On meeting Bill Gates

There is an old saying in Britain: “You can tell a man by his shoes…”, and funnily enough, the first thing I noticed about Bill Gates was his shoes. Black, slightly worn out and with the strangest/funkiest pattern on them… My interpretation: a humble and cheerful individual… and by far I was right.

Three days before, I received an email from the Global Poverty Project (Google them, they are awesome), stating I had been selected as a Global Poverty Ambassador for 2012, alongside a further 74 individuals. The email ended with a note that we would get the chance to meet Bill Gates and Hans Rosling at a launch event in London, was I going to miss this opportunity? HELL NO!

(One of my shots, you can just about see his shoes here.)

The event started around 11.30 at the London School of Economics, where the Ambassadors got a chance to meet each other and learn about each other’s background and its relevance to poverty eradication. There was students, faith leaders, academics, councillors etc… trust me, the full mix. It was amazing to see so many individuals shared a similar passion and we all could not wait to get going and begin spreading the word through the 1.4bn presentation.

1.4bn presentation? What’s that you may ask? Well, you know the Global Poverty Project I mentioned earlier, they have developed a very innovate presentation to share awareness on the issue of Global Poverty and the complexities it has. I can’t remember the exact number it has reached (I’m not great with numbers), but what I do know, its well above 100,000. My job as an Ambassador will be to reach out to my community, my faith groups and spread the word. I am looking forward to this task, because I can never stop talking anyway, so I might as well do some good out of it. The entire ambassador’s project is supported by the co-operative (it’s the year of co-operatives at the UN, by the way) and the Gates Foundation.

Bill Gates walked in… late, of course. (Is he South Asian by any chance?) His single word, “Hi”… and within seconds we were straight in for a photograph with him. First part of the day complete.

Now, that you have the background to it all… back to Bill’s shoes for the second part of the day. I sat right at the front of the LSE lecture theatre, facing Bill Gates. My first impressions were based entirely on his shoes, to me; he was “Humble and Cheerful”, there was something so convincing about those shoes. I looked at his posture, “slouched but confident”, to me, he seemed just like every other person in the room, he genuinely wanted to make a difference. (He just had all that money to go with it.)

Bill Gates spoke straight after Hans Rosling (he’s that lecturer everyone wants to be taught by)… Gates blew me away with his wise words, his passion for making a difference, the work of his foundation and most importantly the amount of money he was willing to part with to make it happen. He explained what had been achieved and his vision for the future. This guy is AMAZING (and trust me, I don’t say that about people often :-p).

I won’t go through Gates full speech; you all have probably already seen it… but a few interesting points:

  1. There was not one single case of Polio in India last year (AMAZING)
  2. Innovation will tackle poverty (This is worth thinking about, we have so much resource, surely we can use it to benefit others?)
  3. UK has one of the best track record for giving (GO BRIT’s)
  4. Pakistan proves to be a problem country, especially when concerning eradicating Polio.
  5. “It’s vital for us to keep doing what we’re doing to tackle poverty”-BG

For Gates, the attraction of the Global Poverty Project and its Ambassadors (i.e. me) lay in its accent on youth and the common ground it shared with the work of his foundation. In his words: “The message of my fourth annual letter is identical to what the Global Poverty Project is all about – that is, that it’s very easy to lose sight of the conditions of the very poorest”.

To end, I would just like to say how excited I am to become a Global Poverty Ambassador and look forward to the training. In the words of Hans Rosling: “Hearts, brains and wallets work together,” and with this in mind we will end poverty in our lifetimes.

Oh… and I forgot to share with you my vision on tackling poverty – it’s faith! It doesn’t need to be religion, it simply needs to be a belief that it can be done and we will get there in the end!

Follow the Global Poverty Project on Twitter at @TheGGP or www.global povertyproject.com.

Global Poverty Ambassadors 2012 (I’ve been cut off though – harsh…)

- Zahid, Global Changemaker from the UK