Bill Gates: Chairman and Chief Software Architect of Microsoft Corporation, co-founder of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

William (Bill) H. Gates, III, founder of software company Microsoft Corporation and co-founder of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

William (Bill) H. Gates, III, is not merely one of the best-known faces in business but is also one of the world’s most innovative and dedicated philanthropists. With his wife Melinda, Gates established the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in January 2000. The foundation’s assets of $24.2 billion are being used to improve people's lives by sharing advances in health and learning with people around the world.

Through his foundation, Gates has committed to building powerful alliances with a diverse array of public and private organizations. Nearly 80 per cent of the Gates Foundation grants for promoting health have gone to such key alliances, including the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB & Malaria, the Vaccine Fund and the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative. The foundation has also funded a range of important educational initiatives for children, and is working to improve access to Internet technologies for young people worldwide.

Explaining their belief in social action, the couple says, “Our grant making is grounded in the belief that the death of a child in Africa is no less tragic than the death of a child in America, and the understanding that those of us who were born in rich countries have a fundamental responsibility to help those who weren't.”

Bill Gates is Chairman and Chief Software Architect of Microsoft Corporation, the global software giant. While at Harvard University, he developed the programming language BASIC for the first microcomputer, the MITS Altair. In 1975, Gates and Paul Allen launched Microsoft to produce and develop software for personal computers. He is the co-author of The Road Ahead and Business @ the Speed of Thought. Proceeds from these books have gone to non-profit organizations dedicated to improving the lives of young people.