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Technology Stocks : How high will Microsoft fly? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: KLP who wrote (43936)	4/30/2000 12:49:00 AM
From: KLP	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74651

Gates' impact may be lifesaver to many in world eastsidejournal.com Gates' impact may be lifesaver to many in world 2000-04-28 Today may be a black day for Bill Gates. The Justice Department is expected to ask a federal judge to break up his company -- Microsoft. As significant as that may be, it pales before an even bigger story involving Gates. Twenty years from now we think Gates will be better known as a philanthropist than as a computer company mogul. If so, it will because of his success and that of Microsoft. Gates already has set aside $21.8 billion of his fortune to do good works and plans to give away most of the rest of it before he dies. At age 44, he's just getting started. Since foundations are required by law annually to give away 5 percent of their assets, Gates now must dispense more than $1 billion a year. It is awe inspiring, and Gates deserves this nation's and the world's gratitude for what he is setting out to achieve. Gates' effort is in a class by itself. Famous philanthropists, while they gave millions, simply don't compare. Andrew Carnegie made gifts amounting to $350 million before he died. In today's dollars, they would be worth about $3 billion. John D. Rockefeller gave away $540 million. It would amount to more than $6 billion today. That's less than a third of Gates' total so far. Today, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is the largest in the world. Equally important is how this money so far is being spent. Apart from providing software and computers to libraries around the country, the foundation's efforts increasingly are targeting health issues around the world. Gates' fortune literally will save lives. The foundation is focusing on simple tools such as vaccines, contraceptives, nutritional supplements, single-use syringes and diagnostic procedures. It is promoting innovative ways to bring public health to areas of need. For example: * The foundation is spending $50 million over five years to see if a new -- and inexpensive -- Pap test can stop the onslaught of cervical cancer that is the leading cause of cancer death among women in developing countries. Early detection is the key. * Another $50 million is going to malaria vaccine research. The World Health Organization estimates that malaria kills about two million people a year, nearly half of them children in sub-Saharan Africa, and infects about 200 million more. Gates' grant almost equaled the entire worldwide effort in 1996. * The foundation also is pouring millions into AIDS vaccine research, much of it in Africa, where up to 38 percent of the population may be HIV positive. When rural women get infected, they often pass the virus along to babies while nursing. Gates' efforts aren't the only answer. Other foundations, governments and the rest of us still must do our part. But because of his success with Microsoft, Gates is making a difference in people's lives. In many cases, it's life itself.