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CONTRIBUTE BLOGS
04/02/2009 18:22
by Marcia Stepanek
When in Britain last week at
the Skoll World Forum, I was
referred to a recent article
in The Observer written by
Joss Garman, the 24-year-...
03/02/2009 22:35
by Marcia Stepanek
As the recent copyright woes
of Obama poster artist Shepard
Fairey show, there's a war
raging over what some now are
calling a new art form in ...
02/16/2009 07:24
by Marcia Stepanek
I just finished reading an
advance copy of "The Blue
Sweater: Bridging the Gap
Between Rich and Poor in an
Interconnected World,&qu...
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People
Bill's Journey
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Oct. 28, 1955
Bill Gates is born to William H. Gates II, a Seattle attorney, and Mary Gates, a schoolteacher and chairwoman of United Way International. He is raised in Seattle with his two sisters
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1968
Gates discovers his interest in software and begins programming computers at age 13 while attending the private Lakeside School____________
1973
Gates starts college at Harvard University and lives down the hall from Steve Ballmer, now Microsoft’s CEO. While attending Harvard, Gates develops a version of the programming language BASIC for the first microcomputer – the MITS Altair____________
1975
While still in school, Gates starts Microsoft with childhood friend Paul Allen, creating software for personal computers, then a new invention____________
1976
Gates leaves Harvard to devote his energies to Microsoft. He never finishes his degree____________
Jan. 1, 1979
Microsoft moves from Albuquerque, N.M., to Bellevue, Wash., near Seattle. The corporate campus is moved in 1986 to nearby Redmond, Wash., its current location____________
Jan. 1, 1994
Gates marries former Microsoft executive Melinda French Gates, with whom he now has three children____________
1995
Gates outlines his vision for the future built around the Internet in “The Road Ahead,” which stays in the No. 1 spot on The New York Times bestseller list for seven weeks____________
Dec. 1994
Bill and Melinda Gates form the William H. Gates Foundation and seed it with an initial stock gift of about $94 million. His dad runs it out of his basement.____________
Dec. 7, 1995
After recognizing the emergence of the Internet in a memo titled “The Internet Tidal Wave,” Gates outlines a plan to transform the company to meet the challenge posed by the new technology
____________
1997
Bill and Melinda Gates launch the Gates Library Foundation to bring computers and Internet access to public libraries in low-income communities in the United States and Canada. Former Microsoft executive Patty Stonesifer takes on the leadership of this foundation, the second Gates foundation at the time____________
2000
Gates steps down as Microsoft's CEO, taking the title of chief software architect. Ballmer is named CEO. ____________
2000
The William H. Gates Foundation merges with the Gates Learning Foundation and is renamed the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, with current assets of $37.5 billion.____________
2005
The foundation announces it will build a new headquarters near Seattle’s landmark space needle and move into its new campus in the winter of 2010____________
June 15, 2006
Gates announces he will transition from day-to-day responsibilities at Microsoft to work full-time at the foundation beginning in July 2008 ____________
June 25, 2006
U.S. investor Warren Buffett, who Gates met at a Fourth of July barbecue in 1991, pledges to give 10 million Berkshire Hathaway class B shares to the foundation to further its philanthropic mission, a pledge worth more than $31 billion at the time ____________
Aug. 24, 2006
First installment of the gift from Warren Buffett is given to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in the amount of $1.6 billion____________
June 2007
Bill Gates returns to Harvard University to receive an honorary degree and speaks to the university’s graduates on the importance of philanthropy and giving____________
Sept. 19, 2007
Following criticisms in the press and from the foundation community that the foundation is too large and insular, the foundation forms advisory panels for each of its three program agreas—Global Health, Global Development, and the U.S. program. Each expert panelist is to serve for three years to provide strategic input to program presidents in each of the three areas____________
July 11, 2007
The second installment from the gift of Warren Buffett is given to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in the amount of $1.76 billion____________
Jan. 2008
Bill Gates addresses the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on “creative capitalism” and encourages fellow attendees to “stretch the reach of market forces" so that more people can make a profit, or gain recognition, doing work that eases the world’s inequities____________
Feb. 7, 2008
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s founding CEO, ex-Microsoft executive Patty Stonesifer, announces she will step down on Sept. 1, 2008____________
May 12, 2008
Jeff Raikes, former president of the highly profitable Microsoft Business Division, is named the next CEO of the foundation, effective Sept. 2, 2008____________
June 27, 2008
Bill Gates leaves his day-to-day role at Microsoft to dedicate more time to his foundation
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