Bill Gates Turns Skeptical on Digital Solution's Scope
The premise was that "market drivers"
could be used "to bring the benefits of connectivity
and participation in the e-economy to all of the
world's six billion people," according to conference
materials, but the speaker would have little of it.

"I mean, do people have a clear view of what it
means to live on $1 a day?" the speaker, William
H. Gates, asked. "There's no electricity in that
house. None."

When a moderator brought up solar power, Mr.
Gates shot back, "No! You can't afford a solar power
system for less than $1 a day." And, "You're just
buying food, you're trying to stay alive."

It is a theme to which Mr. Gates, the world's richest
man, returns in an interview at his office here at the
Microsoft Corporation, the giant software maker he
founded. Pacing the room, waving his hands, he
conjures up an image of an African village that
receives a computer.

"The mothers are going to walk right up to that
computer and say, My children are dying, what can
you do?" Mr. Gates says. "They're not going to sit
there and like, browse eBay or something. What
they want is for their children to live. They don't
want their children's growth to be stunted. Do you
really have to put in computers to figure that out?"