WASHINGTON (IslamOnline) - Microsoft's Bill Gates, who has long proclaimed the computer age will eliminate world poverty and human suffering has now made a volte face by declaring that he has lost faith in computers. He said that he believes that computers can do little to solve the gravest of the world's social problems.
Gates was speaking at a conference in Seattle on using computers to help the Third World.
He said "The world's poorest two billion people desperately need healthcare, not laptops." While maintaining that he still believes that technology could bring about a better world, he said that he doubts if computers or global capitalism could solve the immediate disasters facing the poorest people of the world.
Gates, who surprised many by his statements, said: “Mothers are going to walk right up to that computer and say, ‘My children are dying, what can you do?’ They're not going to sit there and, like, browse eBay or something.
“What they want is for their children to live. Do you really have to put in computers to figure that out?”
Gates, who had been donating significant amounts towards the development of computers and info-tech frameworks, said that he was very naïve at the time.
He said that people who believed that e-economy would benefit developing countries had no idea of what it means to live on $1-a-day with no electricity. “You're just buying food; you're trying to stay alive.”
Gates said that his change of attitude came about after recent visits to Asia and Africa.
He further stated that his $21 billion Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will now concentrate more on developing countries’ healthcare through development and distribution of much needed vaccines.
“As a father of two children, thinking about the medicines that I take for granted which are not available elsewhere, that sort of rises to the top of the list,” he said.
