Melinda Gates is an American businessperson and philanthropist who has co-founded the charitable Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation with her husband, who is a well-known Microsoft Corporation co-founder Bill Gates. She is famously known as the better half of Bill Gates.
The Gateses are on the top of the list of wealthiest couples in the world, and yet they have the courtesy to give away 95% of their wealth via the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which Melinda helmed implicitly on her own for the first six years of development.
Nonetheless, the couple whose combined net worth is $102 billion, has made it the mission of their life to exterminate global poverty through initiatives in education, healthcare, and, most importantly, genuine human connection.
How Old Melinda Gates Is?
Melinda Ann French was born on August 15, 1964, in Dallas, Texas. In 2020 she celebrated her 56 birthdays in August.
How Did Bill and Melinda Meet?
Bill and Melinda met the first time in 1987 after Melinda got appointed as a product manager at Microsoft. And later promoted to as the general manager of information products. They got married on January 1, 1994. Whereas their first child was born, in 1996, she left working in the company to give her attention and time on her family and the couple’s charitable work.
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
Along with her husband, Melinda inaugurated her charitable journey in 1994.
The couple combined their charitable interests, the William H. Gates Foundation with two of their other philanthropic organizations, the Gates Library Foundation and the Gates Learning Foundation in 2000 as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, with recorded revenue of $17 billion.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s works also came to speak about global poverty and health issues.
In 2011, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation officially restated its mission as: “improving equity in four areas: global health, education, access to digital information via public libraries, and support for at-risk families in Washington State and Oregon.”
In 2012 Melinda pledged $560 million to better the access to contraception for women in third-world nations.
In 2006, a friend of Bill’s, Warren Buffett, another renowned wealthy investor made a huge donation of $30 billion to the foundation. In hope of sharing its assets among the most pressing needs, Melinda then restructured the organization into three departments: worldwide health, global development, and U.S. community and education. One of the foundation’s fundamental global health aims has been to develop prevention strategies, vaccines, and treatments for diseases such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis.
In 2011, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation officially restated its mission as: “improving equity in four areas: global health, education, access to digital information via public libraries, and support for at-risk families in Washington State and Oregon.” In 2012 Melinda pledged $560 million toward increasing access to contraception for women in third-world countries.
Melinda and her husband also remain dedicated to increasing the state of education in the United States. Their foundation supports students to fund their studies through the Gates Millennium Scholars program. As she wrote on her Facebook page, “Bill and I believe that education is the great equalizer.”
Gates and Melinda’s recent contribution to global threat appeared in the form of the novel coronavirus that rapidly spread after first surfacing in China in late 2019. Melinda and her husband devoted their foundation’s significant resources toward battling the outbreak, pairing with leading pharmaceutical companies to finance the development of a vaccine.
Melinda Gates Book
In 2019, Melinda published a book by the name of, The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World.
She writes in her book:
“How can we summon a moment of lift for human beings – and especially for women? Because when you lift women, you lift humanity,”
Melinda Gates net worth
Melinda Gates is an American businesswoman and philanthropist. Melinda and Bill Gates, who is considered one of the wealthiest people in the world with an approximated net worth of about $120 billion. That is a combined net worth with her husband, who also led their charity work through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which is the largest philanthropic foundation in the world, according to Forbes magazine.
Facts About Melinda Gates
- She along with her husband got the Award for Greatest Public Service Benefiting the Disadvantaged, presented by Jefferson Awards in the year 2002.
- She has been regarded as one among the “100 Most Powerful Women” by Forbes since the year 2011.
- She was given an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters award by Duke University as a recognition for her charitable work dedication in the year 2013.
- She was given an honorary doctorate in medicine award from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden in the year 2007.
- She with her husband Bill Gates, alongside Paul David Hewson, recognized by the name Bono, was named by Time magazine as the Persons of the Year in December 2005.
- She is one of the board of directors of the Washington Post company and also accompanies Bilderberg Group conferences.
- Melinda along with Bill Gates was awarded honorary degrees from the University of Cambridge, in honor of their Gates Cambridge Trust, set up in the year 2000, which finances postgraduate scholars from outside the UK to study at the University.
- She left her job as General Manager of Information Products, to concentrate on looking after their family.
- She was placed at number 12 in the list of 200 Most Influential Philanthropists and Social Entrepreneurs Worldwide by the UK-based company Richtopia in the year 2017.
- She chaired The Campaign for Children’s, a $300 million comprehensive fundraising drive to increase facilities and develop the hospital’s research program to discover medicines and treatments.
These are some of the knowledge about the life of Melinda Gates and her exceptional work in the world of charity. We hope you liked this inspirational article. If you have any questions or more information feel free to share with us.