Notes from the Bill Gates Visit

Events, News

Bill Gates visited CMU yesterday, the last stop on his “farewell tour” as he steps down from Microsoft and joins as a full-time member of the Gates Foundation. I have to say there was a genuinely warm-and-fuzzy feeling on this visit. Maybe it was because of Gates’ generosity when he visited four years ago (CMU is the only repeat from his last university tour), when he gave us the founding gift for our new building complex. Or maybe the students are sensing something as Gates transitions to full-time philanthropy. Whatever the explanation, the excitement level and warm reception, especially by the students, was really obvious. Rangos Hall was packed to the gills, as was the simulcast in McConomy Auditorium, for a total live audience of at least 1,200 people. When Gates took the stage, the crowd erupted in one of the most enthusiastic cheers I have ever heard on the CMU campus. Really very exciting, and something that I think was really appreciated by Gates.

Just before the talk, I was lucky enough to participate in a faculty roundtable with Bill Gates and about a dozen other faculty members and administrators. This is something that Gates asks to do at each university stop, and as you might imagine, it is somewhat difficult to arrange because Gates’ people ask that the number of people involved be kept very small. Fortunately, in the setup for the meeting, Bill Gates’ representatives highlighted computer science as the area of specific interest for the roundtable. Great for us! (I note, also, that before the roundtable, Bill Gates met with several of our students, to hear about their research work.)

Everything ran late, due to some crazy TSA issues at the Pittsburgh airport. (I’m sure President Cohon will have a few words with those folks…) This meant that the roundtable event had to be cut a bit short. Still, we have enough time to share several interesting ideas. Bill Gates spoke eloquently about the need for more attention on what we as computer scientists can do for people who are living in the “bottom third” of the global economy, in desperate poverty with no electricity, no running water, and very poor access to education and healthcare. He seemed very much in command of the problems of the developing world, which to my mind lent a great deal of authenticity to his comments. He shared some interesting factoids, for example the anti-correlation between nutrition and population growth in the developing world. (That is, as nutrition improves, population growth declines — somewhat of a paradox but actually easy enough to explain in terms of infant and child mortality rates and the need for people to have children to care for them in old age.)

Several of our faculty made very good explanations of their work, getting Bill engaged in some lively discussions. Included among these were Luis von Ahn, who got Gates very interested in CAPTCHAs; Manuela Veloso, on our V-unit program, which Bill promised he would study; and Tuomas Sandholm in the possibilities of expressive commerce to optimize sourcing issues in the developing world. I brought up the topic of the CS pipeline and the successes of programs here such as Lenore Blum and Co.’s OurCS program. Most of the topics that were raised in the roundtable discussion were mentioned later in Gates’ talk, including, for example, some of the computational biology by Bob Murphy and others. Overall, the roundtable was stimulating and useful.

Bill’s talk appeared to be off-the-cuff, which struck me as impressive. Bill Gates started the talk with a hilarious video of “his last day at Microsoft”. If you haven’t seen it, you really must. Here it is:

After the talk, lots of questions were asked (from students only, by Randy Bryant’s edict!) Many of them focusing on the philanthropic opportunities of the Gates Foundation.

After the lecture, an informal reception for Bill Gates was held. Most of the CMU Board of Trustees attended, which was possible because the talk coincided with a Trustees’ meeting on campus. This gave Henry Hillman a perfect opportunity to tell Bill Gates about his gift to name the Hillman Center for Future-Generation Technologies, which will be physically connected to the Gates Center for Computer Science.

Henry Hillman’s speech was simply charming. He thanked Bill Gates for his visit and for his gift that made the Gates Center for Computer Science possible. He then went on to explain his excitement about his naming gift for the Hillman Center. Hillman noted that he turns 90 years old this coming Christmas, which means that his gift for a “future-generation technologies” building makes him either extremely senile or extremely confident about CMU Computer Science. ;-) He ended on a more serious note, saying that he hoped to live to 100, so that he might see what kinds of great things come out of the new building.

After Hillman spoke, Ray Lane gave a few remarks, noting that the newly endowed Ray and Stephanie Lane Center for Computational Biology would find a perfect home in the Hillman Center. All in all, I would have to think that Bill Gates is pleased that his founding gift is inspiring other donors also to make major gifts. I think our university’s Advancement folks also deserve hearty thanks from all of us in Computer Science for all their hard work in making these gifts possible.

I sense a great deal of momentum building behind the building project.

Peter Lee @ February 22, 2008