Billionaire Microsoft founder Bill Gates is committing the majority of his massive fortune to improving healthcare and education in Africa over the next 20 years.
The 69-year-old entrepreneur announced his intentions to spend much of the $200 billion he’s made in technical innovation at the African Union headquarters in Ethiopia on Monday, according to the BBC.
“I recently made a commitment that my wealth will be given away over the next 20 years,” he told his audience in Addis Ababa. “The majority of that funding will be spent on helping you address challenges here in Africa.”
Gates reportedly claimed African leaders had “largely skipped traditional banking,” but now have an opportunity to think about how the growth of AI can contribute to “next generation healthcare systems.”
He stressed that health and education are the keys to prosperity throughout the continent.
PIUS UTOMI EKPEI/AFP via Getty Images
Bill Gates helps administer a rotavirus vaccine to a child in Ghana in 2013. (Photo by PIUS UTOMI EKPEI/AFP via Getty Images)
Gates said last month his foundation was on course to end operations in 2045. The world’s 13th richest man as of Monday doesn’t plan to have much money left once that happens.
“People will say a lot of things about me when I die, but I am determined that ‘he died rich’ will not be one of them,” he said on his website last month.
Gates said in that essay he was inspired by industrialist Andrew Carnegie to give away his fortune while he still can. Carnegie wrote in 1889 to die rich is to die “disgraced.”
The Gates Foundation has already spent $100 billion on philanthropic endeavors in Africa, it’s founder estimates.
The BBC reported that Mozambique’s former First Lady Graça Machel said Gates’ commitment comes during a “moment of crisis.”
Many African nations were dealt a blow when the Trump Administration under advisement from South African billionaire Elon Musk announced in February it would all but end the USAID program, which has served people in need abroad since 1961.
The Gates Foundation lists safer births, the minimization of infectious diseases and battling poverty as its chief priorities in Africa.
Its founder co-founded Microsoft in 1975 and became a billionaire by 1987. Forbes wrote in May that, had Gates not become dedicated to philanthropy, he would’ve likely be the only trillionaire the world has known.
