Bill Gates at Concordia College

thank you thank you   okay well good morning I can't believe what a punctual  group this is I hope you didn't come expecting the   cornstock rock bands to be here I can't quite  live up to that level of noise at least and boy   I'm impressed with nice weather I thought maybe  people would be staying outside today instead of   coming into the auditorium so I'm glad to see you  all all here I'll talk a tiny bit about the two   careers I've had and then of course we'll spend  most of our time answering whatever questions   the students have you know I feel incredibly lucky  that I've had both my career at Microsoft and now   my full-time work at the foundation where I get to  work on super interesting problems and and have a   real sense of progress that the innovative work  that was back in both places really is is making   a difference. For Microsoft it was about the magic  of software a number of people were doing great   work in Hardware the miracle of the microprocessor  of the optic fiber disk storage and what my friend   Paul and I got to see was that the key that would  unlock all of that take advantage of it create a   market for it would be having incredible software  and not just software from us but a whole software   industry that would create solutions and ideally  do that on a kind of high volume low price basis   so the computing would move from being to love  just a few large corporations in the government   to literally a tool for every individual and  become the thing that would allow us to create   and communicate and analyze in a way that never  would have been possible before really something   to multiply our our capabilities and the personal  computer connected up to the Internet really has   become that tool you know from the early days  when it was just a machine that hardly could do   anything at all and even the computer companies of  the day ridiculed it you know saw it as something   that was just a few hobbyists messing around it's  become something that we almost take for granted   you know rich documents you know nice type face  things that you can create that you know would   have required lots and lots of money in the past  you know those are the basic tools that many of   you have grown up with and will be able to take  to the next level that digital revolution is in   no sense at an end whether we think about the  way we're going to interact with speech and   pen and vision robots that are under software  control if we think about taking that digital   technology and what it can mean in education  in health in modeling the various Sciences to   understand tough problems and energy and material  science or biology we are really just at the very   beginning now for myself as I got into my late  40s and 50s and I'd seen the kind of needs in   the world then I was lucky enough to have the  resources that Microsoft provided I decided to   to focus more on giving away than than making  money and so I've gotten a chance to travel the   world be out in Africa and Asia quite a bit  and see the needs that are out there and now   our foundation is very focused on global health  focused on agriculture because the majority of   the the very poor in the world are farmers who  have very small plots of land so any increase   in productivity or certainty of their crop coming  in can make huge difference for them and you might   think of a career in software you know selling  to people who can afford personal computers and   now the career that the foundation is being very  different and certainly they're different in the   sense that now it's about vaccines now a lot  it's it's with various governments the donor   government's the government's in import countries  but it its core it's really basically the same   thing which is finding innovators people who've  got breakthrough ideas be willing to back their   understand what they're working on a measure  of what they're coming up with I'll try and   make sure that when it's delivered it really has  the impact it's supposed to be in getting into a   feedback loop driven by very precise measurement  and so I view all the things that I learned at   Microsoft is really just preparing me as well as  providing the resources to do the work that I do   now that's a great pleasure to be here there's a  lot of amazing people who helped out Microsoft at   work including a lot that work in Fargo there's a  lot of great traditions of Concordia and the other   schools here about getting students out into the  world to understand what's going on I'm excited   to be here on the weekend that we're dedicating  this Offutt business school that I think will   be a great new asset for the college glad that  you've got programs where you send kids off to   places like India to learn new things you've got  corporate sponsors for that I understand you've   got some students who are working on raising  money for the meningitis vaccine which is an   incredibly worthy thing I've actually been and  seen in the meningitis built in Africa that the   kids who got that disease before the vaccine had  come along and now seeing that in many of those   areas that disease is being wiped out because  the vaccines becoming more and more available   so I think the opportunity for innovation for  all the views you go out and pick your careers   and the years ahead are probably greater than ever  but having your eyes open to the great needs of   the world including the needs of the poorest I  think will help you pick the thing that's most   fulfilling for you and so I'm excited to be here  today and answer any of these questions thank you thank you Bill you talked about the magic of  software and we're sitting here at a residential   liberal arts college and we like to think of  the learning that students experience here   as informational and also relational the kind of  mentoring and guidance that students receive and   also experiential what you were just alluding to  where students are engaged in extended research   projects and other other kinds of work in the  world what is what do you see is the relationship   between the magic of software and the way that  undergraduates learn now and the way that they   may be learning in the future well certainly  I envy kids growing up today you know when I   was young I had to read the world book sort of  alphabetically and it didn't have any videos you   could click on and it was you know it's weird to  learn things alphabetically it's kind of hard to   create about the same framework because you can  with all these great online materials and so I   think the empowerment now you know the opportunity  to see what's going on whether it's in fields of   science or in places that are far away including  else most need it's never been so great it's a   wonderful time to be a student now software in  terms of letting us simulate things whether it's   scientific phenomena or social phenomena it's  getting better and better and so I think almost   any major that you have nowadays understanding  you know what software how it's going to change   those activities it's a key part of being at the  cutting edge thank you one of the best parts about   this gathering this morning is the opportunity  for for Bill to be in dialogue with our students   and so I'm going to turn to ali to ask the first  question good morning mr. gates my name is Ali   Kafka I'm a healthcare management and Spanish  student here at Concordia the key goal of our   core curriculum here is to BREW which is becoming  responsibly engaged in the world in your opinion   what are the most critical issues in the world  today that students should address well I think   there's quite a diversity of problems in the world  today list a few that I think are maybe the most   important I think the awareness of the great  divide between the rich and the poor and how   if we're not careful that divide is just going to  grow and grow whether it's on a country-by-country   basis or even within a country where you've got  very poor people if you're in a poor country or   you're often in a bit of a trap that is the health  is very poor the infrastructure is very poor the   stability is quite low the nutrition is poor in  Africa about 30 to 40 percent of the kids never   fully developed their brain functions because  they've been subject to health challenges and so   making sure that because they're geographically  in a different place from the rich making sure   that they're not left behind whether it's purely  for a humanitarian reason or even in terms of   thinking about stability in the world so you know  paying attention to the poorest I think we have a   big challenge in terms of how our energy economy  works that over time we're going to have to have   some way that we're not pushing global warming and  that's a challenge because it's many decades away   and the degree of difficulty it causes is actually  fairly uncertain but even so there's a lot that   needs to be done now particularly in innovation to  build low-cost tools that it'd be easy to not do   that work because we're too focused on the short  term and not planning for that finally I'd say in   in areas like healthcare we are we have a model in  the United States that's kind of an unaffordable   model and so you know figuring out how we're going  to meet the promise of making state-of-the-art   medical care available to everybody without  completely either bankrupting the government are   taking other government functions like education  and defunding those in a way that's a real problem   for the future of our country both an absolute  and compared to others and I'd highlight those   three as ones that you know it's going to take  all the ingenuity that all of you have to figure   out the solutions thank you the next question  comes from Philip Mr. Gates Philip Camille and   I'm a biology student here at Concordia College  Concordia along with two other local institutions   have developed the nation's first undergraduate  vaccinology degree I'm gonna be the first student   from Concordia to obtain that degree um I was  wondering if you could speak along the lines   of the importance of vaccines and some of the  challenges that come about with this particular   field well vaccines I can't say enough good things  about they're really the the miracle technology   if you take the health field as a whole it spends  less than 2% of its money on vaccines but close to   50% of the medical benefits you get from having a  health system come from vaccines a kind of extreme   example of that is smallpox this was a disease  that was killing over 2 million children every   year and counted actually for about 10% of all  childhood deaths because a smallpox vaccine was   created and it was delivered out to everybody in  this very intense eradication campaign that became   the first disease that was ever eliminated  all together was certified as gone in 1979   and you know we haven't had to have anybody get  smallpox since then right now in fact this week   I just came back from a two-day conference in the  Middle East where we were raising the money to   eradicate polio which will become within the  next six years the second disease ever to be   eradicated so we raised four billion of the 5.5  billion we need to get that done so vaccines you   know whether it's measles or diarrhea pneumonia  getting them out to all the children in the world   and then inventing some new ones we don't yet have  a vaccine for things like malaria or tuberculosis   I understand there's some work here on a hookworm  vaccine which is a fantastic thing hookworm is a   real problem not so much in terms of deaths but  in terms of this nutrition thing I was talking   about where it drains your capacity and so as a  student you're really not able to benefit from   being in school if you have the burden of hookworm  which is super prevalent in in many of these poor   countries so immunology understanding the immune  system and then figuring out how vaccines can make   the immune system respond in such a way that you  get lifelong protection that's the way that we're   going to eventually eradicate malaria and HIV and  TB and all these different diseases and so we put   over our foundation over a billion dollars a year  into vaccine research and it's a very exciting   time because partly because of diseases like HIV  there's a some great fundamental research that's   gone on that helps us understand a lot better  what we need to do to make these new vaccines   bill I'm wondering as we wait for our next student  questionnaire with the Gates Foundation how do you   come to decisions about where to help and how to  help the kind of help that you ought to provide   and what your partners ought to be for these  incredibly complicated and global challenges   that's a great question Melinda and I pick two  things to focus on one is for the United States   we decided education was the key to the strength  of the country and its ability to deliver on its   promise of equity and so about a quarter of what  we do about a billion a year goes to that and then   the balance we said would go to help the poorest  the seventy-five percent and there we looked and   saw ok, what could really change their condition  and we saw that health care was primary that you   know those parents care about their children  living and growing up in a healthy way as much   as all parents on the war old and yet very little  had been done in fact we found that we had lots of   ways that spending less than $1,500 we could save  a life that is by inventing a vaccine or getting   a vaccine out there and so those lives are being  treated right now is being worth less than $1500   and that was kind of stunning to me I thought when  I came to philanthropy that all the really good   stuff all the really high-impact stuff somebody  would have done you know we would just get to   do the next marginal thing which you know wouldn't  even be that amazing.Kind of unfortunatley for the   world some of these great opportunities weren't  being worked on when we first gave 40 million to   malaria which was 10% to the amount being spent  on baldness drug we became the world's biggest   funder "its too late for me" that's one of the  great medical stories is that the way we deal   with worms other than hookworm right now actually  that a drug was invented for American dogs rich   dogs and somebody just said well let's try it on  the humans in Africa it happened to work perfectly   and then it was donated which is a fantastic thing  but it never would have IV mekt and never would   have been created except that these rich dogs  needed to be dewormed and and so the priorities   we have when they're driven by the market you  know they're 95 percent right and that that's a   wonderful thing but it does miss something like  malaria because those consumers have no voice   because they have no money and so the priorities  the resources don't go for these things and so   we found what you call extreme low-hanging fruit  in terms of all the things that kill children so   our metric that we say did we have a good year  or not our metric is how much did we reduce the   number of children who died and in the year I was  born it was over 20 million a couple years ago   last year's been measured it was six point nine  million so we've gone from twenty five percent of   all children under five dying as recently as  1962 now it's under 6% and if we in 15 years   don't get that down to 2% then we're not doing  our job that that can be done thank you thank you like to call like to call on anyway for our  next student question good morning mr. gates   I am a Eway from China and I am finance student at  Concordia for any organization to survive over the   long term it needs a sustainable financial basis  so how does the foundation balance the passion   of the social purpose organization with the needs  for fiscal responsibility we're absolutely right   that the private sector has a certain discipline  that comes from wanting to stay alive and if a   company's not using resources well then people  don't buy their products and eventually they   don't get to tie up society's resource that that  company will disappear and so the the private   sector you know is amazing we don't you know we  don't have government discussions about are there   enough tai restaurants or Chinese restaurants  we just let the marketplace decide you know what   kind of cars should be built the marketplace  decides all these amazing complex things that   the marketplace is so good at and you can compare  you know economies that are market driven versus   economies that are not for example in the case of  China how the economy was managed up to about 1980   and then you know with the same human resources  how it was managed from 1980 till today courtesy   to some degree of Deng Xiaoping's leadership but  being willing to let the market shape not only   agriculture but all those different activities  it's amazing and so philanthropy is dangerous   because we don't have that same life-threatening  problem of okay nobody's buying this stuff we'd   better make it better and so philanthropy a lot of  it is is not good thinking you know it's kind of   hopeful thinking and you know may or may not have  that impact that's okay what the sector has to do   in return for having that limitation is it has to  be willing to take on very aggressive risky things   it has to pick the things that the market won't  do for some reason and the government won't do   for some reason of the three sectors philanthropy  is by far the smallest and so it has to be about   really new and different things like you know  Rockefeller Foundation's funding of the Green   Revolution which and nobody really thought that  would work you know they've funded Norman Borlaug   to go down and you know more people are alive  today because of those breakthroughs than any   other scientific innovation other than vaccines  and so it's it's it's a sector that really has   to think about its uniqueness and be a bit tougher  on measurement than it it often is thank you thank   you thank you I think that we have a recorded  question now from Jessica mr. gates my name is   Jess Roscoe and I'm a communications and global  studies student at Concordia but I'm currently   studying abroad in Tanzania my question for  you is this from your assessment what critical   innovations are needed in East Africa in order to  create sustainable farm productivity and growth   in order to create sustainable for farming yeah  the if you look at agricultural productivity in   Africa it's about one sixth in a per hectare  of the United States or Europe or China and if   you look at those three regions over the last 50  years they've all gone through a dramatic change   in productivity over a factor - in productivity  and Africa on the other hand is stayed essentially   flat in fact some areas because the depleted soils  are actually less productive today than they were   in the past and so it's a bit of a trap if you  have low productivity and your ability to invest   say in fertilizer or better seeds or irrigation  type infrastructure or even to learn the agronomic   practices that might let you do multi cropping or  do more cash crops and then be able to buy your   staple crops with the cash you receive from that  you very much stuck into this subsistence mode   and the lack of infrastructure you know roads  basically mean that all of your inputs are way   more expensive the seeds that herbicides anything  you're going to use cost you a lot more than   farmers elsewhere in the world fertilizer is about  50 percent more expensive and that of course is a   very significant cost you don't have hybrid seed  infrastructure so you give up the productivity   would get there the crops in Africa are often  orphan crops sorghum millet cassava they're not   the percentage that are the big three rice maize  wheat is fairly small and their weather conditions   are different enough that they haven't been able  to use those main varieties now this is this can   all be solved some fixed costs of investment in  getting the right seeds to them and getting the   right extension system to them a little bit  of infrastructure and you can raise African   productivity we've had an experiment in Ethiopia  where they open up the seed market and we funded   a bunch of new seed companies and they've seen a  50 percent agricultural productivity improvement   over five years which is quite phenomenal you  know particularly you're at subsistence you go   up 50 percent that really changes your ability to  afford the school fees and things that can uplift   your family and and make a huge difference so we  need to intensify the work now climate change is   going to affect tropical regions more than any  other part of the world so you have this irony   that the people who did the least to cause the  problem are the ones we're going to suffer by far   the most because they don't have buffer stocks and  a bad year really means not having having enough   to eat for them particularly for their children  so things like drought resistance traits using   various techniques including genetic techniques  to create the better seeds are absolutely needed   for Africa to achieve these levels of productivity  with the kind of weather changes that are working   against them let me ask a quick follow-up to  Jessica's question you talked about the barrier   of resources you talked about weather and climate  how important is it when when you're engaged with   an area like the one you were describing to work  with people who know the culture who know you   know what life is like you know in a particular  place as it's been lived for a long long time is   it is it is it mainly a matter of importing the  technology that we know what's the relationship   there well often they're using local varieties  and if that's what they're eating that's what   they're used to and they're comfortable with their  practices and so you have to find what's the trust   network to let them be willing to experiment and  try different things and actually one of the most   amazing things came out of a group in India  we'd worked with where instead of extension   being an expert showing up onto the farm what  it created a thing called digital green where   they went out with a video camera and asked local  farmers who are getting high productivity to talk   about what they were doing and then they you  know went back edited created a DVD with lots   of local farmer speaking local dialect you know  with photos of what was going on and then took   that out and got farmers groups to come together  and see that and they got per dollar invested four   times better adoption than the classic Indian  Extension Service where some person who knows   more but isn't trusted may not even speak the  local dialect is coming in and talking to them   so there's a lot of social innovation required  if you want to change these practices one of the   best adopted crops we've ever had is a rice that  rice normally when it gets submerged if you have   a lot of rain will die off so that when the water  goes away you get no crop so there's just one gene   that you can put in that makes it stay there  and then when the water goes away you a full   yield that one is so vivid that people could  see it and so we've gotten a million farmers   in India loan a million that's a lot of farmers  now their farms aren't as big as around here but   to adopt this new variety and so a little bit  when we think of our product profiles thinking   about how we can make it so strong that they  can actually see the differences as part of it   as well so it's it's definitely we have a lot of  good seeds that we wonder why they're not using   because we haven't created these these mechanisms  to make it clear and and work with them to make   a transition thank you thank you let's go turn  to our next student question which is from Beth   good morning mr. gates my name is Beth Osman  I'm studying accounting here at Concordia and   my question for you is in 2010 you and your  wife joined Warren Buffett in creating the   Giving Pledge which encourages the country's  wealthiest to donate to charitable causes The   Giving Pledge is thought to have more of a moral  contract rather than a legal one do you believe   that this will enhance the impact the cause or  excuse me the pledge will have one thing that's   phenomenal is that philanthropy in the United  States is more widespread than in any other   country and that's not just about rich people  the Carnegie's and Rockefellers that's about   the entire country you know across the country  as a whole about 2% of all income is given every   year it's about 300 billion a year now some of  that's religious giving about 25 percent but 75   percent goes into other causes as well and it's  kind of amazing if you look at it state-by-state   it's almost 2 percent everywhere Utah's 5 percent  so they really do follow the dictates of tithing   at least half the state on average seems  to be living up to that and the level of   philanthropy and not just financial although  that's part of it the amount of volunteering   the number of nonprofit organizations in the u.s.  is way greater than in any other country and it's   real strength that people are willing to say yes  the government is supposed to do a lot of things   but we as citizens can organize and look at local  conditions go to local businesses and do services   that are on top of that that are complementary  to what the the government can do and so every   it's an envy of every other country in the world  they're trying to figure out how they get these   things to happen the idea of The Giving Pledge  was to get together people who are already doing   philanthropy so the first few dinners we had  were just to sit and listen to the stories of   George Soros or Chuck Feeney or David Rockefeller  who are really innovative philanthropists um use   that to inspire and and teach us what they were  thinking about that's why we did the dinners to   start with then the dinners got to people who are  thinking about philanthropy but not that involved   and they were saying well could we create a group  that would get together and I just didn't I didn't   want to have something more just everybody would  get together I wanted people to have some skin in   the game and so he said well what about a pledge  you know what what should the number be and some   people said it should be a third some people said  it'd be 90% but was nice to say the majority of   your wealth and so now as we said we have 105  people we've just started including people from   outside the United States but it's very much it's  been a huge success of people to get together and   we're really trying to encourage people to be  a bit more risk-taking we're encouraging them   not to do it as much through their will to get  involved younger and use when they're vibrant   and their the skills they have from however they  made the resources are still very much intact so   you know younger working more with each other  and taking on tougher problems and it's hard to   measure but I think we really are starting to  have that that effect and I think it'll affect   generations in the future to really almost this  is a standard practice thank you thank you how   does the how does the habit of philanthropy get  cultivated I mean you were talking about the   fact that the United States that there's a higher  percentage of giving across across the nation I   assume over a fairly long period of time but what  how does that happen and and what should be done   that we can continue to cultivate that habit not  only among those of very great resources but the   rest of us yeah when you listen to the stories of  the people who are doing large-scale philanthropy   it's always amazing how much their parents example  comes up that they had a parent who even with very   modest means was setting aside some portion and  we're spending significant time volunteering you   know creating these organizations or making them  work and that the person who had the big success   really felt like that was it was incumbent upon  them that you know their parents even if they   aren't around sort of looking down and seeing okay  are you fulfilling what our family values are and   so I think it's pretty important to get people  at a young age in a volunteering scene different   in these organizations I've been very involved in  United Way over the years because it in terms of   your local social service organizations is quite  phenomenal in getting them to work together seen   the needs you know anybody who wants go out and  see what's happening and see which one's really   appealed to them United Way's has been phenomenal  at at performing that and I'd say it's partly how   I got implicated into philanthropy as my parents  were very involved in in the United Way and would   even come home and talk about how that money  was allocated and the the different causes that   they had to make choices between thank you let's  go to our next student question it's from Matt hi there mr. gates my name is Matt Ganz and  I'm studying finance and writing here and I   I understand that you are a very big proponent  of education reform most notably with respect   to instructor evaluation recently and so with  that in mind what do you believe are the key   initiatives that we must undertake to advance the  field of academics well the u.s. education system   for a long time was the envy of the world and  particularly in the K through 12 area we've now   fallen behind that is the number of dropouts we  have are greater than most other countries that   have this same level of success that we have and  if you benchmark reading skills math skills the US   has gone from being very much in the top to being  below average and so if you look and say okay what   are these other people doing are they spending  more money the answer is no we spent by far the   most money no matter how you benchmark it it's  a percentage of the economy or anything else is   it student-teacher ratio no we're doing better on  that than these others one of the key differences   is that they have a very strong personnel system  that gives feedback to teachers and so they invest   and having other teachers sit in the classroom or  training the principals they actually have career   ladders where at an early stage as a teacher  you are given a lot of guidance and then if   you achieve certain level of skill you move up  and they have three or four different levels   that teachers work at so they have mentor teachers  master teachers and so our system is falling into   a mode where teachers basically get no feedback  you know they get told whether they showed up   but 90 percent of them are marked satisfactory not  better or worse than that and particularly not in   terms of the their practice of how do you calm the  class down or make things interesting to different   types of students and so I think it's important  that we build that feedback system now exactly   how you do that how much you connect that up to  the pace system you know we need experimentation   and we can look at these other countries that  have done it there is a move afoot to do some   of this but whether the investment levels be  enough to make a high quality and whether the   they'll be kind of high stakes that overuse the  test scores for this stuff and and we'll sort of   hurt its reputation it's hard to say at this point  but I'd say it's giving more feedback to teachers   would be the very first thing that would get us  back up to the to be one of the best in the world   thank you we had a little bit of chat before we  came out here sit together about the question   of whether what we need to do in K through 12 is  the same or in some ways different if if Matt had   asked you the question about higher education  what would your answer have been well the us's   position and higher education relative to the  rest of the world is still quite strong there's   only a few things where were some kids drop out  of higher education more higher education is less   affordable relative to average salary level in  the u.s. than it is in in in many countries and   there's a concern that the rigor the amount of  hours that students spend has dropped down quite   a bit over time and doesn't compare favorably to  others on the other hand the quality of the top   institutions are much better than other countries  if you take the top 20 or top hundred you know the   US would be 60% of either of those lists done  on a very objective basis and of course you   see that with the International demand to come  to these schools you know week a lot of schools   could if they chose fill them their rolls up with  full tuition international students if they they   wanted to do that which most you know feel that  that wouldn't fulfill their mission so we need   to renew our strength we're not as far behind  as we are in K through 12 we need to put rigor   back in the system and then we need to look at  affordability including whether or not technology   can come in and help make things more affordable  now there's you know a lot of excitement about   this there's these massively online open courses  MOOCs that various people are doing there's still   our foundation is the biggest funder of those  there's still a lot of work to be done in terms   of how you fit that into the curriculum it's clear  that for the average student just saying it's all   online doesn't work that the engagement discussion  hands-on nature of the study you at least have to   be hybrid so that you can take lectures and put  those online but other things like study groups   until the digital technology gets a lot better  face-to-face is far superior particularly for the   student who's not hyper motivated if a student's  hyper motivated I mean really if they're truly   motivated you just hand in the textbook and say  okay go read it you know you don't need a college   alright colleges and colleges don't know secrets  where it's like oh you had to go there to learn F   equals MA it's in the textbook and if you want  to read you know fineman's lectures on physics   then you're very unusually motivated student and  so it's it's it's very clear we need to be willing   to change and try new things building on what is  a very very strong system for higher ed thank you   thank you let me say in this public setting that  all of Concordia students are hyper motivated but one of the things that what it's interesting  to see is the way in which some of my colleagues   have begun to reverse engineer their courses so  that what used to be done in a lecture fashion is   available in an online form so that the time that  would have been spent in class hearing a lecture   is spent in problem-solving and an experiment  rather than that and I do believe that there   are some students who are excited about physics  and so I'm happy to call on Kudsai I for our next   student question good morning mr. Gates my name is  Kudsai and I'm studying physics and chemistry at   Concordia I'm originally from Zimbabwe as a young  man from Africa pursuing a non-business major what   message do you have for students like me about  our obligation to create sustainable business   developments to the world's most persistent  problems well certainly the sciences have   been a source really profound innovation the  science is broadly defined biology chemistry   physics engineering and they'll continue to be  and it's an amazing time to be in the sciences   we through various simulation techniques will  really understand materials will really understand   chemical reactions including catalysts will really  understand genetics not just human genetics but   also plant genetics I mean the amount we don't  know about plant genetics is pretty mind-blowing   even characteristics like disease resistance  or you know how they think about when they're   willing to grow versus not grow and you know as  we optimize these things that we understand the   opportunity for increased capability is really  amazing so you know for Zimbabwe it's great land   the government policies have not been perfect in  the last say decade to take advantage of that it   was a breadbasket more than feeding itself and  exporting hopefully is those policies come around   politically it can go back to being that with  even higher level productivity in the past you   know that area of South Africa Mozambique Zimbabwe  even parts of Zambia should have the same type of   productivity that you've got in this area here  which is is quite phenomenal so a combination of   science and policy work together there can make  it utterly different than then it's been in the   last decade thank you thank you let me call on  Siot for our next student question Mr. Gates,   my name is saya kasha Felicia and I'm psychology  major I'm actually cultural ambassador of Pakistan   in the United States as you seek to eradicate  polio health care workers have been targeted   in Pakistan Afghanistan how can you achieve the  goal of ending polio and other health initiatives   while such attacks happen now that's a very  good question so we mentioned that polio is   down to only three countries and the three are  Nigeria Pakistan and Afghanistan and as you'd   expect the last three are the hardest three you  know because all the other ones got done people   expect an India to be the hardest in India has  27 million kids born every year kids move around   a lot it has a lot of reasons it should have  been the last country but two years ago we had   our last case now it could get reinfected which  is why we need to double down and get finished   with these other three countries as you said the  in in Pakistan also in Afghanistan Nigeria there   have been terrible rumors against the vaccine  saying that it's you know unclean haroun that   it sterilizes women and so various elements  Taliban related elements have actually gone out   last November and they killed nine of the vaccine  workers they killed one in February they killed   one in March and it's a combination of things  that make them not trust what the government   is doing particularly the polio campaign now  back in the smallpox days they did what we call   days of tranquility where every would lay down  their weapons they'd let the back centers come   in and do their job and so we're trying to do  that aughh become university Red Cross various   religious leaders are trying to get word out so  that people say don't this is not the thing to   go after and you know so the vaccine really is a  good thing that's the truth that's how do you how   do you get the word out in Nigeria it's a group  called Boko Haram that's gone and killed a lot   of the vaccinators and so particularly after this  week's conference that showed we're on track to   raise the money which could have been a problem  that looks like it'll be okay the only thing   that would prevent us from succeeding is this  violence the misunderstanding that eventually   we won't get people to volunteer to come and do  the vaccinations because they're there's so much   at risk so far all the parties in Pakistan have  committed that they're committed to keep going   and the campaigns have continued so far you know  we've got an election coming up that could be a   bit tumultuous we've got that in Afghanistan and  in in a year we have that Nigeria as well so at   this conference we had a lot of great people  coming down from Pakistan to talk to us give   us advice about how we run the campaign thank you  let's turn to Rachel for our next question good   morning mr. gates my name is Rachel su Chi and I'm  majoring in international business in Spanish so   we've all heard stories about wealthy individuals  whose wealth has had negative consequences on   their personal lives so my question for you is  how do you manage to stay grounded while being   extremely successful in your career well as far  as I can tell it's had no negative effect on me it's a biased biased point of view you know  I think success is always a bit dangerous you   know and you can think that whatever your success  was was because you know you are magically gifted   and understanding things whereas of course any  success particularly a gigantic success is a   huge number of factors including hard work and  understanding but timing you know other people   who came to work with you other people that might  have done the same thing who somehow messed up in   doing it and so often you'll you'll have too  much confidence about what you understand you   know in science as Fineman said the easiest  person to fool is yourself and so you have   to force yourself to go through you know again  and again and think through is this the right   thing to be doing you know will this work am  i doing it because it would be exciting and   it succeeded am I really looking at these factors  in fact in polios several times we had to say to   ourselves was it time to give up or really did  we think there was a prospect of being able to   move forward you know I think great wealth is  particularly challenging when you're raising   a family because you know your children may be  treated differently they may have an expectation   Melinda and I have told our children from the  beginning that you know only a tiny fraction of   the wealth will come to them so that they'll have  to go out and have their own career and you know   find their own way without just having it all all  taken care of you know I hope that works at least   that's the way we've chosen to do it so yes it  can have negatives I think there are societies   like China that are still thinking about what do  we how do they feel about great wealth you know   are those people okay or not okay and partly  I think the way a society gets used to it is   if there is a huge amount of philanthropy where  that money's going back to those most in need I   think it's a very you know positive mechanism  although it should be voluntary in nature I think   without that you know China may get into a very  schizophrenic view towards what capitalism leads   to which is that some people end up up with a lot  of wealth and so I I do think philanthropy has a   lot of a lot of benefits and you know certainly if  we can work with each other we'll be a little less   mislead by you know the the fact that people  you give money to are always telling me what   a brilliant brilliant thing it was to get that  money it's hard to avoid that that bias effect   that's a short description of the work of a  college president yeah which donors have you   told they didn't didn't do a good job giving you  money very few thank you thank you I wonder if I   could build on Rachel's question to ask you to go  back to something that you had mentioned before   which was the I guess you would say the kind of  turn in your primary focus from software to the   work of the Gates Foundation would you talk a  little bit more about what led you with others   to make that turn in focus well in my 20s and 30s  I was fanatical about software you know I didn't   believe in vacations didn't believe in weekends  you know I was focused on software day and night   you know I knew everybody's license plate I knew  when they came into the parking lot and they left and I knew every line of code and it you know I  enjoyed being a fanatic and you know I was really   focused on Microsoft doing great software and you  know learning from our mistakes and hiring the   best the best people I knew that that was a job  that was so intense that as I got certainly into   my late 40s and 50s that I couldn't do it in the  same way and that in fact because of the constant   revolution in that space that having somebody  younger making the architectural decisions would   make sense at some point and so that I would  need to go do something else so I wouldn't just   be around second guessing this fresher leader  in doing those things and I always thought it   would have something to do with philanthropy and  innovation because I always liked research and   innovation I liked the opportunity to learn a  lot of Sciences so I had a vague understanding   of that I was 38 when I got married and then you  know we had the kids and that became a major focus   but by my early 50s I really felt that it was time  we'd been giving money enough that I was seen on a   part-time basis what was missing in vaccines  and that the world was not very organized to   get stuff done you know in nutrition totally  disorganized that aid money was not done in a   businesslike fashion and that there were examples  of success but they weren't you know copied and   carried forward in the right way so I thought  wow this is almost like software was before   I got into it which is no real sense of what it  should become and you know then I had to pick I   talked to Steve Ballmer for years before I made  the transition and we did a public announcement   two years before I made the transition so then  in 2008 I made that change coincidentally about   that time Warren Buffett because his wife passing  away shows that the majority of his wealth would   go into the foundation and so we were doubling  in size right about as I was coming in full-time   so it's you know it's worked in a kind of amazing  way and particularly because it was already going   with several hundred people and some programs it  had a kind of scale that and I thought about part   time that you know I could jump in full time and  find it every bit as fulfilling as the work I'd   done at Microsoft now I do take vacations now I  do take some weekends off and so I'm less less   I'm still I like to think myself fanatic then I'm  not a true fanatic like I used to be thank you   thank you let me call on Frederick for our next  question mr. gates my name is Frederick Naurang   and I'm studying computer science and math here at  Concordia how do you think technology and software   in particular can help enhance the success of  global initiatives such as those undertaken by   your foundation well one thing we ought to be able  to do but I wouldn't give us a high grade for yet   is we ought to be able to take these things that  are far away and make them more evident to people   here you know if malaria was on your block if as  you walk to work you saw that child is about to   die because they don't have drugs or a bed net you  know normal human charity would make sure that we   took care of these things and so it it's a real  problem that the poor are clustered together out   of sight and the rich are clustered together sort  of thinking oh everybody must be living like we   are and you know therefore you don't get resources  moved in a way that would would promote any degree   of of equity and so online you know could could  be a way to do it but so far it's such a light   touch yes people go and watch videos but you know  if you compare it say that the students went down   and volunteered to desegregate schools you know  where they went down spent a year put their life   at risk you don't have that level bengi on line  so the amount of money for example it's been   raised online is really quite modest very small so  awareness is still a challenge that's in front of   us certainly these digital tools are critical for  this advance of the science for example genomic   information goes up online and then people all  over the world can see it and I have a meeting   all day Monday we're going to talk through what  should the website from malaria genomic data look   like what are the software tools how do we get  people to publish an annotate so that we can make   sure the progress goes as fast as possible it's  a very deep database software type problem what   should disease implant specialization do to use  genomic information and so software is the very   tool of these activities I built a group to do  disease simulation because for example for malaria   eradication or Weir's in for polio as well you  want to understand what tools give you a chance to   get rid of malaria if you try and do a disease  eradication and you get 99% of the way there   but you fail you waste a lot of money a lot of  credibility and so the idea of using the software   of tools it's actually a physics simulation  technique Monte Carlo simulation that is used   but it's it's very complex to do we've created  a group down so that the only one that software   really shows us will we go and declare put the  world's credibility behind malaria eradication   which we hope in three or four years we're at  at that stage so I think software's is into the   kind of communications it's into the discovery  now when you get out into the field itself for   example using cellphones to inform farmers or keep  health records that is something there's a lot   of optimism about but it's still very difficult  the network coverage network reliability worker   training size of the screens over the next decade  a lot of that will come into play but 90% of the   projects that have been tried really haven't  thought through the the very tough conditions   and all the constraints that exist in order for  digital technology at the point of delivery to   have an impact so it'll happen but we need to  be realistic about the fact it's not it's not   in primetime yet thank you we have a little more  time I'm glad to say and so let me ask if there   are students here who haven't had an opportunity  to ask a question who would like like to do so yes hi mr. gates my name is Ian I'm an accounting  student here majoring in accounting in Spanish   and obviously my big question as I move forward  I'm graduating this year is is has to do with   ethics and I was wondering at a time that you  were faced with an ethical dilemma and who you   sought out to help you solve that problem hmm  well I have to say the the foundation work does   get us into a lot of ethical type issues you  know medical trials you often have the case   where you'd like to discover information  that might help millions and yet you know   the goal is not to harm a single individual  while you do that and so a very complex set   of procedures have been created for doing  medical trials that often have held held   things back sometimes because the bar that set  is too difficult and you know it's good to err   on that side but it it's a very complex area  I think you know if I think of the Microsoft   days and I'd say the main ethical problem I had  was if somebody wasn't very good at their job you know should should we replace them or not  because they you know you can have really nice   people who aren't that good at their job in  particular it's particularly bad if you have   the manager wasn't good and and they weren't  good so they didn't get that much warning our   guidance you know and so do you owe it to them  to wait till they have a good manager and then   wait two years until you you know move them  on to something else and these things have a   way of taking care of themselves but that  was the one part of my job at Microsoft I   didn't really like was deciding when to replace  people and you do end up with people around you   who are better than that at you than you are  and it's kind of feel unethical you owe you   go tell him to do this thing but I'm afraid  I am guilty of doing that in some some cases   thank you thank you let's take one more student  question we have one more student question Levi morning mr. gates my name is Levi Bock Meyer and  I'm an education major so I know you talked a   lot about structural changes that we can do here  in America to improve the way that teachers are   evaluated what advice would you give to students  like myself who are excited about entering the   field of education to improve our educational  outcomes I think it's a great time to be getting   involved in in education reform because there's  really two things there's the personnel system   and how should that be done and there are things  like Teach for America where you've seen students   with a lot of energy and talent come in and  in many cases have a huge impact and in some   systems there's over Cal so Trent that you know  they get discouraged and it doesn't work and it's   very interesting to look at where those programs  have worked or they haven't worked the idea that   we're going to do good personnel systems and it's  not going to be seniority based makes a good field   to go into because a little bit the seniority  thing particularly with the cliff vesting that   they do you're basically underpaid for your  first 15 years and then you're overpaid for   about five years and it's not a very fair system  particularly if you ever want to move from one   place to another because that you don't have this  sense of portability and yet you know career and   education now I think might involve doing a fair  bit of teaching them working on the software and   curriculum and the personnel systems then going  back in maybe you know in an administrative role   maybe going back to teaching it's also a very  exciting time because of the technology and not   that the technology it's obvious how to use it  it's very important that we you know be a little   more realistic every other time technology came  along people thought it would be a big deal you   know TV SATs or computer aided instruction now  I think it really is a big deal I mean you know   that you can have free video that you can have  peers that you learn with on a global basis and   do projects with students anywhere in the world  but we have to bring a sense of measurement to   this and doing measurement in education is a very  tough field just contributing to that alone would   probably be the most seminal thing that could be  done there's so many biases that enter in to it   very typically when you're doing a new program  you get the students who are more interested   in doing better and the teachers who are more  interested in doing better so a lot of results   in education are completely bogus simply because  you know if you said hey who wants to volunteer   to do pink textbooks the teachers and students who  volunteered would prove to you that pink textbooks   are so much better than any other type of textbook  and we even see this in charter schools you know   I love charter schools but what's been important  now is that we take not just the average students   not in a charter versus the students in a charter  but we take the people who tried to get into the   charter who didn't get in which is sort of  a random selection and make that comparison   what we see is a huge distribution between the  students who did get into the charters if they're   good charters they do super well that is you have  college four-year college attendance rates of like   86 percent then you have the student who tried  to get in who didn't get in where you may see   something like 35 percent these are inner-city  numbers and then you have the one the kids who   didn't even try to get into the charter who are  at about 10% so if you had thought that the kids   applying to the for the Charter were the average  kids and because all they have to do they they   just put their name down and they get entered into  a lottery just that one thing is very selective   for their own mental model or the parents mental  model of what should go on so you know there's a   the amount that's not not in education is is  pretty severe and it'll be great to get some   of the some of youth pushing all of that forward  let me do two things before we close I have spoken   about our Concordia students and we're delighted  to have them here but it's important for everyone   in the room to know that there are students here  from our neighboring schools here in Minnesota and   North Dakota so I'd like the Concordia students  to join me in recognizing the students here from   Minnesota State from North Dakota State and from  the University of North Dakota would you join me and the final thing a personal word I expect  everyone sitting out in front of bill and me   understands what an enormous privilege it is  to sit here and be part of this conversation   with you this morning and I have to say that  what pleases me most as a college president   is to see the way in which you are so much a  learner that you have thrown yourself in with   perhaps a slightly moderated fanaticism but  thrown yourself in to this new world changing   work as you had into the magic of software  it's so clear to us here this morning that   philanthropy is a matter of financial resources  but it's also a matter of generosity of mind   and generosity of spirit Bill Gates thank you  very much for coming here today to Concordia you

Channel: Concordia College

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Keywords: Concordia College, Concordia Moorhead, Concordia College Moorhead, Business School, Undergraduate Business, Offutt School of Business, Offutt School, Bill Gates, Bill Gates at Concordia, Ronald Offutt, Harold Hamm, President Craft, William Craft, Bill Gates on Education, Bill Gates on Microsoft, Microsoft, Q&A with Bill Gates

Id: P_6K3mv9BbI

Length: 66min 16sec (3976 seconds)

Published: Fri May 03 2013