Bill Gates

Bill Gates (http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/images/exec/web/billg4_web.jpg)

If you think of all the heroes you’ve heard of they have one thing in common. They have helped people. They may have inspired people, or saved lives, or just shown outstanding determination to their field of study. Lots of people we consider heroes have accomplished one of these things, but to accomplish all three marks you are a truly amazing person. Bill Gates is one of those people. He developed the world’s largest software business, showing great determination. His foundation has helped save thousands of lives, and he inspires people to work hard for a better tomorrow. He is truly a great man and deserves the title of hero.

Bill Gates started of his life as a very intelligent albeit slightly antisocial young man, but it wasn’t until he went to Lakeside School at the age of thirteen that he became interested in computers. There he met Paul Allen, and the two of them became good friends, bonded by their interest in computers, and computer programming. Eventually he and Paul would start up the company Microsoft, the world’s largest software business. A business that would, in time, make Bill Gates one of the richest men in the world.

Bill Gates used his money to start the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, a foundation that has helped hundreds of thousands of people in developing countries to overcome hunger and poverty. The foundation has given grants to Heifer International, The International Development Enterprises, CARE, The International Rice Institute, TechnoServe Inc., and The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa. Organizations that, with the money from the Gates foundation, help people overcome the struggles of poverty and start new lives.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has also helped make huge leaps in the struggle to eradicate malaria. They sponsored a malaria forum in Seattle where researchers presented a vaccine that could reduce your chances of getting malaria by 50%. The researchers, with a sponsorship from the Gate’s Foundation, have been studying the mosquitoes that carry malaria for years and think that they may finally be on their way to finding a cure. If they do they could save thousands, even hundreds of thousands of lives, and may eventually be able to destroy the disease altogether.

Bill Gates has done the one thing that we all strive for. He will be remembered. Deep down that’s what we all want and we will if we, in a sense, follow in his footsteps. If we do whatever we can to try to make the world a better place, one day at a time, it will. If you can try to save one person’s life, then you will be remembered, just like Bill Gates will be. If you can help someone they may be inspired to help someone else. All it takes is one big push to get the ball of philanthropy rolling. Bill Gates has done it, and you can too.

Bill Gates is considered one of the top ten “heroes of our time” by the New Statesman, and rightfully so. He is determined to give away 95% of his money to those who need it most, and he has already helped thousands of people. He is an inspiration to all, and we should try to follow in his footsteps, doing whatever we can to remember, and help those less fortunate.