Imagine that you are 18 years old and you've secured a place at Harvard. At 20 years old, you quit Harvard. With the support of your parents, you decide to start up what will become the world's largest and most successful PC software company with an old school friend. You are a billionaire by the age of 31. To date you remain one of the wealthiest men on the planet and your children will only inherit 'a miniscule portion' of your wealth (Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/pda/2011/jun/13/bill-gates-charity-microsoft). I should probably add that 'miniscule' is said to equate to about 10 million dollars. Anyway, each to their own. You are also a philanthropist. If you don't know who you're supposed to be yet, you're Bill Gates.
(Source: www.microsoft.com)
I must admit that I knew very little about Bill Gates until I watched him give his speech at The Richard Dimbleby Lecture last week. I did have my preconceptions, as I'm sure we all do occasionally, but leaving those to one side he made a lot of thought-provoking points. The 'internal optimists' - that's how Mr and Mrs Gates describe themselves* - and their current plan: to eradicate polio. Polio, or poliomyelitis, is an infectious disease which enters the body through the mouth and nose and then goes on to develop in the throat and gut. If it goes on to invade the central nervous system then it can cause damage to the nerve cells which control our muscles (motor neurons). Here's a fun fact that might come in handy during a pub quiz one day - Mary Berry (the nation's favourite baking granny) had polio as a child, back when they called it 'Infantile Paralysis'. We're lucky in the UK, times have changed and now every baby is automatically offered the polio vaccination - so the risk of acquiring it here is virtually nil, but this is not the case elsewhere in the world.
Since the universal eradication of smallpox in 2011, individuals all over the world have carried a glimmer of hope that we will go on to eradicate even more diseases. Polio is the next on that list, and I'm not shy about saying that there are many, many more that we need to spread the word about. Bill Gates is one man (granted, with a lot of money) but he also has a voice. Here's to taking a leaf out of his book and shouting even louder. In a society where it's easy to take a National Health Service with the availability of free vaccinations for granted it doesn't hurt to remind each other that 'All Lives Have Equal Value'.
*For more about the incredible work that Bill Gates and his wife are involved in see http://www.impatientoptimists.org/
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