The reticence is understandable. All that money and the corresponding influence that goes with it make Gates a tempting target for criminal minds or syndicates preying on the wealthy and well-connected. Ensuring his safety and security is paramount, and heaven forbid that anything untoward should happen to the famous billionaire tech visionary while on Philippine soil.
On the other hand, the self-effacement also seems typical of the Microsoft founder and philanthropist, who has visibly eschewed the trappings of international celebrity to focus his attention, and the billions of dollars at his disposal, on more urgent, earthbound concerns such as trying to end hunger, disease and illiteracy in many parts of the planet. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which he cofounded with his wife in 2000, has an endowment of $42.3 billion as of November 2014, and he himself has donated more than $28 billion so far to the philanthropic organization.
Gates’ visit to the Philippines, and to the Irri in particular, may be explained by the fact that his foundation is said to be the single biggest private donor to it. Some $18 million of the Irri’s annual budget of $100 million comes from the Gates Foundation. That annual budget may surprise some: That big? But, unknown to the younger generations of Filipinos, as well as Asians who have grown up on better and healthier varieties of rice developed at the Irri, “the world’s premier research organization dedicated to reducing poverty and hunger through rice science†(as it describes itself) now has offices in 17 countries. Its headquarters in Los Baños is but the global base of a humanitarian scientific endeavor that has seen the Irri, since its founding in 1960, bring its motto—“Rice Science for a Better Worldâ€â€”to diverse places where the grain serves as the staple food to billions of people, from Bangladesh in Asia to Burundi in Africa.
Linkback:
https://tubagbohol.mikeligalig.com/index.php?topic=79797.0
Topic: Bill Gates and Irri (Read 1191 times)