Explore Business Standard
Gates Foundation
A coalition of funders, including the Gates Foundation and Ballmer Group, will spend USD 1 billion over 15 years to help develop artificial intelligence tools for public defenders, parole officers, social workers and others who help Americans in precarious situations. The funders announced Thursday that they will create a new entity, NextLadder Ventures, to offer grants and investments to nonprofits and for-profits to develop tools for those who often manage huge caseloads with few resources. The solutions that we're investing in, the hundreds of entrepreneurs that are going to bring forward solutions that incorporate leading edge technologies, are going to do it by coming alongside people who are living through some of the struggles in the economy, said Brian Hooks, CEO of Stand Together, a nonprofit started by Kansas-based billionaire Charles Koch. The other funders include hedge fund founder John Overdeck and Valhalla Foundation, which was started by Inuit cofounder Steve Cook an
Pakistan, one of two countries where polio remains endemic, was working tirelessly to eradicate the disease, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Monday, as he underlined that all partners needed to put in continuous efforts to reach the ultimate goal of a polio-free Pakistan. Prime Minister Sharif discussed with Bill Gates, the founder and co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the ongoing activities between Pakistan and the foundation in the areas of immunisation, nutrition and financial inclusion on the sidelines of a special meeting of the World Economic Forum. Gates, in the interaction with the prime minister on the sidelines of the WEF special meeting here, praised the programme of immunisation and polio immunisation in Punjab under Sharif's leadership as chief minister of the province and suggested the spread of the practice across the country, a statement released on X said. Recalling Gates' visit to Pakistan in February 2022, the prime minister invited him to .
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation on Monday announced its largest annual budget of USD 8.6 billion for 2024, a part of which will go towards advancing health innovations. With global health budgets in decline overall, a portion of the additional funding will go towards advancing global health innovations that will save and improve lives of some of the world's most vulnerable people, including newborn babies and pregnant women living in low-income communities, it said. The budget, which represents an increase of 4 per cent over last year and is a USD 2 billion increase over the 2021 budget, comes as global contributions to health in the lowest-income countries are stalling, the foundation announced here ahead of the start of the World Economic Forum. The foundation also committed to increasing its annual spending to USD 9 billion by 2026. "We can't talk about the future of humanity without talking about the future of health," said Bill Gates, co-chair of the Gates ...
A USD 40 million investment will help several African manufacturers produce new messenger RNA vaccines on the continent where people were last in line to receive jabs during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced Monday. While it could still take at least three more years before any of the vaccines are approved and on the market, the foundation said that its mRNA investment marks an important step forward in improving vaccine equity. Whether it's for local diseases in Africa like Rift Valley (fever) or for global diseases like TB, mRNA looks like a very promising approach, Bill Gates told The Associated Press on Sunday after visiting one of the facilities involved, the Institut Pasteur in Dakar, Senegal. And so it allows us to bring in lots of African capabilities to work on these vaccines, and then this can be scaled up. The announcement comes as the foundation opens its annual three-day Grand Challenges event, which brings together scientists and .
President Droupadi Murmu asked the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on Tuesday to give attention to serious ailments like sickle cell anaemia, which particularly afflicts tribal communities, apart from its focus areas such as public health, malaria and TB. According to a Rashtrapati Bhavan statement, Murmu conveyed her views in an interaction with the foundation's co-chair and trustee Melinda Gates who called on her on Tuesday. The president was happy to note the work done by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation over the past two decades, it said. Speaking about India taking over the G-20 presidency, she said India's experience and best practices can be very useful lessons for other developing countries. "In particular, India's rich and diverse tribal heritage can be showcased to the world - living in harmony with nature, traditional systems of medicine, and a genuine 'sustainability' approach are the hallmarks of this unique lifestyle," the statement said. She said the governme
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has announced an initial commitment of USD 50 million to support science and innovation in low- and middle-income countries. "We need the ideas and leadership of the people who are closest to the global health challenges we're working to address," Gates Foundation CEO Mark Suzman was quoted as saying in a statement. The announcement of an initial commitment of USD 50 million to support science and innovation in low- and middle-income countries was made at the 17th Grand Challenges Annual Meeting.