MIAMI--In two separate speeches on Friday, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates made the case that businesses need to see serving the poor as part of their mission and that governments need to see private businesses as potential partners.
Bill Gates shakes hands with Hernan Rincon, Microsoft's vice president for Latin America, before speaking at the Government Leaders Forum in Miami.
(Credit: Ina Fried/CNET News.com)One of the big topics for both audiences was the notion of microfinance--improving the access to credit and banking to the poor.
"The idea of how they create loans for the poorest is part of it," he said at the Government Leaders Forum. But although today microfinance has focused on loans, there is more to it. "We need to get savings and even some insurance products."
Gates talked about how technology can play a role, noting that when payment is tied to the cell phone, it offers the potential for lower interest rates.
In every industry, Gates said, businesses need to start thinking about how they can use some of their energy and resources, say 6 percent, to expand their reach to poorer segments either in their own country, or globally. Food companies need to focus on micronutrients, while drug companies should devote some energy to diseases that affect largely the poor, such as malaria and tuberculosis.
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Already, he said, there are examples of companies in each industry doing this.
"Cell phone companies, banks, energy companies, technology companies, food companies, we have a lot of good examples in each of those industries," he said at the Inter-American Development Bank meeting.
But while there are a few leaders who are onboard, Gates acknowledged that his notion of creative capitalism has not been uniformly embraced. "Many of the companies are skeptical," he noted. "As we have examples of success we can overcome that."
Education was another key topic, with one questioner at the Government Leaders Forum asking Gates about whether computer labs or one-to-one computing projects are the way to go.
"The costs of moving to a one computer per child are fairly high and yet in the long term that's what we recommend," Gates said. With computer labs, Gates said, the most enthusiastic students tend to gravitate to the machines, monopolizing their use, while students who need the practice the most fall behind and never catch up.
He noted that many countries have already set up pilot programs, with one region in Spain providing laptops to 10,000 students. At the same time, he said such projects require years of planning
He also talked up the potential of one of his favorite technologies--the Tablet PC.
"Today that machine is something like a $1,000 machine," he said. "Over the next three or four years that will become a $400 machine."
He noted that his daughter uses one instead of textbooks at her school, and can forward her homework to her dad.
"I can help her out on anything where she's confused," he said. Assignments are turned in electronically and returned by e-mail. "It's just so natural for her."
Microsoft is making a new bid to get governments to go with its technology, rather than open-source alternatives such as Linux and OpenOffice.
At its Government Leaders Forum in Berlin, which kicks off on Tuesday, the company plans to announce what it is calling the Citizen Service Platform. It's not a whole new set of products, but rather templates and architecture that use a range of Microsoft products to provide electronic access for residents.
At its most elaborate, large governments could spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on everything from Dynamics CRM to SharePoint to Internet Information Server to provide everything from online permitting to government records access to marriage licenses and name changes over the Web.
But, says Ralph Young, vice president of Microsoft's public sector business, equally important are the tools aimed at helping overburdened small governments that have few IT resources. The whole effort is based on Microsoft's .Net architecture.
At its most basic level, Microsoft has a system based on Office Live and Windows live for $20 a month. The Jamaica system is running at this price, Microsoft said. For a small government that really wanted to get going, but had no existing Microsoft technology, the cost could range between $10,000 and $15,000.
Much of the company's effort has been focused on municipal and regional governments where 80 percent of government services are provided.
"Those governments are closer to citizens and more able to deliver services," Young said. But at the same time, they lack the money and technical know-how that many federal governments possess.
"Local governments aren't necessarily equipped to deliver services in that enhanced way," Young said. "These governments are under a much more significant budget and resource constraint."
The push toward helping governments go online is not new. Microsoft has been at this for about five years already.
Young pointed to Singapore and Canada as leaders in taking their services onto the Internet. In Singapore, Young said, 9 out of 10 citizens who engaged in transactions with the government did so online, while Canada has moved 130 of its most commonly used services online, accounting for about 30 percent of transactions.
The company has already started to push local as well. Young pointed to the Parish of St. Mary's government in Jamaica, which set up a system last hurricane season to send text messages to residents' cell phones in the event of major storms. "Before it was very difficult to ensure that every single citizen had been contacted," he said.
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