, doing what it does best in terms of the development proposition. So, we're pleased to be able to celebrate this partnership on the eve of our annual meeting here at Davos. Let me now call on Bill Gates, Chairman and Chief Software Architect of Microsoft.
BILL GATES: Thank you. It is exciting to be here to talk about this new partnership. It is something we have been discussing with UNDP for quite some time and in fact, in Afghanistan we've had a chance to see how we can work together to make it a reality.
What is this all about? Well, the heart of it goes to the issue of the haves versus the have-nots. Those are very tough issues and those are issues that I am personally committed to working on, and that Microsoft is very involved in. They are quite a broad range - in the area of health, a lot of new drug discovery, new medical infrastructure needs to be put into place. In the area of technology, extending connectivity, letting the very best software be available - making sure there is training and hardware around that. These are very important issues.
And, there is progress being made. Certainly, if we look at the jobs being created around the world in the IT sector - that is good news. It is lifting economies up and efforts like this are aimed at pushing that forward and doing more of that.
So, the partnership with UNDP is taking their strengths and our strengths and bringing them together. A good example of that is what I mentioned, what we've been doing in Afghanistan. That is a very tough country to do things in, so I think it is particularly noteworthy that together we created 16 IT training centers that will train 12,000 people per year. And that is a significant impact as that economy is rebuilt in a very strong way.
The overall program that Microsoft has to address the gaps - the digital divide - we call "Unlimited Potential." And that is by letting people have the very best software, letting them have access to all the information on the Internet, making sure that computer literacy and job skill training is there, that their potential will be realized and that they can participate in the information economy.
We believe that partnerships are very important for us to achieve the high ambition we have with "Unlimited Potential." Over a five year period, we've committed about $1 billion to this and already we've put out $50 million in cash and software. So, what is being announced today will allow us to move full speed ahead. The UNDP is present in most countries in the world - they have a lot of expertise on what can be done. So, this partnership is very, very important to us and I think it is 166 countries we'll look through and come up with concrete programs. We've got plans in place for what we are going to do in Egypt, Morocco and Mozambique - that are quite concrete. So, it is a very ambitious goal but one that by starting now and getting these two organizations behind it we'll be able to achieve all the sooner. And, so with that let me turn it over to our partner Mark Malloch-Brown.
MARK MALLOCH-BROWN, ADMINISTRATOR, UNITED NATIONS DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME: Bill, thank you very much and I look at this as a partnership not just with Microsoft but with you too. Because you have shown such tremendous leadership on these issues particularly; obviously, in your extraordinary focus as a philanthropist on health issues. I think yours is a company, in which I'm sure because of that, in part, is a company embarked on a really ambitious use of its own philanthropic giving to try and support the development of community centers as access points to education and to other international resources through IT. And, we're thrilled at the start in Afghanistan and we hope there are going to be a lot more countries quickly that come into this partnership.
And, let me just say from our own point of view, IT isn't a sort of freestanding part of development. IT is a way of delivering development. It is a way of giving people access to education, to improved health services, to shortcuts to bypass corrupt government, and to get permits and other things they need by IT. It is a way of making the lives of poor people around the world easier and more productive by allowing them to do some things which are very important to them, much more quickly than they could do before. And to get access to services and information that they couldn't get before. And that brings us to the trap that we hope we've led Microsoft into. We want this partnership to go much further than these community centers together. To the extent to which Microsoft sees these markets, not as ones for corporate social giving, but as real markets for their future products and services, the trap has been sprung.
Because what we want to do is get the energy and the innovation of Microsoft aligned behind the goals of innovating products and services that are affordable, that are a viable business model for poor communities around the world. Our ambitions of hooking up the world to the Internet can only happen if companies like Microsoft, in partnership with thousands, tens of thousands, of local service providers working in different languages and companies providing other local educational content partner together to provide IT solutions which are in a business sense sustainable but have the effect of bringing IT to consumers, the bottom of the pyramid consumers, as they are sometimes called, who at the moment fall beneath these services.
Thank you.
JOSE MARIA FIGUERES: Thank you Mark. Let me now turn to Dr. Ahmed Mahmoud Nazif, the Minister of Communications and Information Technology of Egypt.
DR. AHMED MAHMOUD NAZIF, MINISTER OF COMMUNICATIONS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY OF EGYPT: Thank you Mr. Figueres.
One of the main challenges facing all the developing countries today to bridge the digital divide -- is providing access to their citizens, especially those who can't afford not just a phone line but a PC at home. And I think this kind of program is the one that deals with support that can be provided to community centers so that people can have access and afford it.
In Egypt we have hundreds of those centers, literally five or six hundred have been built. But, the problem is not just the computers and phone lines you need for connectivity -- it is what is behind that. And, I think the know-how we get through the software and the content that can be provided and the expertise, the human resource training that would be provided by UNDP and Microsoft is really the gIst of the things that could make those centers really effective in spreading the word, in getting more people IT literate. And I think that is the key issue there.
We work very close, we have a strategic alliance with Microsoft that has focused a lot on human resource development in Egypt and I believe that this step will take it a lot further ahead. The same has happened with UNDP where we have a lot of programs to use IT for poverty alleviation. So I take this chance to thank both Microsoft and the UNDP for this effort and for choosing Egypt to be part of it.
Thank you.
JOSE MARIA FIGUERES: Thank you Ahmed. We will now open it up to questions now please; if you will please identify yourself and share with us who you are formulating your question to.
QUESTION: I wanted to ask you, to Bill Gates, how much this money represents from your personal wealth or your company's wealth, the aid you are giving? A question to the UNDP: some developing countries are complaining that the money they receive benefits more the developed countries so is this the same for companies?
BILL GATES, MICROSOFT: Let me start…the Microsoft employees are very excited about the breakthroughs they make, but they're not just excited to have those breakthroughs used only in the developed countries; they'd really like to see the breakthroughs be available to everyone. And so we view the work we do in this area not only as a great contribution to the world, something that creates jobs and drives the world's economy, that's certainly a benefit to everyone, but as something that speaks to who we are and what motivates our employees every day.
And so the scale of the program we have here is quite unusual in terms of corporate giving, it's a billion dollars over five years, that represents both software and cash donations. And this is something that…we were doing things along these lines over the past years but it was just last year that we made this rather dramatic commitment.
In terms of my own personal giving, you know, I've said many times that it's my choice that my wealth overwhelmingly is going to the Foundation and the focus of the Foundation is similar in a sense, it's about haves versus have-nots, but the Foundation has taken as its primary priority the issues of world health and I think if we solve health problems, if we give people opportunities through these educational things, that really is addressing two of the biggest issues that are out there.
MARK MALLOCH-BROWN, UNDP: Just the question on, the second question on whether or not monies are going to develop companies…to support companies in rich countries.
No.
In the partnership with Microsoft, we're not giving them a dime.
So no programmer in Redmond is going to get rich off this. We're going to put money into, as our half of the partnership, supporting the local provision of community centers that can deploy the Microsoft software and training and hardware equipment, so both our sets of resources are going into the developing country recipients and to poor communities in those countries in which this program is targeted.
QUESTION: A question for Mr. Gates: This release here talks about the languages involved, English, French, Spanish and German, given the fact that some of these initial projects are going to be in Egypt, Morocco, Somalia, it would seem to me that you would also want Arabic in the not-too-distant future. Any plans being made along those lines?
GATES: Yes, absolutely. In fact, in order to do that we'll be able to draw on some of the work we've done both in Egypt and Jordan, which have been two leading countries in terms of saying that they want to get IT skills out there. And we've done, in partnership with local companies in both countries, development of Arabic training materials and those can be leveraged for these programs.
One thing we're very proud of, is that in doing software like Windows and Office we adopt that software to almost 100 different languages and so even languages that I don't recognize, you know, there are people that want their local language supported and we've made that completely straightforward so we have complete compatibility and yet Windows and Office can let people work in their local languages so that's a very key point and one that is definitely part of the program.
QUESTION: If you could just clarify how much of the billion dollars over five years is new being announced today and how much is already in progress because the press release also says that since May of 2003 you've committed $50 million.
GATES: Yeah, the billion dollars is the so called Unlimited Potential program that got kicked off last year. We've been ramping that up and so we already have put out $50 million but as you can see from the simple math we'll get to where we're putting up $200 million a year in software and cash into the program and so we're gonna move up, we'll get up to that level quite rapidly and the partnership with the UNDP is a wonderful step in that because in every one of these countries understanding which communities, what infrastructure, you know, who are the local companies we should be working with, UNDP will help us in doing that. So, this announcement will let us get to that $200 million a year sometime during that rate of giving sometime during this calendar year.
QUESTION: I was wondering if Mr. Gates could clarify what kind of software will be made available and considering that, especially developing countries, have been quite vocal about Linux, if Linux fits in this program at all?
GATES: Well what Microsoft is providing is the software that Microsoft has - it's Windows, Office, the development tools that Microsoft has, all the things that we invest now over six billion dollars a year in pushing forward, and so people who come to these centers have access to the very latest, the very best software.
Obviously in these various centers they'll be adding software from other providers based on whatever they see the demand as.
So there's no exclusivity, but our role is to help with the expertise and curriculum around software that is quite popular and happens to come from Microsoft.
QUESTION: I saw online this morning that Mr. Bill Gates is coming to Austria next week, to Vienna, what's the main issue of your visit in Vienna, are you presenting your new program there as well or are there other main topics?
GATES: Well, I'm here in Europe and that's an opportunity to get out and meet with customers and partners, so I'll be in a number of countries including Austria, hearing from customers there, what they would like to see us do better, sharing with them the roadmap that we have ahead so they can plan on that, so there's no dramatic announcement, it's just part of my regular efforts to stay in touch with key constituencies and Vienna is an important part of that.
QUESTION: I am wondering if the program will include Turkey also and when if yes?
MALLOCH-BROWN: Well, I think the answer is that Turkey and the UNDP better make a strong case as to the need for it because as Bill said there's no limits, this program can go anywhere where there is a demonstrated need and we certainly are already doing quite a lot in IT in Turkey and believe that there are a lot of communities which would benefit from this kind of access support.
GATES: And I'd say for our part, we've started to do some things along these lines in Turkey and working with UNDP will allow us to accelerate what we're doing. Turkey is a good example of a country where, like Egypt and several others, the interest level seems to be very high and so finding local partners, I think, will be very straight forward.
QUESTION: Very brief, just wondering exactly a year ago I think we were here and you made a significant donation, that was at that time the Foundation I think it was aimed at to fight against malaria, wasn't it something like $200 million dollars that you pledged to put in that? I was wondering if you could elaborate what has happened since, is there any progress made?
GATES: Actually, yes, Davos has been a place that a number of donations for world health have been made. It was four years ago that we made the commitment to the vaccine fund that was a Foundation commitment of $750 million. It was three years ago that we made the commitment to the international AIDS vaccine initiative I think that was a hundred and some million dollars at the time. Last year was the announcement of what were called the grand challenges that was a statement that we put forth $200 million for people who've come forward with ideas about improving world health and I am on a panel tomorrow where we'll talk about some of the progress there, the response to that has really been quite incredible. The malaria announcement which you are referring to, which was $168 million, was actually commitment made last fall when I was in Mozambique and that also is going very well. The trials, obviously, of malaria vaccine, require a lot of different steps, but the results from the early trials are very promising.
JOSE MARIA FIGUERES: I would just like to add to that from the World Economic Forum perspective that we should give these different initiatives a time to mature. If I can just go back to the first one that Bill mentioned which was a (inaudible) that was the global alliance for vaccination and immunization, four years later they are operating in more than 54 nations of the 74 poorest nations with per capita's of less that one thousand dollars per year. Providing a full program of vaccination to a very important percentage of 30 million children in the world that never had it. And therefore we were losing 10% of them a year. So if we give these projects a time to mature, we can really scale up and have the impact in terms of development that we're looking for.
Ladies and gentleman, thank you very much.
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