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I’m not a big fan of MS. If anything, the WPF developer kit installation process was so long that it irked me. That being said, I’m a big fan of Bill Gates and his work nowadays. While the Internet, or more specifically, tools such as Facebook Causes has given arms and legs to the various causes that we stand for, there’re just some problems that are gigantic, but are only being solved slowly due to the lack of market motivation.

Enter visionaries like Bill Gates and Peter Diamandis. Extremely successful people, with significant influence in both public and private sectors across various geographies, they identify the significant problems faced by the world, and am willing to put in not just money, but time and effort influencing others to focus on solving the problems that the world faces.

In the latest talk given by Gates as part of TED 2009, which is an annual conference that brings together thought leaders from the Technology, Entertainment, Design worlds and more, he share about 2 problems that he is currently passionate about solving:
1. How do you stop a deadly disease that is spread by mosquitos?
2. How do you make a teacher great?

Interesting Notes
- More money put into baldness drug development than malaria as the rich man are bald
- Malaria control requires skills from all areas (math, computing, pharma, etc.)
- If US had top tier teachers, gap between US & Asia in Math & Sci would go away in 2 years
- Masters degree doesn’t correlate with teaching quality – Past performance does
- Slightly better teachers leave the system, not the lousy teachers
- Check out KIPP teaching styles through the book “Work Hard Be Nice”

For all current and aspiring leaders out there, What are you doing today (to change the world)?

Side-note: Check out the multi-inbox view on Gmail! Love it!

Original Post at http://blog.wonghongting.com