The emergence of Amazon as a dominant force in E-Commerce, IT and Entertainment industry seems a very good news to Jeff Bezos who continues to remain the World’s Richest Man in 2020. He has more than 180 Billion Dollars as his net worth.
In November 2020, it was announced that Elon Musk, the Founder & CEO of Space X became the second richest man in the World, overtaking Bill Gates. Musk’s net worth is $127.9 Billion.
In the last 5 years, Bill Gates has lost the first and second positions to new comers to the top 10 ranks; which does not mean that Bill has lost his appetite for accomplishments but on the contrary, he is en route to accomplish something phenomenal that only a very few elite in the world like Warren Buffett and Azim Premji are known to undertake.
The Microsoft founder has donated close to $50 Billion to charity so far around the world. Bill Gates and his wife run a private foundation called Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and through this foundation, The Gates have been funding education, clean water, health care etc.
“Gates, Head of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, has donated nearly USD 1 billion in various projects in India in particular in fields related to health, and woman and child welfare” , reported The Economic Times. No one has given that much money as an act of philanthropy in India in the last 20 years.
When Bill entered India for the first time in 1997, he is remembered mostly for talking about Computers’ role in the shaping India’s future and talking to his elite clients.
“Bill called on India to harness the power and potential of personal computers to lead the country into the twenty first century”, says an old report from Microsoft. But little did people know about how he started his philanthropic activities in India right from the time of his first visit to India.
He administered Polio vaccines to children in India in 1997 and envisioned a future where polio is totally eradicated. He did not just say, he stood by his word when he joined hands with Rotary a decade ago and he has continuously donated towards that cause even today.
“Rotary and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation are renewing their longstanding partnership to end polio, announcing a joint commitment of up to $450 million to support the global polio eradication effort.”, Bill and Rotary announced in 2020. He was focused on ending Polio then and he is still focused on accomplishing this objective.
Bill’s Foundation also donated 3 million USD to the Tsunami affected Asia-Pacific regions that included India. In 2002, he announced that his foundation will give more than $100 million over 10 years to reduce the spread of H.I.V. and AIDS in India. The support will be done via foundation’s partners who are mostly NGOs. The same was reported in The New York Times.
There are so many acts of charity that Bill Gates and his wife have done, and we have only focused on a very little portion of his contributions to India. He has been giving a lot for the last 20 years to many countries in the world and this is why Mr.Gates is not the Number 1 Richest in the World.