2015 Gates Annual Letter

1. Wiping out major diseases - brings tears to my eyes knowing that GF, Carter and other foundations will permanently get rid of so many horrible diseases.<p>2. African crop yield - If US can grow 159 bushels of corn per acre, and African countries are currently at 29, why is the 15 year goal for African countries only 48 bushels per acre instead of somewhere close to the US? Is that because of tech-transfer difficulties or rather the soil&#x2F;environment?<p>3. Mobile banking - Wish US would get on with it too. All the problems he listed apply to the poor in US too. There is no way for me to immediately send $100 to anyone in the US without resorting to BTC or wire-transfers. Even with <a href="https://www.clearxchange.com/" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.clearxchange.com&#x2F;</a> it still takes 2-3 days.<p>4. Software for education - Couldn&#x27;t agree more. However, I&#x27;m still not sure if we&#x27;ve achieved the correct &quot;global education&quot; format yet. Check out these two KA links: <a href="https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/becoming-modern/romanticism/romanticism-in-france/a/ingres-portrait-of-madame-rivire" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.khanacademy.org&#x2F;humanities&#x2F;becoming-modern&#x2F;roman...</a> and <a href="https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-history-basics/Art-1010/v/renaissance-art-introductoin" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.khanacademy.org&#x2F;humanities&#x2F;art-history-basics&#x2F;Ar...</a> - the first reads like a dull Wikipedia page with nested commenting for interaction and the other is a droll Youtube edutainment video. Is this really going to help a 16 year old in Vietnam, Mongolia, or Sierra Leone learn about Art History especially if they cannot understand the accents or localized references? I&#x27;m not suggesting that every video or text be translated&#x2F;localized but before we aim for better software, we should at least figure out the format first. What if you are 12 year old and want to learn the same topic? What if you are 34 with two degrees in sciences? If online education was space exploration, we are in the Wright-brothers stage, decades from even Wernher von Braun stage. Instead of every major university just uploading their video lectures and syllabi online, I&#x27;d love to see someone try to create a real global school (non-commercial) that presents the education material fit for each learner. I don&#x27;t mean tests like what KA is doing but the course material itself.

A little off topic but would love to know more about the platform&#x2F;tech behind his site. My casual observations sees: Azure, New Relic, FB&#x2F;Twitter integrations. Perhaps some scss&#x2F;sass? Ruby or .Net?

I&#x27;m skeptical online education will have any significant impact at an elementary school level, especially when you consider the cost effectiveness of such a strategy. If were talking about video lectures (especially live) you need to figure out how to hook up reliable internet into these schools. Most of the internet access projects are just enough to get wikipedia loaded. And not to mention the cost of the hardware itself, a tablet per student isn&#x27;t even feasible in western public schools.

I&#x27;m always so inspired when I see these. The idea that it&#x27;s possible to make such a significant impact in the world by taking a smarter, more focused approach is so simple but so powerful. Some of the cheap and practical steps around saving newborn lives are exactly the kind of actions that have a huge impact. Although Gates clearly has significant resources, it makes me feel that I too can help, and that&#x27;s really important.

I love the positivity of his messages and the work he is doing to improve the lives of those that need it most. His call for us to become global citizens is greatly needed to tackle many of the problems we face and stop thinking, acting and voting just for ourselves.<p>However, global warming is such a big and immediate issue — we have until 2017 to start reducing carbon dioxide output, after that we lock in &gt;2C dangerous, irreversible warming — that despite all the progress being made in developing countries today, the effects of climate change are likely to negate much of that work in the future.<p>Gates is bound by capitalist ideology, his emphasis on the need to develop a &#x27;miracle cure&#x27; source of energy is evidence of that — we have the technology we need to solve the problem today, but it will require a fundamental shift of focus and wealth. We are putting profit before the place we live. We are betting big on the miracle cure in the future. What if the miracle never happens?<p>edit: I&#x27;ve written a post with a bit more detail and sources: <a href="https://shamocracy.org/2015/01/22/2015-gates-annual-letter/" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;shamocracy.org&#x2F;2015&#x2F;01&#x2F;22&#x2F;2015-gates-annual-letter&#x2F;</a>

What Bill and Melinda are doing is amazing and quite admirable. My only question after reading this is... Shouldn&#x27;t there also be some focus on lowering birth rates in poor areas? Am I missing something, or wouldn&#x27;t that go hand in hand toward achieving their goals?

Are there opportunities for hackers to volunteer in projects like mobile payments? I feel like donating a bit of development time to the right project has the potential to have a bigger impact than just donating money.

Great work!<p>But the presentation is awful. Why do sites feel the need to hijack my scroll wheel?

Wait... where&#x27;s the letter? All I get is a box that asks for my e-mail.

I think Gates needs to find the next Norman Borlaug, whether it be at a university or in industry and fund him or her to set up a research facility in an African country.

Concerning the form of this presentation, if it were gauged in WTFs per minute, this one would score a rather high count.

I love it when the richest people in the entire history of civilization tell me how much they are helping us!