Bill Gates to address Senate panel
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates is scheduled to descend on Capitol Hill next week to pepper a U.S. Senate committee with his suggestions for boosting American competitiveness.
The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee said Friday that it has lined up Gates to speak at a public hearing slated for 9:30 a.m. EST on Wednesday morning.
The Microsoft boss plans to renew his pleas for Congress to raise the cap on H-1B visas for skilled foreign workers, a company spokeswoman said Friday. He has previously called for scrapping the limits entirely.
Gates also plans to discuss what he perceives as an inability to keep talent in the United States to fill high-skilled jobs and the need to strengthen the math and science curriculum in American schools. He described those recommendations in a recent Washington Post op-ed piece.
Wednesday's event would mark Gates' third time participating in a congressional hearing and the first such occasion since 1999, when he spoke about the growth of the "digital economy" before the Joint Economic Committee.
His debut occurred in the midst of antitrust tensions in 1998, when Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) held hearings on competition in the computer industry.
