Perspective: On 'creative capitalism,' Gates gets it

Editor's note: CNET News.com editor at large Michael Kanellos and chief political correspondent Declan McCullagh are facing off over Bill Gates' call for businesses to allocate resources that could alleviate problems in the developing world. Click here for McCullagh's take.

perspective If you want to meet someone who's enthusiastic about his job, talk to Don O'Neal.

An engineer, O'Neal is the vice president of Helps International, which has devised an inexpensive, highly efficient wood-burning stove that's distributed to poor people in Latin America.

A ceramic layer inside the cinderblock stove raises the temperature in the combustion chamber to 1,400 degrees Fahrenheit. At this temperature, nearly all of the wood--and oil from the wood--burns. As a result, the amount of firewood a family needs to survive drops by 70 percent, says O'Neal.

With it, families spend less time foraging for firewood and regional deforestation is slowed. Perhaps more importantly, fewer kids suffer debilitating burns (from traditional floor fire pits) or carbon monoxide poisoning.

And at $120, "it pays for itself in six months," he said. It was one of the best sales pitches I'd heard in years.

The Tech Museum of Innovation recognized Helps, among others, in 2007 for devising interesting, sustainable solutions for the developing world. Proctor & Gamble was recognized for its PUR water purification powder: a 3.5-cent packet of the material can disinfect 10 liters of water. D.R. Mehta showed off a prosthetic foot made out of high-density polyethylene which, at $35, is one-tenth of the cost of ordinary ones. Cambridge University's Helen Lee, meanwhile, exhibited the FirstBurst, an inexpensive urine tester.

When Bill Gates talked about fostering "creative capitalism" at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, these are the kind of projects he had in mind. In Gates' vision, private companies should be encouraged to tweak their structure slightly to free up their innovative thinkers to work on solutions to problems in the developing world. It's gung-ho, rather than hairshirt, philanthropy.

"This kind of creative capitalism matches business expertise with needs in the developing world to find markets that are already there, but are untapped," Gates said. "Sometimes market forces fail to make an impact in developing countries not because there's no demand, or even because money is lacking, but because we don't spend enough time studying the needs and requirements of that market."

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While companies or individuals may ultimately profit from this work in developing nations, the reward primarily comes in the form recognition and enjoyment.

So what are the benefits? First and foremost, directing collective talents of North America, Europe, and parts of Asia toward the emerging world could help improve the lives of billions of people mired in dire poverty. It's sounds a bit redundant to mention, but there it is.

But there's also a personal benefit, too. Working on ways to alleviate problems--if the dozens of people I've met who've worked in Africa or Latin America are any indication--is far more rewarding and interesting than six months trying to refresh the marketing campaign for a handheld. Look back at your own life. Chances are, some of your most vivid memories come from brief periods where you found yourself in unusual circumstances tackling something monumental.

And if you want to be completely mercenary, the West isn't going to have a lot of choice. The birthrate in established nations is slowing while it's still rising in the emerging world. Food shortages, global warming, prolonged drought, and economic opportunity are already boosting immigration from North Africa to Europe and Latin America to the U.S. Epidemics, social unrest, and other problems often associated with other parts of the world will come home unless conditions change.

Biography
Michael Kanellos is editor at large at CNET News.com, where he covers hardware, research and development, start-ups and the tech industry overseas. He has worked as an attorney, travel writer and sidewalk hawker for a time share resort, among other occupations.

More Perspectives

[wildchild_plasma_gyro]

Slight critism here

On this he gets it bit your boasting about how an Engineer distributes a glorified wood burning barbicue to poor people in Latin America.
Oh how the world needs western innovation like it needs a whole in the head.
If you'd said that some engineer had developed cheap technology for breaking down more food sources for poor latin americans to eat or how some engineer had worked out a way to maintain from humid air a cheap and effective space saving meal worm farm now i'd have appaulded and seen your point about the concept being sound but wow there you go mr poor latin american man heres a glorified barbicue.

[wildchild_plasma_gyro]

Umm year

How very creative Capitilism is.
I wonder did this world class engineer come up with the idea before or after he had cooked his 3rd burger.

[Mendz]

Gates Needs Help

Gates has always been a visionary with Microsoft -- where he has the R&D and laboratory resources to back his "vision" even years ahead before his own company delivers the same.

Outside Microsoft, however, he has no such R&D. He has visions. He has plans. And he needs help. This is his way of asking for help. I believe that the stir he's made with the idea of doing "creative capitalism" is a successful start. Reading between the lines... Gates is calling for as many people as possible to be and to get involved.

You see, that's the point: the mission needs help.

[davemesaaz]

I don't see this as an either or you can Profits and eliminate Poverty.

I don't see What Gates is doing as an either or statement. Either you help the poor or you make money.
The great industrialists such as Ford Carnegie Sam Walton have succeed by not just catering to those who could afford their products. But the made billions by making their products cheaper for the poor and middle classes.

When Henry Ford started producing cars they were more expensive then homes and were an item only available to the rich. Ford found a way to make cheap cars for the poor and middle classes and made billions by doing so.

Right now corporations make products for the 2 billion of the worlds rich. But there is a "Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid" and the individual that solves that problem will reap billions.

[Tui Pohutukawa]

Ivory tower BS

Gates: "Sometimes market forces fail to make an impact in
developing countries not because there's no demand, or even
because money is lacking, but because we don't spend enough
time studying the needs and requirements of that market."

What a load of nonsense. I have travelled developing countries.
Many people there haven't got enough money to buy something
to eat, never mind afford permanent housing. Gates should
leave the air-conditioned conference halls for a while, get on a
bus in India, for example, and take a look around. Millions of
people own next to nothing. Armies of unemployed and
homeless. Thousands who literally live off the refuse that gets
imported from the west.

Gates et al: Stop the whining and the posing. Learn to share.
Use your billions, don't lock them away in foundations that only
feed your ego.

[Dachi]

What?

"I have travelled developing countries. Many people there haven't got enough money to buy something to eat, never mind afford permanent housing."

This is not everybody. Also, do you propose that instead of trying to help them prop up a self sustaining economy, that we simply build huge homeless shelters that hold millions and millions of people and feed them all with our endless wealth?

Shipping in food is a /very/ short term solution.

Welfare creates welfare dependency. Instead of teaching them to farm, trade, build, and invent, we are teaching them how to stand in line waiting for handouts.

>"Use your billions, don't lock them away in foundations that only feed your ego."

Many many billions of dollars worth of consumables and foreign aid has already been shipped into some of the poorest regions of the world. The end result is that they are now highly dependent on this aid.

(ie, farming is difficult enough in these regions, try competing against free foreign aid)

Also, instead of developing cheap generic medications, foreign aid has made doing this difficult by granting billion dollar contracts for treatment to some of the biggest medical companies in the world. Companies who's patents, trade secrets, and litigation seek to make it /more/ difficult to have inexpensive readily available generic drugs.

I could tell you how to solve many of the poverty problems in these nations and I am sure many others could as well.

It would not be that hard to have them compete in the global economy, but it would cost American, European, and Asian jobs/wages.

Since people don't want them competing for their own jobs, they would rather hand them crippling foreign aid. If you want to do this fine, just don't walk around looking down your nose at the rest of us.

PS. Throwing free/cheap copies of Windows at these regions is also a convenient way to fight Linux. Again leaving them dependent on another billion dollar US based company.

[sgurivir]

What about responsibility?

The responsibility of CEO is to make profits for their
shareholders.The philanthroiphic or the resulting PR efforts
should lead to benefits for the company. Unless Shareholders
approve the board/CEO to allocate finances for philanthrophc
efforts, it's cheating on part of the CEO. He's doing it for his
own altruisitc/ personal reasons.

The corporations should concentrate on paying dividends for
shareholders. If a company really wants to tie itself to
altruistic efforts, it should form a seperate sister organization
with it's own account and let interested shareholders invest in
it.

[sgurivir]

What about responsibility?

The responsibility of CEO is to make profits for their
shareholders.The philanthroiphic or the resulting PR efforts
should lead to benefits for the company. Unless Shareholders
approve the board/CEO to allocate finances for philanthrophc
efforts, it's cheating on part of the CEO. He's doing it for his
own altruisitc/ personal reasons.

The corporations should concentrate on paying dividends for
shareholders. If a company really wants to tie itself to
altruistic efforts, it should form a seperate sister organization
with it's own account and let interested shareholders invest in
it.

- Sridhar Gurivireddy

[sgurivir]

What about responsibility?

The responsibility of CEO is to make profits for their
shareholders.The philanthroiphic or the resulting PR efforts
should lead to benefits for the company. Unless Shareholders
approve the board/CEO to allocate finances for philanthrophc
efforts, it's cheating on part of the CEO. He's doing it for his
own altruisitc/ personal reasons.

The corporations should concentrate on paying dividends for
shareholders. If a company really wants to tie itself to
altruistic efforts, it should form a seperate sister organization
with it's own account and let interested shareholders invest in
it.