PND (10/24/2000) -- Gates Says Access to Technology Not Priority for World's Poorest

Microsoft co-founder and chairman Bill Gates told attendees at the recent Creating Digital Dividends conference in Seattle (October 16-18) that the world's poor need basic health care and educational assistance before they can reap the benefits of technology, Wired News reports.

"Do people have any concept of what it means to live on less than a dollar a day?" the world's richest man asked an audience of executives and senior officials from developing countries and the private and nonprofit sectors. "There's no electricity. Do they have PCs that don't use electricity?"

Gates named health care and literacy as the most important needs of developing countries and said that, while access to technology could develop in parallel with improvements in these areas, it was of secondary importance. "[I]f somebody's interested in equity, you'd only spend about 20 percent of your time talking about PCs before you get back to talking about health and literacy." Gates, whose Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has made improving the health of women and children, particularly in the developing world, a priority, pointed out that an estimated eight million children die each year because they do not have access to vaccinations or medical care.

The Digital Dividends conference, a project of the World Resources Institute, brought together 300 private and public sector leaders for discussions on the ways the Internet and wireless communications could introduce and foster new patterns of development in the developing world.

Frishberg, Manny. "Gates: Poor Need Meds, Not PCs." Wired News 10/19/2000.

Frishberg, Manny. "On Creating Digital Dividends." Wired News 10/16/2000.

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