I remember going to Davos some years back and sitting on a global health
panel that was discussing ways to save millions of lives. Millions! Think
of the thrill of saving just one person's life - then multiply that by
millions. ... Yet this was the most boring panel I've ever been on - ever.
So boring even I couldn't bear it.
What made that experience especially striking was that I had just come
from an event where we were introducing version 13 of some piece of software,
and we had people jumping and shouting with excitement. I love getting
people excited about software - but why can't we generate even more excitement
for saving lives?
Still, I'm optimistic. Yes, inequity has been with us forever, but the
new tools we have to cut through complexity have not been with us forever.
They are new - they can help us make the most of our caring - and that's
why the future can be different from the past.
The defining and ongoing innovations of this age - biotechnology, the
computer, the Internet - give us a chance we've never had before to end
extreme poverty and end death from preventable disease.
Sixty years ago, George Marshall came to this commencement and announced a plan to assist the nations of post-war Europe. He said: "I think one difficulty is that the problem is one of such enormous complexity that the very mass of facts presented to the public by press and radio make it exceedingly difficult for the man in the street to reach a clear appraisement of the situation. It is virtually impossible at this distance to grasp at all the real significance of the situation."
Thirty years after Marshall made his address, as my class graduated without me, technology was emerging that would make the world smaller, more open, more visible, less distant.
The magical thing about this network is not just that it collapses distance
and makes everyone your neighbor. It also dramatically increases the number
of brilliant minds we can have working together on the same problem - and
that scales up the rate of innovation to a staggering degree.
At the same time, for every person in the world who has access to this technology, five people don't. That means many creative minds are left out of this discussion -- smart people with practical intelligence and relevant experience who don't have the technology to hone their talents or contribute their ideas to the world.
We need as many people as possible to have access to this technology,
because these advances are triggering a revolution in what human beings
can do for one another. They are making it possible not just for national
governments, but for universities, corporations, smaller organisation,
and even individuals to see problems, see approaches, and measure the impact
of their efforts to address the hunger, poverty, and desperation George
Marshall spoke of 60 years ago.