This is a great era for progress and education: Bill Gates at the Tec

Photos: Udell Jiménez

“This is a great era for progress and education. In a couple of years, we’ll have passed through this and we’ll rebuild something better with all this innovation in areas such as medicines and online education,” said Bill Gates, co-founder of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, regarding the current context of the worldwide pandemic.

In a virtual chat with José Antonio Fernández, chairman of the board of Tec de Monterrey, which was followed by around 14,000 members of the Tec community, Gates estimated that it will take 3 years for the world to get back to how it was before COVID-19.

In his opinion, the big impacts of the pandemic will last until next year and it might be over by 2022.

“I think that the big impacts caused by the pandemic are going to come down over 2021 and it (the pandemic) will be over by 2022,” he said.

The video conference, entitled “Rethinking Society”, was broadcast live to Tec students, faculty, staff, and graduates. Gates, who is also a founder of Microsoft, also answered several questions from students during the event.

He maintained that innovation and collaboration between different stakeholders such as governments, organizations, and universities can be key to solving not only the challenges of this pandemic, but also other big issues for humanity, such as global warming.

INNOVATION TO SAVE THE WORLD

Gates said that the ability to innovate, seen as the capacity to create effective solutions to complex problems, is exactly what is needed to get through the current big challenges.

“We have to identify where the risks are. There are some, such as pandemics and climate change, which we don’t know exactly how bad they can get or when they might happen. That’s why we have to invest in the future,” he said.

Gates highlighted the importance of research and technology. He said that, unlike other pandemics in the past, having technological resources such as the internet now has enabled alternatives to many activities.

He also emphasized the role that governments, universities, companies, and civil society can play in working together to find solutions to the current pandemic.

“There are sectors in several countries that have been hugely affected, such as tourism, restaurants, and small businesses. We have to help rebuild them, to see how we can help them.”

To this end, he invited those young people who are university students and about to graduate to innovate and find solutions to today’s and tomorrow’s challenges.

“The next 20 years could mean great progress. We’re counting on you to show us a new way of doing things and giving back to society,” he said in encouragement to the Tec students.

SKILLS FOR A CONNECTED WORLD

Answering questions from Tec students, Bill Gates also talked about his personal life and explained that he considered himself lucky to have been exposed to problem-solving environments such as programming from an early age.

He said that this was what made him seek to innovate when facing practical challenges.

Later on, when he was at Microsoft, he discovered that he also had to learn leadership skills to delegate, empower people, and get the best out of them as a team.

Gates said that universities can help confront the pandemic by training their students and developing their skills by using technology.

 

“We have to think about how to accelerate this process by using tools such as online learning.

“Innovation and collaboration software isn’t only for engineers, but also for helping all kinds of people to be more efficient, and so that experts can work together at the same time.

“We have to challenge young people to create new ideas and generate new resources. That’s how we’re going to achieve global collaboration. It (the pandemic) is a real test for everyone working together,” he said.

A COMMITMENT TO HELPING OTHERS

In answer to a specific question about his transition from CEO of Microsoft to philanthropist with the Bill & Melinda Gate Foundation, he said that he first inherited his liking for philanthropic activities from his parents.

He and his wife, Melinda, created the Bill & Melinda Gate Foundation together, and over time he began to transition from his full-time work at Microsoft to now spending most of his time with the foundation.

He Gates also said that he was inspired by fellow businessman Warren Buffett, who also supported the foundation with him and his wife.

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Through the foundation, Gates has worked in recent years on different projects such as the eradication of polio and the search for vaccines against malaria and HIV.

“Philanthropy is not just about signing a check but getting involved directly to ensure that the money is applied effectively to benefit people by finding solutions to their real problems,” he said.

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