Bill Gates

The massive earthquake in Haiti in January destroyed a third or more of the country's banks and ATMs, but even before the quake fewer than 1 in 10 Haitians had ever used a traditional bank.

Aiming to broaden access to financial institutions and aid in the recovery, the Gates Foundation and the U.S. Agency for International Development announced Tuesday a plan to back up to $10 million in funding to spur the use of cell phone banking, an approach that has worked elsewhere to bring financing to the poor.

"Out of the ruins of Haiti's tragic … Read more

Leaving a big publication to launch one's own conference and Web site isn't exactly newfangled.

But three former Fortune staffers hope that what distinguishes their event will be the scale of the problems that it attempts to address.

David Kirkpatrick, Brent Schlender, and Peter Petre are teaming up to launch Techonomy, a conference and Web site devoted to the role that technology can and must play in transforming all aspects of business and society--not just those that the Internet has already transformed.

"The idea is that technology is really the only way we are going to solve … Read more

The storyline sounds familiar: software executive makes billions building his company, realizes that with wealth comes responsibility, and pledges the bulk of his fortune to charity.

But this time it's not Bill Gates. It's Azim Premji, the billionaire chairman of India's Wipro.

Premji, like Gates, has a big focus on education, using his foundation to improve teaching standards and fund schools that are trying new methods, according to a report on Forbes.com. Premji said he is trying to break with tradition in Asia, which holds that wealth is passed from generation to generation.

"Even if … Read more

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--Bill Gates didn't leave Harvard on Wednesday with a degree, but the Microsoft chairman said he did leave feeling that the top colleges are paying more attention to the needs of the developing world.

"Schools are really doing more," Gates told CNET in an interview, as he headed to the airport following his three-day college tour. "These leading institutions are out in front... Certainly versus when you go back all the way to when I was here, there were no poverty classes."

At MIT, for example, Gates met with students working on projects … Read more

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--As he has at each of the stops on his college tour, Bill Gates took time Wednesday morning to meet with a group of minority students whose university education has been funded by his family's foundation.

After a few photos were taken, the group of several dozen Gates Millennial Scholars here at Massachusetts Institute of Technology had a chance to speak with their benefactor. Most just wanted to say thanks, while a few had questions about how they could make a difference.

One student asked what Gates expected from the scholars.

"The dream is that it … Read more

PALO ALTO, Calif.--Bill Gates was feeling pretty good Monday night, though the Microsoft chairman said he's still honing his pitch to convince college students to change the world.

"I can always say to myself, 'Hey, I could have answered that question better.'" Gates said. "I'll get better as time goes on."

But Gates, who travels to Chicago on Tuesday before wrapping up the three-day tour in Boston on Wednesday, said he is pretty pleased with how things have gone so far.

"There's only so much you can squeeze into a day,&… Read more

PALO ALTO, Calif.--Microsoft may be known for PowerPoint, but Bill Gates' college tour has just one slide in it.

In his effort to convince students to devote more time and energy to society's big problems, Gates points to one chart--the decline in death rates of children during the past 50 years. In 1960, roughly 20 million kids younger than five died each year, a figure that has dropped to less than 9 million due in large part to vaccines.

Already Gates said, more people are focusing on global health, something he said is making a difference.

"I … Read more

BERKELEY, Calif.--While the world faces enormous challenges feeding its populations, developing clean energy, and fighting diseases, many of its best and brightest citizens are focused on other issues.

That notion was reinforced for Bill Gates several weeks back as he sat with several friends who were engaged in a passionate discussion on two key topics: March Madness and the reforms being debated for Wall Street.

The philanthropist and Microsoft chairman said he would like to see some of this brain power shifted to issues like education.

"How possible is it that we could be having this same intense … Read more

BERKELEY, Calif.--The University of California at Berkeley's Zellerbach Hall is still empty, but that won't last long.

In just over an hour, Bill Gates will kick off a three-day speaking tour of college campuses. While such gigs were frequent during his days at Microsoft, this is the first such tour that Gates has done in his role as full-time philanthropist.

"On our way to Berkeley & Stanford for day 1 of the college tour," Gates said Monday, in a post on Twitter. "I am very excited to talk with students and see the work … Read more