In recent times the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has been in the news as an organization funding the development and evaluation of new drugs to treat patients for Covid-19.
This foundation is the brainchild of Bill and Melinda Gates, business magnates and philanthropists, and was launched in the year 2000 as a charitable organization which aimed to enhance healthcare and reduce poverty around the world.
Melinda Gates is a computer scientist and general manager of Microsoft – an organization that produces computer software – which was co-founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen in 1975.
She was born on August 15, 1964 in Dallas, Texas to Raymond Joseph French Jr, an aerospace engineer and Elaine Agnes Amerland, a homemaker.
Melinda attended St. Monica Catholic School where she consistently topped her class. She became interested in computer science when she was 14 and went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Duke University in 1982.
After her graduation, she joined Microsoft as marketing manager and met Bill Gates in 1987 at a Trade Fair in New York. They married in 1994 and have three children, Jennifer, Rory and Phoebe.
Melinda has been actively involved with shaping the goals of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and has expanded its vision to include education. Bill and Melinda have donated in excess of US $28 billion of their personal wealth to the foundation.
After the Covid outbreak, they devoted their foundation’s resources toward combating the outbreak, pairing with leading pharmaceutical companies to fund the development of a vaccine.
Melinda has consistently been ranked as one of the world’s most powerful women by Forbes Magazine, and has been awarded the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom and the French Legion of Honour for her humanitarian work.
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