This ‘Candles’ column is about people who are shining examples for us, isn’t it? Some may, therefore, be surprised at the person I have chosen this time. Raising their eyebrows, they might ask, ‘Oh, this woman? Isn’t she the wife of the richest person in the world?’ Melinda Gates is, yes, the wife of the man who was till recently the richest man in the world–Bill Gates. Friends who know the couple well say she is indeed his better half.
But, if you are surprised, it means you don’t know her enough.
Born on August 15, 1964 in a Catholic family in Dallas, Texas, U.S., she was christened Melinda Ann French. At St. Monica Catholic School she was the top student in her class. After earning degrees in computer science and economics and an MBA, Melinda joined Microsoft and played a key role in developing many of Microsoft’s multimedia products.
A few months after she joined Microsoft, Bill asked her out for a date. Melinda herself has revealed what exactly happened. “Bill said, ‘You know, I was thinking maybe we could go out—if you give me your phone number—may be two weeks from tonight.’ And I said to him, ‘Two weeks from tonight? I have no idea what I’ll be doing two weeks from tonight. You’re not spontaneous enough for me.’ But Bill wasn’t ready to give up. He called an hour later and said, ‘Is this spontaneous enough for you?’” She agreed to the date. After dating for six years they got engaged in 1993 and decided to celebrate their engagement with a safari in Africa.
“What was most memorable about that trip wasn’t the savanna. It was the people we met. Our time in East Africa was my first real encounter with extreme poverty. It was both eye-opening and heartbreaking. I have vivid memories of watching women walking down the street, babies on their backs, and wondering what their lives were like. What did they hope for and worry about? What were the barriers keeping them trapped in poverty? Before we left, Bill and I took a walk on a beach in Zanzibar and had the conversation that would end up changing our lives. We’d already decided to give away most of the resources from Microsoft, but weren’t sure how. Now we had a sense of purpose—and urgency.
“When we got home to Seattle, we began learning all we could about what we’d seen. We dug into the data on poverty, disease and inequality, and consulted experts who’d been working on these issues long before we got started. In 2000, we opened the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, focused on solving the challenges facing the world’s poorest people. We wanted to help find solutions.”
Through this Foundation Melinda Gates has become the first woman in the world to have given away more than $ 40 billion for humanitarian work all over the world. Along with her husband, she has become part of a movement that has supported well-researched initiatives in more than a hundred countries that face acute challenges in education, poverty, hunger and health. Asked what she felt most proud about—among a legion of worthwhile contributions across the world—Melinda said it was making life-saving vaccines available to hundreds of millions of children. “There are three million children alive today because of those vaccines.” By the year 2020, her Foundation would have prevented more than eleven million deaths, 264 million illnesses and 3.9 million disabilities by providing sustainable vaccine coverage and support. Other initiatives have focussed on fighting poverty, diseases, illiteracy and bias against women.
Melinda and Bill Gates have received numerous awards and honours for their philanthropic work all over the world, including our own ‘Padma Bhushan’ and France’s ‘Legion of Honour.’ But what do you think their greatest reward will be? The satisfaction of fulfilling a command—and a promise—by Jesus: “Give and it shall be given to you.”
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