 "Photo: Jon Huang")
Microsoft Corp. founder and billionaire Bill Gates urged students to help the less fortunate and get involved in a cause of their choice at a talk Wednesday morning.
Gates spoke to UT computer science and electrical and computer engineering students as part of his five-campus tour. He will conclude the tour before stepping down from his full-time position at Microsoft to focus on the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
"Today, it seems that the personal computer has made a huge difference, but the technological innovation in the next decade will really surprise people," Gates said.
"This phenomenon of the personal computer and the Internet are not confined to the United States or even to the rich countries. In fact, it's this technology that has made the world a smaller place," Gates said.
Gates criticized the decreased federal funding to research initiatives at the university and commercial levels.
"The benefits of long-term oriented research, both in the university environment and in the commercial environment, is greatly underestimated," he said. "We should make sure that our relative advantage and our relative goals are maintained in a very strong form."
This concern was shared among computer science faculty and Gates at an hour-long private roundtable discussion prior to his talk to students.
"The focus of the meeting was almost entirely on the types of research programs and focus that faculty members have," said Benjamin Kuipers, a computer science professor. "He raised a question of how Microsoft research could improve its relationship with university researchers."
Kuipers said they talked about the funding provided by the National Science Foundation and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency because the federal government has been changing its focus to mission-specific research that fails to fuel the pipeline of the nation's economy.
Gates also said people need to address social issues such as economic development, infectious diseases and education - all of which are focuses of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
"The fact is when you get down to the most needy people in the world, you're talking about an environment where there's no electricity, no trained people in the picture," Gates said. "We also need to think about how this is made available to everyone."
Gates said before he dropped out of Harvard University, he was not aware of the living conditions of the poorest people in the world.
The people with the most needs are not given the resources they need, Gates said.
"If we take malaria, that is still killing over a million people every year, I guarantee one-tenth as much money is put into malaria as is put into baldness. Baldness hasn't killed anybody yet," he said.
Gates said in an interview with The Daily Texan that he advises students to pick a disease or a development issue that interests them and find out what they can do as a citizen, employee or individual to make a difference. He said he also encourages students to actually go see how tough conditions are in the areas affected by such a problem.
Everyone should push the U.S. government to give more aid, but beyond that, every person should pick a cause of his or her choice to pursue, Gates said.
"If we think hard about these things, we can come up with solutions," he said. "Don't be as na've as I was about the human condition, particularly the poorest 2 billion. Take some element of that, and in your area of expertise, how can you make any contribution?"
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