Friday, March 10, 2017

Related imageWhat is a successful life? Is it measured by the amount of money you have in the bank or is it measured by the impact you have made in a positive way to others? It is a great life if you can achieve both. America is lucky enough to have a married couple that has achieved both goals. Bill Gates has made his fortune in the computer   business and his wife Melinda has made a significant impact in making the world a better place.  They are the richest and among the most influential people on the globe. The Bill & Melina Foundation has given away more than $40 billion dollars to needy causes so far. Their foundation I the largest private charity in the world.
They spent $500 million dollars just on their headquarters that makes a statement just on the building. Inside they are literally trying to save the world.  Do you think they can spend some time saving America? They are solely responsible for changing the poorest lives globally for the better. According to the United Nations since 1990, global poverty has been cut in half. 222 million children’s lives have been saved through education, better nutrition and disease prevention. The only thing corporate America has done globally is give poverty ridden areas Coca-Cola machines and fast food restaurants that is   simply adding to more unhealthy people.
They have made impressive progress in bringing down the number of deaths under the age of five globally through vaccines and malaria prevention. Bill as a computer scientist likes data and Melinda with her business master’s degree likes data too.  It is the data and research that tells them where to go. They have determined that 1 million babies die on the first day of life. They are currently working on that problem now. At least they are worrying what to do with all these children after they are born. American politicians seem to be focused on only ending abortions for women and not on the care of the born child. Last year there were only 37 cases of Polio. It is the lowest number of cases we have ever had on the planet thanks to the efforts of these too remarkable people.
Their goal is to drive the number of Polio cases to zero. In 1995 Microsoft released Window’s 95. He was  39 years old at the time and  Bill Gates became the richest man in the world. These two could be living like a king and queen surrounded in gold palaces like Putin and Trump but instead they pool their resources to save people, the environment and make the quality of life better for all. In America the foundation has a more modest agenda. They are focusing here on improving schools and they find that it is more of a problem than even feeding and making the world   healthier.  Wow!
The major wall to climb is to get around the politics of education and government funding in this country. There are too many fingers in the pot with too many opinions on what is the best recipe to fix schools in America. Who would guess that the spider web of nonsense in America was more challenging than making the rest of the globe a better place? They and their three children evolved as a family in their 66 thousand square foot mansion overlooking Lake Washington in Seattle. Yet Melinda and Bill have traveled the world in an effort to make faraway places a better place. They didn’t have to be so generous.
Melinda has taken on the cause in the past 5 years to address that there are 225 million women asking for contraception. No one is still asking to sterilize men or to curtail their appetite for sex yet she has been reprimanded by the Vatican and the Pope which is an all   male dominated religion. Melinda went to Catholic schools and is catholic but feels that we need to help women in their constant struggle to have and raise children. They can only be compared to Carnegie in their efforts to share. Yes, sharing is caring.


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