 "bill gates")
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, on Wednesday, visited Maa Mangla Basti in Odisha's Bhubaneswar. The trip is a part of his ongoing visit to India to check the progress of various social initiatives, of which his non-profit organisation - Gates Foundation - is also a partner.
Gates is set to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi and engage with various stakeholders during his trip, where he will hold discussions on how India's innovations can reach people who need them, the billionaire said.
"I'm visiting this week to learn about how we can continue working with India to help its ideas and inventions reach everyone who needs them, no matter where they live. This will be a main topic when I meet with Prime Minister Modi this week," Gates wrote in his popular blog - GatesNotes - on Sunday.
5 things Bill Gates said about India ahead of his latest visit:
1) He noted that India is an ancient country with new ideas and its greatest gift is its ability to innovate. Once again, Gates highlighted India's contribution towards vaccine accessibility to the world and said it is the "most important health achievements ever."
Gates impressed with India's digital public infrastructure
2) In his blog, he also praised India's digital public infrastructure. He said that he is looking forward to seeing the functioning of biometric identification systems - Aadhaar and cashless digital payment systems - UPI or unified payments interface. "I'll visit an agricultural monitoring centre in the state of Odisha where government officials use DPI to give farmers real-time guidance. Thanks to Aadhaar, this centre is able to maintain a registry of 7.5 million farmers—even if they don't own land—and their crops, so officials can keep track of who is growing what (and, therefore, what kind of farming advice they need). It has also developed a chatbot that makes it easy for farmers to get the latest information about their crops, using AI to tailor content to their particular needs and in their local language."
Focus on urban poverty
3) Gates said his purpose of visit is also to check India's action on tackling urban poverty, especially among women. "India has the fastest-growing urban populations in the world, and more than 100 million people there live in slums, where it's hard and often impossible to get even basic services like health, education, and clean water. Women are particularly vulnerable because they face discrimination and violence," he said.
More From This Section
4) In Odisha, Gates will also visit to see a women-led project about government construction contracts, in which trained and skilled women have delivered more than 52,000 projects, including building roads, drains, and toilets," he said.
Climate change issues
5) One of the focuses of Gates' visit to India is always on climate change issues. During his visit, he will also learn about the scientific challenges India is facing in tackling climate change. "… It's great that India is ramping up its ability to invent, manufacture, and deploy climate breakthroughs. The government is investing in research to raise the productivity of crops and livestock even in a warmer climate, and it's expanding its plans for clean energy," he noted.
