Date: 2024-10-19 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00016363
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Bill Gates
FINANCE & INNOVATION ... Bill Gates Thinks These 5 Future Inventions Will Change the World ... “It’s better to be born today than ever.”
Peter Burgess
Bill Gates, Microsoft co-founder and director at Berkshire Hathaway, smiles during an interview in Omaha, Neb., on May 8, 2017. Nati Harnik/AP
Why Global CItizens Should Care
The United Nations’ Global Goals call on countries to eliminate poverty and hunger, promote education and gender equality, and generally work toward a more equitable and sustainable future. Technological breakthroughs will play a critical role in helping countries achieve these goals. You can join us in taking action on this issue here.
Bill Gates helped create Microsoft, one of the most profitable companies in modern history, but when asked to think about transformative technologies, his mind didn’t go to the circuit board or the internet.
Instead, he thought of plows.
“The plow — like many technologies, both ancient and modern — is about creating more of something and doing it more efficiently, so that more people can benefit,” he wrote in an introduction to his list of '10 Breakthrough Technologies' to look out for in 2019 for the MIT Technology Review.
The plow is in many ways emblematic of Gates' career shift from technologist to philanthropist and humanitarian. Through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, he has dedicated his time in recent years to eradicating poverty, preventable diseases, world hunger, and more. The organization has committed $45.5 billion over the years to causes ranging from reducing maternal mortality rates to preventing malaria.
It’s no surprise, then, that improving health outcomes is a major theme running through Gates’ list of world-changing technologies.
“I think the big picture is that it’s better to be born today than ever, and it will be better to be born 20 years from now than today,” Gates said in an interview with the MIT Technology Review.
Here are highlights from Gates’ 'Breakthrough Technologies.'
1. Blood Tests to Predict Premature Babies
GFF_maternal and newborn health.jpg Image: flickr/UNICEF Ethiopia
More than 15 million babies are born prematurely each year, and 1 million infants die from resulting complications.
In the years ahead, Gates says that a simple blood test could determine whether a woman is more likely to give birth to a premature baby and then interventions can be taken to preserve the health of both the mother and child.
Read More: Bill Gates Is Giving $1 Billion to Help Fight Malaria https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/bill-gates-donation-1-billion-malaria/
2. Custom Cancer Vaccines
5225170834_1209593bde_o.jpg Image: WHO / Flickr
Cancer remains one of the leading causes of death in the world and treatments often have low success, especially for the more lethal forms of the disease, and for people in low-income countries.
Gates thinks progress will soon be made on custom cancer treatments tailored to a person’s genome.
“If it works as hoped, the vaccine, which triggers a person’s immune system to identify a tumor by its unique mutations, could effectively shut down many types of cancers,” Gates writes.
Read More: Bill and Melinda Gates Just Launched a Biotech Startup to Fight Diseases
3. Sanitation Without Sewers
Child in Lagos Nigeria Image: Seattle Globalist
More than 2.3 billion people lack access to quality sanitation systems worldwide, an injustice that leads to millions of preventable deaths every year.
A major obstacle to improving access to sanitation is that sewage systems are challenging and expensive to build, especially when they have to be incorporated into urban environments that are already heavily overbuilt.
Read More: Flushing the Toilet Is the First Step to Creating These New Eco-Friendly Bricks
In the years ahead, Gates anticipates sanitation systems that don’t need regular sewage maintenance. For example, systems that contain filters and organisms that can break down human waste can create fertilizer.
4. Gut Probe Pills
South Sudan Surgeon Hospital Image: Will Swanson/UNHCR
“Environmental enteric dysfunction (EED) may be one of the costliest diseases you’ve never heard of,” Gates writes. “Marked by inflamed intestines that are leaky and absorb nutrients poorly, it’s widespread in poor countries and is one reason why many people there are malnourished, have developmental delays, and never reach a normal height.”
In the years ahead, Gates believes that diagnosis of EED will become easier and far cheaper through digestible devices that can scan a person’s intestines.
Read More: Your Poop Could Save Lives. (No, Seriously.)
5. Carbon Dioxide Catcher
Wind and Coal Power UK CO2 Carbon Dioxide Coal Emissions 1890 Record Carbon Brief Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Wind Climate Change Act Paris Agreement Britain Renewable
Energy James Hitchings-Hales Image: Andrew, Flickr
The United Nations estimates that countries will need to remove 1 trillion tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to avoid the worst consequences of climate change.
In recent years, breakthroughs have been made in carbon capture technology that pull greenhouse gas emission from the atmosphere and Gates predicts that these innovations will reach a viable stage in the years ahead.