bill & melinda gates foundation

Gates Foundation offers $100k for 'next-gen condom'

We're not quite sure what a next-generation condom would look like (gesture control? a tiny touch screen?), but we may find out sooner rather than later if the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation succeeds in its new quest.

The foundation is seeking new ideas that improve on condom design, which it describes as having seen "very little technological improvement in the last 50 years." The winning proposal gets a cool $100,000, and could potentially earn more in additional funding.

The foundation suggests that if a redesigned condom could enhance a sexual experience and not detract from it, more men would use one, therefore reducing disease transmission, unwanted pregnancies, and so on. The request also seeks ideas "that increase ease-of-use for male and female condoms, for example better packaging or designs that are easier to properly apply. In addition, attributes that address and overcome cultural barriers are also desired." … Read more

Bill Gates twixt Putin and pope at No. 4 in Forbes 'most powerful'

Wielding both wealth and influence, Bill Gates is the world's fourth most powerful person, as ranked by Forbes.

Rising to fourth place from fifth last year, Gates was cited by Forbes for his vast fortune. The Microsoft co-founder is worth $65 billion even after donating more than $28 billion toward various causes.

But it's also his mission and his influence that make Gates a powerful man.

As co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, he's been on a quest to stamp out a variety of diseases around the world. As Forbes notes, Gates estimates that the … Read more

Facebook and Gates Foundation host education hackathon

Facebook partnered with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation today to host an education-centered hackathon called "HackEd."

The goal of "HackEd" is to kick-off the Gates Foundation's new $2.5 million investment fund called the College Knowledge Challenge. The fund is dedicated to getting developers to build apps for students that would assist them in navigating the college process -- this means helping young folks get into school and stay there.

"At Facebook, we believe that a more open and connected world can have a big impact in addressing some of society's biggest … Read more

Bill Gates calls for reinvention of toilet: Why?

Bill Gates may have given up running Microsoft, but he isn't taking his retirement sitting down. The software-entrepreneur-turned-philanthropist's charitable foundation has launched a new initiative aimed at improving the health of the billions of people who have no safe, sanitary way to get rid of their waste.

That's right, Bill Gates wants to reinvent the toilet.

"No innovation in the past 200 years has done more to save lives and improve health than the sanitation revolution triggered by invention of the toilet," Sylvia Mathews Burwell, president of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's global development program, said in an address at a conference in Kigali, Rwanda, according to a written statement released by the foundation. "But it did not go far enough. It only reached one-third of the world. What we need are new approaches."

Forty percent of the world's population lacks access to flush toilets, and more than a billion people defecate in the open, according to the statement. That's not only revolting, but also tragic. UNICEF estimates that at least 1.2 million children under age 5 die of diarrhea each year, and contact with human feces is the main cause, Time reported.

Access to toilets could go a long way to preventing these deaths, the statement said.

In addition to preventing diarrhea, better access to toilets could boost school and work attendance of girls and women, who risk embarrassment and sexual assault when forced to relieve themselves in the open or use public restrooms.… Read more

Gates: 'Decade of Vaccines' can save 10 million lives by 2020

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is pushing harder than ever for government leaders around the world to increase vaccination investments.

In a keynote address yesterday to the 64th World Health Assembly in Geneva, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates spoke for nearly half an hour to health ministers from 193 countries about the importance of "seeking good health care for every human being."

"I believe we have the opportunity to make a new future in which global health is the cornerstone of global prosperity," he said.

Gates called on the assembly to make this "the Decade of Vaccines," with some basic goals: eradicate polio early in this decade; build a system capable of delivering vaccines to every child; make five or six new vaccines available to all children around the world. With these investments, Gates said, the world "can save 4 million lives by 2015 and 10 million lives by 2020."

Another challenge Gates cited was lowering the cost of antigenic materials, such as pentavalent, pneumococcus, and rotavirus vaccines. The Gates Foundation is working with vaccine manufacturers to cut prices of those inoculations in half by 2016. Lower costs would be beneficial to many countries around the world that are reeling from budget woes. … Read more

Gates Foundation makes first equity investment

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the nonprofit fund created by the Microsoft co-founder and his wife, has made its first equity investment in a for-profit company: Inigral, a start-up that makes Facebook applications for educational institutions that want to "get your students engaged, from the point of admission through graduation." It's pitched toward schools that have problems with high dropout rates.

The Gates Foundation led the $4 million funding round, contributing $2 million. Retro Venture Partners contributed $1 million, as did the Founders Fund, a venture firm that counts early Facebook investor Peter Thiel and former … Read more

Bill Gates talks education tech

Bill Gates has been taking online classes for years. Now, he thinks it's time to make sure a whole lot more students do the same.

Today, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is announcing a new multiyear grant program that will give millions of dollars to those with novel ideas on how to use technology, and in particular online courses, to improve education. The Next Generation Learning Challenges are aimed at both funding new ideas and getting various groups to partner and expand on some of the good ideas that are being tried out, but only at small scale. … Read more

Melinda Gates: Recession pressured global efforts

The tough economic conditions of the last few years have strained efforts to achieve global goals such as reducing poverty, improving health, and addressing environmental concerns, says Melinda Gates, co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

"Realistically in a recessionary time people do pull inward and I think it does become more difficult for certain," Gates said in a telephone call with reporters last week, held as the world marks 10 years since it set the Millennium Development Goals.

Gates said the goals she and the Gates Foundation are focused on--the ones related to reducing poverty and … Read more

Bill Gates on giving, batteries, tablets, and more

NEAR LAKE TAHOE, Calif.--Bill Gates says it's gratifying to see the computer industry that he helped start turn some of its attention to broader societal challenges.

"I think there's increased awareness of using innovation to help in more than just profit making," Gates told CNET in an interview on Friday, following his speech at the Techonomy conference. "When I think back to the conferences I went to earlier in the industry, we were pretty darn focused on popularizing software and personal computing. Nothing wrong with that, but it's nice to see the evolution.&… Read more