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Gates says Creative Capitalism can change the world

Business Materials 24 January 2008 23:46 (UTC +04:00)

( dpa )- Microsoft boss Bill Gates Thursday unveiled his vision of Creative Capitalism, calling on business find ways to improve life for the world's poorest.

Addressing the World Economic Forum in Davos , Switzerland he said: "I am an optimist but an impatient optimist. The world is getting better, but not getting better for everyone and not getting better fast enough."

It was a world where the least needy got the most and the most needy got the least and where a billion people lived on less than a dollar a day.

Gates said: "We have to find a way to make the aspects of capitalism that serve wealthier people serve poorer people as well."

The 52-year-old billionaire philanthropist, repeatedly listed as the world's richest man, urged companies to move beyond the market capitalism that helped him make his fortune now estimated at around 56 billion US dollars.

In a final visit to the World Economic Forum as Microsoft chairman, he urged businesses to consider how their products could be used to alleviate poverty.

He now intends to spend more time working with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation which has donated billions attempting to redress medical and educational needs previously ignored.

He berated a system that spent more money finding a cure for baldness than trying to prevent malaria and urged all those gathered at the Forum, from whatever background, to take on a project of creative capitalism in the coming year whether it be through foreign aid, a charitable gift or a new product.

He called on the corporate world to harness their power and intelligence to serve the most people.

He said if we could spend the early decades of the 21st Century finding ways that serve the needs of the poor, we would have found a sustainable way to help the world.

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