Look To The Stars News: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

Bill Gates Publishes Annual Letter Covering Health And Education

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 13:00:00 +0000

Bill Gates has released his annual letter from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, in which he speaks candidly about his work at the foundation and outlines what needs to be done in terms of global health and education.

“Throughout my careers in software and philanthropy—and in each of my annual letters—a recurring theme has been that innovation is the key to improving the world,” he writes. "When innovators work on urgent problems and deliver solutions to people in need, the results can be magical.

“The G20 conference itself was a microcosm of the challenges that leaders face, with the Eurozone crisis taking a lot of their time. I was impressed that the leaders took 90 minutes to discuss my report and related issues, and I hope they will set aside time for development when they meet in Mexico for next year’s summit.

Bill Nighy Narrates Video For Tropical Diseases Campaign

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 13:45:00 +0000

Launched this week by the Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases, the END7 campaign featuring Bill Nighy is dedicated to eliminating seven major neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) as a public health threat to poor communities by the end of 2020.

“I’m shocked by how much devastation these diseases cause. But what shocks me more is how simple the solution is. Pocket change to provide medicine that can help end not just one disease, but seven,” said actor and campaign sponsor Bill Nighy, who lends his voice to the campaign’s creative animated video.

NTDs infect one in six people worldwide, including 500 million children, and carry a higher health burden than malaria and tuberculosis.

ABC News Supports Million Moms Challenge

Tue, 13 Dec 2011 11:30:00 +0000

March Of Dimes is joining ABC News and the United Nations Foundation in the recently launched Million Moms Challenge.

This first-of-its kind initiative is connecting millions of Americans with millions of moms in developing countries around the world to engage on the critical issues of pregnancy, childbirth and children’s health — moms here helping moms worldwide.

Since its launch on September 19th, 2011, the Million Moms Challenge has built a vibrant community that connects moms across the globe by using the latest social media strategies together with world-class broadcast and digital news platforms to shine a light on the extraordinary challenges faced by mothers and babies in the developing world.

Bill And Melinda Gates Foundation Commits $20 Million To Premature Baby Research

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 12:00:00 +0000

Thirteen million babies are born prematurely every year, but new funding announced today will allow for pioneering research into the causes of preterm births and the development of solutions so they can be prevented.

The Global Alliance to Prevent Prematurity and Stillbirth (GAPPS), an initiative of Seattle Children’s, announced a new Grand Challenges in Global Health program that will seek to discover and develop interventions to prevent preterm birth and stillbirth by limiting infection and improving nutrition. The program, called the Preventing Preterm Birth initiative, is supported by a commitment of US$20 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the organization set up by Bill Gates to support health and education around the world.

Globally, prematurity is the leading cause of death for newborns, every year taking the lives of one million babies before their first month of life. The Preventing Preterm Birth initiative will mobilize the scientific community to discover the reasons behind prematurity and support research into novel technologies and approaches that provide real-world solutions. The initiative was announced at a joint session of the Annual Grand Challenges Meeting and the Keystone Symposia Conference, in New Delhi, India.

Bill And Melinda Gates Attend Malaria Forum

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 15:00:00 +0000

Three hundred leading malaria scientists, global health leaders, policymakers, government officials and advocates gathered last week at the Malaria Forum to discuss great strides in malaria control and address challenges that are impacting the long-term goal of eradication.

“We have seen tremendous success in the control of malaria, thanks to an infusion of resources, innovation, and political will,” said Melinda Gates, co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. “Worldwide, malaria deaths are down 20 percent since 2000.”

More than one million African children have been saved from malaria since 2000. New tools such as long-lasting insecticide treated bed nets and artemisinin-based combination treatments (ACTs)—along with prevention during pregnancy and indoor residual spraying—have made this recent progress possible.

Warren Buffett's Busy Month For Charity

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 12:30:00 +0000

At June’s twelfth annual charity auction, an anonymous winner paid over two and a half million dollars to have lunch for eight with billionaire Warren Buffett.

The proceeds of the auction will go to Glide, a San Francisco organization that offers support and programs to the impoverished in the Bay area.

“Accommodation of love and time and energy and resources can produce a different human being,” Buffett said after visiting Glide and seeing its programs. “What I witnessed was an institution and an individual that really gave up on nobody. They took the people that the rest of the world had forgotten, people who’d given up on themselves.”

America Ferrera And Aimee Garcia Support Graduation Initiative

Wed, 04 May 2011 15:30:00 +0000

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting enlisted the support of Emmy-award winning actress America Ferrera of Ugly Betty on Tuesday in Washington, DC to launch its brand new education initiative, American Graduate, to help improve the nation’s high school graduation rates.

America was joined by actress Aimee Garcia, one of Billboard’s top Latino Stars on the Rise and star of the new film GO FOR IT! Hill Harper also took part.

America Ferrera To Speak Out Against Dropout Epidemic

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 13:00:00 +0000

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), in partnership with America’s Promise Alliance, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, announced today it has added three new speakers who will help launch a significant new initiative to combat the dropout epidemic in the United States on Tuesday, May 3, 2011 at 10:15 a.m. ET live on Facebook.

The speakers – Emmy-award winning actress America Ferrera of Ugly Betty, actor from the hit drama series CSI:NY Hill Harper, and U.S. Deputy Secretary of Education Tony Miller – will discuss the role communities play in boosting graduation rates. Aimee Garcia will also take part.

The program will build on public broadcasting’s long-standing commitment to education by convening conversations and strengthening partnerships between public radio and television stations and local schools, businesses, and community organizations – all with the goal of helping students stay on course to graduate from high school.

Bill Gates Sees A Need For Aid Generosity

Thu, 10 Feb 2011 12:30:00 +0000

“The amazing polio eradication campaign is very close to success – how tragic that would be if it failed because of lack of generosity,” says Bill Gates.

Concerned that governments, looking for places to reduce spending, will target foreign aid, Gates says, “There’s a history of some aid really making a difference – the aid for vaccines, for new seeds – and that’s the kind of aid, even as deficits are so daunting, I’d like to convince governments to keep as a priority.”

In his annual letter, Gates outlined two other benefits of widespread vaccination beyond simply saving lives. One was the reduction in sickness that contributes to disability, affects mental development, hampers human development, and exacerbates the development of economies.

Bill Gates And Warren Buffett Extend The Giving Pledge Through Asia

Tue, 08 Feb 2011 12:30:00 +0000

Bill Gates and Warren Buffett made the headlines a few times last year, asking America’s wealthiest to donate the majority of their wealth to cause/s of their choice, whether during their lifetimes or laid out in their wills. To further encourage billionaires to make such a commitment, Gates and Buffett created the Giving Pledge.

In his 2011 Annual Letter posted on the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation website, Gates says that 58 people have joined the Giving Pledge so far, and top business people in China and India have also shown interest in the idea and called for meetings.

“Warren and I had the meeting in China in November,” says Gates, “and we were very happy with how many people came and how the conversation turned out.”

Bill Gates Sees Surprising Small-Farmer Progress

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 15:00:00 +0000

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has been tracking the progress – and setbacks – of their 2008 grants, and the accomplishments laid out in the 2010 progress report has even Bill Gates surprised.

Supporting select nonprofit agricultural development programs with $306 million in grants for sub-Saharan African and South Asian farmers, the plan was not only to help small-plot farmers feed their families, but to invest in agriculture across the board – from seeds, soil and farm management to markets and government policies – in order to improve productivity, income and, in the end, the lives of individuals.

Bill Gates’ Foundation Expects To Eradicate Polio

Tue, 03 Aug 2010 13:00:00 +0000

Philanthropist Bill Gates posted some positive news on his Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s blog: the world is on the path towards the eradication of polio.

“In the past two decades, polio cases around the world have been reduced by 99 percent,” he says. “If we can get rid of the last 1 percent, polio will become the second major infectious disease, after smallpox, that has ever been completely eliminated.”

But the battle is not a sure win yet. Lapses in vaccinations, incomplete inoculations of the four oral doses required, and a lack of funding continue to pose a threat.

Bill Gates And Warren Buffett’s $600 Billion Charity Challenge

Fri, 16 Jul 2010 12:00:00 +0000

Philanthropists Bill Gates and Warren Buffett have asked 400 of the richest Americans to pledge half of their fortunes to their favorite causes either during their lifetimes or in their wills.

Both Gates and Buffett are worth about 50 billion dollars each, and both are large contributors to charity, including Buffett’s annual contribution to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which Gates has invested over 30 billion dollars in.

At GivingPledge.org, the two call upon other rich people to make a conscious commitment now rather than putting it off, and to go public with their pledges to motivate others to do the same.

Warren Buffett Makes Annual Charity Donation

Wed, 07 Jul 2010 13:00:00 +0000

Billionaire Warren Buffett has given away $1.93 billion in company shares to charity this year, after pledging to give away 99% of his wealth to good causes in 2006.

The money is split between five charities – the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Sherwood Foundation, the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, the NoVo Foundation, and the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation.

The donation follows last month’s online auction to have lunch with the business legend, which raised $2.63 million for the Glide Foundation, a diverse, cutting-edge church and nonprofit offering innovative programs to poor and marginalized people. The foundation serves 700,000 free meals a year and provides dozens of other social services on a $12 million budget, according to Cecil Williams, the foundation’s chief executive officer and minister of the associated church.

Bill Gates Clarifies The Issue Of Overpopulation

Tue, 06 Jul 2010 12:30:00 +0000

During a Q&A at TED, philanthropist Bill Gates, co-founder of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, was asked if his charity, by saving millions from dying of malaria and other diseases, is contributing to the problem of overpopulation in the world.

He was grateful to get the question, since it allowed him to clarify the very issue he started out with himself.

“This is a very important question to get right because it was absolutely key for me. When our Foundation first started up, it was focused on reproductive health. That was the main thing we did because I thought population growth in poor countries is the biggest problem they face. You’ve got to help mothers who want to limit family size have the tools and education to do that. That’s the only thing that really counts. Well then I came across articles that showed that the key thing you can do to reduce population growth is actually improve health. And that sounds paradoxical. You think, ‘OK, better health means more kids not less kids.’

Bill Nighy Blogs About G8 Meeting In Canada

Tue, 29 Jun 2010 12:30:00 +0000

British actor Bill Nighy was in Canada this week for the G8 meeting, and took the opportunity to blog about his experience.

“I arrived at the G8 by a roundabout route,” the star wrote in the Huffington Post. "Just a day earlier, I was standing in Dandora, a toxic tip on the edge of Nairobi where little girls as young as five live on a mound composed of toxic and human waste. They survive by competing with wild pigs for scraps of rubbish, forced to sell their bodies to get access to the richest pickings.

“I was there to bear witness to the good work aid does before traveling to the Toronto summit as Oxfam’s Global Ambassador. Comic Relief, a British charity, rescues children from this dump and gives them schooling in a safe, almost fairytale environment.

Celebrity Women Deliver At Empowerment Conference

Mon, 07 Jun 2010 14:30:00 +0000

Ashley Judd, Annie Lennox and Christy Turlington will be featured celebrity speakers at this year’s Women Deliver conference in Washington.

Women Deliver 2010, an international conference that starts June 5 and runs until Wednesday June 9, will host the world’s most influential leaders to address women’s health issues. Women Deliver is expected to be the highest-profile and largest ever event to focus on maternal and women’s health and catalyze global action on the issue. The theme of the conference is: “Delivering solutions for girls and women.”

Expected to attend the event are United Nations Foundation special guests Ali Larter, Jennifer Beals and Rachael Leigh Cook, and VIP participants include Melinda Gates (co-chair, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation); UN leader Ban Ki-moon; Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (tentative); Michelle Bachelet (former Chile President); Valerie Jarrett, Senior Advisor and Assistant to the President for Intergovernmental Affairs and Public Engagement, US; Cecile Richards (President, Planned Parenthood Federation of America); Arianna Huffington (Huffington Post); Nicholas Kristof (NY Times); Christiane Amanpour (CNN); Nancy Gibbs (Time Magazine); Tina Brown (The Daily Beast); Andrew Jack (Financial Times); Joan Walsh (Salon.com); Kathleen Sibelius (Secretary, US Department of Health & Human Services); Melanne Verveer (US Ambassador-at-Large, Global Women’s Issues); 12 International First Ladies; top NGO, UN, USAID and Administration leaders.

Bill Gates Has Big Charity Ideas

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 11:30:00 +0000

Over the next ten years, Bill Gates plans to spend $10 billion on vaccines for children in the developing world. That’s more than double what his Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has spent in the past ten years, and which is already seen as a phenomenal success.

At the TED conference last month, however, he put vaccines for the poor countries aside in order to address climate change as he thinks energy and climate are most important to those same poorest countries: climate determines if crops grow or not, and energy prices determine what they can afford.

Gates says we need energy miracles, and now we have a deadline. To reduce C02 output to near zero, which is the necessary target according to current scientific predictions, Gates thinks TerraPower might have an answer. He is placing his hopes on innovation and he’s backing a traveling wave reactor design that would supply the world’s energy using mostly the depleted uranium waste from today’s reactors, of which there is plenty, instead of using only enriched uranium like current reactors. Nevertheless, he recognizes the need for many solutions.

Bill Gates Puts His Philanthropic Diaries Online

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 12:00:00 +0000

Spurred by his philanthropy, not only is Bill Gates now on twitter, but he’s also set up a website detailing what he’s learning about global issues.

In Gates’ own words:

“Since leaving my fulltime job at Microsoft to dedicate more time to our foundation, a lot of people have asked me what I’m working on. It often feels like I’m back in school, as I spend a lot of my time learning about issues I’m passionate about.

Bill Gates Gives Big To Irish Aid Agency

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 11:30:00 +0000

Microsoft founder Bill Gates will give $41 million to Irish aid agency Concern Worldwide to help fight baby and mother death rates in developing countries.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will fund an initiative that will field-test new ways to deliver maternal, newborn and child health solutions in six countries in Africa and South Asia.

“Half a million women die every year in childbirth, the majority in developing countries,” said Tom Arnold, chief executive of Concern Worldwide. “The whole point of this is to look for breakthroughs.”

Warren Buffett Donates To Bill Gates Foundation

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 11:30:00 +0000

Billionaire Warren Buffett has donated a further $1.25 billion in Berkshire Hathaway Inc. stock to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

The donation is part of a series of donations promised by the business legend, who has pledged the majority of his wealth to the foundation run by the former Microsoft chairman to enhance healthcare and reduce extreme poverty.

Buffett also donated $125 million to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation and nearly $50 million each to the Sherwood Foundation, the Howard G. Buffett Foundation and the NoVo Foundation.

Annual Buffett Lunch Auction Bidding Hits $75,000

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 15:15:00 +0000

Each year around June, former World’s Richest Man Warren Buffett auctions off the opportunity to dine with him, and the well-heeled winners’ bids go straight to charity.

In the 6 previous years that Buffett has presented this opportunity, financiers and entrepreneurs keen to share his legendary market wisdom have handed over more than $4.2 million, primarily to Glide, a charity that supports San Francisco’s homeless community.

The 2006 lunch went for $610,000, while 2007’s fetched $650,000, and last year’s pre-market-collapse lunch cost the winner a record $2.1 million.

Bill Gates Foundation Empowers Africa’s Livestock Farmers

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 12:00:00 +0000

In some of the poorest nations on earth, 25% of livestock are dying from preventable diseases. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and UK Department for International Development (DFID) are donating £28 million to stifle it.

The donation went to charity GALVMed (Global Alliance for Livestock Veterinary Medicines), who will focus on 13 diseases over 10 years, some of which can pass from animal to human causing even more disturbing numbers of deaths.

But in communities that depend on livestock for basic levels of income and food, proper distribution of vaccines is key. Thus, besides making existing vaccines available and developing some new ones, Galvmed has been developing a strategy for the distribution of them through supply networks, community-level networks and activities to empower local people, reported The Times.

How Bill Gates Is Trying To Change The World

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 12:30:00 +0000

Bill Gates spoke at a TED conference this month about two things his Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is working on and some of the obstacles it’s facing. He proposed two questions. The first one was: How do we stop a deadly disease that’s spread by mosquitoes?

Now that malaria no longer exists in the rich countries of the world, more money is being spent on baldness cures than on eliminating malaria from poor countries. “Now, baldness is a terrible thing,” Gates quipped, "and rich men are afflicted. That’s why that priority has been set.

Bill Gates Bites Back At Malaria

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 12:30:00 +0000

It was not a “swarm of mosquitoes,” unless you believe that less than ten mosquitoes constitutes a “swarm.” And despite news reports to the contrary, the audience was not upset. They laughed loudly when Microsoft-founder Bill Gates released the bugs. On YouTube videos, the elite audience laughed and applauded when Gates declared about mosquitoes, “There’s no reason only poor people should have the experience.”

Yet news reports described the insects as a “swarm,” the audience as “shocked,” and the stunt as “a show stopper.” However, Gates’ speech on the dangers of malaria continued without a hitch, as did the conference itself.