All Articles Tagged "Bill Gates"
No Student Loan Needed: These Famous Names Became Successful Without A College Degree
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Getting a college degree is a prerequisite for many jobs and highly recommended if you want to make it in many industries. But there are many people who have also managed to build successful careers without getting a diploma. We take a look at a few of them and try to analyze how they did it.
Bill Gates Is Looking For The ‘Next Generation of Condom,’ Offering Up To $1Million In Funding For Safe Sex Innovators
Source: Shutterstock
If you were to survey ten people on their feelings about condoms, you’d get all types of responses. Some use them because of their proven effectivity in the assistance of preventing unwanted pregnancies and the transmission of STIs and STDs. Others express that they simply can’t be bothered with them. Whichever end of the spectrum you fall on, I think it’s safe to assume that the common consensus is that condoms make sex less enjoyable. Bill Gates, however, is seeking to change that. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is on the lookout for the ‘Next Generation of Condom’ and are willing to shell out an initial grant of $100,000 to the person or persons with the best proposals, says a press release issued by the organization earlier this month. In addition to the initial grant, the foundation is offering up to $1million in funding. Students, scientists and entrepreneurs alike are welcome to submit their ideas via an online, two-page application.
“To overcome persistent health and development problems, we need new, game-changing ideas. Inspiration can come from anywhere and we are hopeful that this new round of Grand Challenges Explorations will uncover innovative approaches to improve lives around the world,” expressed the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s Director of Global Health Discovery & Translational Science, Chis Wilson.
Proposals will be accepted until May 7, 2013 and can be submitted at www.grandchallenges.org. According to the release, after the close date, the foundation and an independent team of reviewers will select the most innovative proposals and grants will be awarded. As previously stated, each proposal selected will receive a $100,000 grant and the opportunity to received up to $1million in additional funding.
Sounds like a great idea with an admirable cause!
In a Flat Economy, the List of Billionaires Gets Longer
L’Oreal’s Liliane Bettencourt. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus, File)
The rich are definitely getting richer. The list of richest people in the world have grown to a record level of 1,426 billionaires with a total worth over $5.4 trillion up from $4.6 trillion last year based on the annual Forbes magazine study.
The United States’ own Bill Gates took second place with a worth of $67 billion, while Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim grabbed the top spot with a fortune of $73 billion.
Of Forbes’ top ten, eight were over the age of 70. However there were some youngsters on the list, like the original Facebook collaborators Mark Zuckerberg (28), Eduardo Saverin (30), and Dustin Moskovitz (28).
The list of billionaires is not just a boys club either. Women billionaires increased year-over-year from 104 to 138, with 90-year-old L’Oreal cosmetics guru Liliane Bettencourt topping the list of women and also claiming a top 10 spot at number nine of all billionaires worldwide.
It’s also interesting to note that many of those on the top 20 list come from a retail background, such as the heads of Zara, H&M, and Wal-Mart.
Although this may seem like a benefit for those who actually made the list, this appears to be a concern for the overall economy. The Trade Union Congress general secretary Frances O’Grady said in the UK’s Guardian, “These latest findings from Forbes make for very disturbing reading. Trickle-down economists may love having a growing super-elite, but seem to forget the fact that rising pay inequality was a major cause of the financial crash… Unless wealth is spread more broadly, we will be unable to build a sustainable recovery, as consumer spending will continue to flat-line.”
For the full list, click here.
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Operation Hope Founder Asks “What If Bill Gates Were Black?”
telegraph.co.uk
John Hope Bryant, the founder of Operation HOPE, knows the importance of financial education. His organization launched the 700 Credit Score initiative to help those in the black community who struggle with average credit scores that make them vulnerable to predatory lending and payday loans. The organization also helps to teach underserved youth the importance of financial literacy and entrepreneurship. While Bryant’s work is certainly needed, perhaps his work would not be needed quite as much if there were, as he contemplated to Bloomberg, a black Bill Gates.
What Barack Obama and the black members of government provide in the political world is still lacking in the business world, according to Bryant. The black community still needs a business image that equals its political image. It needs to see inspiration of how blacks can succeed on a global economic scheme. The article asserts that if Bill Gates were a black man, it would have a greater impact on African Americans than even Barack Obama. While African Americans have fought for civil rights and the right to vote, they still value and understand the global power of money.
If there were a black economic player like Bill Gates, there is a greater possibility that the effects of that would extend into Silicon Valley and other areas of entrepreneurship hubs in the nation. In addition, there may be a changed value system and “culture of philanthropy” that would carry past the idea of church that would help to build up black communities.
While some may look to Oprah Winfrey as that black role model, she’s doesn’t quite match Bill Gates’ level of influence. A black entrepreneur on his level would be able to create thousands of jobs, would have a product that is used in each of our daily lives, and would inspire young people to excel. Young people would connect this image as an inspiration to be smart and to do even do better in school. A black Bill Gates would be the inspiration needed to help African Americans move forward.
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From Prison to Paid: Celebrities Who Did Time Before Their Shine!
Most celebrities enjoy their time on the red carpet, but what you might not know is that some of our favorite actors and performers have spent some time in the pen too.
Check out this list of celebs who have done hard time, before reaching stardom….
Bill Gates Gets Schooled On Education Reform
By J. Smith
Bill Gates, known for putting his money where his mouth is, is ready to make some changes to the education reform movement. He should know what it would take, since he’s already spent $5 billion trying to make it happen. The next phase of his education advocacy, he says, will be all about correcting the (expensive) mistakes of his previous reform efforts.
After many years and even more money dedicated to a record-breaking push for education overhaul, Gates revealed to the Wall Street Journal that it has been a sobering learning process complete with missteps and reroutes.
The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation has put $5 billion into school reform since 2000. “One of the foundation’s main initial interests was schools with fewer students. In 2004 it announced that it would spend $100 million to open 20 small high schools in San Diego, Denver, New York City and elsewhere. Such schools, says Mr. Gates, were designed to – and did – promote less acting up in the classroom, better attendance and closer interaction with adults,” the Journal reports. “But,” Gates said, “the overall impact of the intervention, particularly the measure we care most about – whether you go to college – it didn’t move the needle much. Maybe 10% more kids, but it wasn’t dramatic…we didn’t see a path to having a big impact, so we did a mea culpa on that…we think small schools were a better deal for the kinds who went to them.”
Money could not exempt Gates’ foundation from having to clear the familiar hurdles of transforming school systems: powerful labor unions and “a top-down government monopoly provider.” He warns against overestimating the power of philanthropy, the Journal says, but we’re certainly not about to underestimate the enterprising mind of Bill Gates.
“Instead of trying to buy systemic reform with school-level investments, a new goal [of Gates’] is to leverage private money in a way that reflects how public education dollars are spent,” the Journal reports. So the next step in Gates’ education reform plan will be to fund research and “learn the basic facts” about what works and what doesn’t in classrooms. The product is a five-year, $335-million project that will examine classroom management, clear objectives and diagnosing and correcting common student errors.
Just like Microsoft came with inevitable trial and error, so will the transformation of the American school system. I’m putting my money on Bill Gates.
The $600 Billion Challenge
(CNN Money) — Just over a year ago, in May 2009, word leaked to the press that the two richest men in America, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, had organized and presided over a confidential dinner meeting of billionaires in New York City. David Rockefeller was said to have been a host, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Oprah Winfrey to have been among those attending, and philanthropy to have been the main subject.
Bill Gates Gives Millions For Company To Bring Mobile Money To Haiti
(News One) –The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is using its financial clout to push the Haitian marketplace toward change by offering $10 million in prizes to the first companies to help Haitians send and receive money with their cell phones. The project is different from the foundation’s more common approach, which would be to ask for proposals, make grants and then hope for good results. This time the foundation — and its partner, the U.S. Agency for International Development — wants to see the results first and then hand out some cash.
