Stories related to: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

This will be Bill Gates’ last Monday at Microsoft, the company that the 52-year-old founded with business partner Paul Allen as a teenager. He’s retiring Friday from Microsoft’s day-to-day business and beginning full-time work with his $37.3 billion philanthropic organization, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He's been planning this week for 4 years, and Newsweek takes a look at the bizarre notion of a Gates-less Microsoft . More »

The lives of millions of children  may be saved by a new technique for producing a malaria drug at a 10th of the cost of current treatments, making it accessible the world's most impoverished people, reports the Independent .  The technique involves inserting a dozen synthetic genes into yeast cells, then fermenting them, with sugar, in giant vats, to produce the active ingredient, artemisinin. More »

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has given $8.5 billion to global health causes and is slowly defeating AIDS in Africa, but it’s creating unexpected new problems for the continent, the LA Times reports. By pouring money into the treatment of AIDS, TB and malaria, it has lured health care workers with higher pay, while basic  health care has has suffered. More »

The world stands at the brink of eradicating polio, Bill Gates says, and his foundation yesterday awarded $100 million toward that end. One of the foundation's largest challenge grants will fund programs in four countries where the disease is still epidemic, notably Nigeria. The Rotary Foundation received the grant and will match it over the next 3 years, reports the Chicago Tribune . More »

Chuck Feeney’s foundation gave $458 million in grants last year—third only to Ford and Gates—but very few know the secretive philanthropist’s name. Having thus far shielded himself from fame, Feeney gets some star treatment in a new biography that sheds light on his good deeds and spartan lifestyle, reports the Times —in a profile quietly buried in Wednesday’s edition. More »

Why is Bill Gates, “practically a social cripple,” going to save the world? Because of numbers, says Clive Thompson in Wired . More than most, the Microsoft maverick -- who spearheads tireless crusades against poverty and AIDS -- can comprehend large quantities, while research shows that most of us start losing count (or caring as much) after we tally about 8. More »

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has given $105 million to the  University of Washington to study the effectiveness of public health programs around the world. The money will be used to create a center to track such measures as child mortality, the prevalence of major diseases  and the availability of medical treatment. More »

A Berkshire Hathaway investment in a Sudanese oil company is posing thorny problems for the Gates Foundation, the Los Angeles Times reports. Warren Buffet's investment outfit is the largest independent shareholder in PetroChina, whose parent company the U.N. and U.S. say funds Sudan's janjaweed militia—a stark contrast to the foundation's mission. More »