From opening new windows to the world of technology to serving humanity: Bill Gates

It was January 1997. I was flying from Washington D.C. to London. The person sitting next to me was Dewang Mehta, Executive Director of Nasscom. Dewang informed me that the founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates was coming to India in a couple of months. Nasscom was planning a big event that I definitely should not miss.
Had Dewang met Bill Gates? He said he had not but there had been multiple interactions with his office. Dewang was convinced that it would be a major coup for the software industry in India. Gates had big plans for investments and both the Prime Minister and the Finance Minister would be meeting him in Delhi.
In 1995, Bill Gates had published a book titled The Road Ahead. It was an instant best seller. I had read the book. I was struck by the long term vision of the Founder and CEO of Microsoft who had just turned 40. In the book he prophesied, “Some people think that the information highway-also called the interactive network-is simply the current version of the Internet or the delivery of hundreds of simultaneous channels of television. The revolution in communications will take place over several decades and will be driven by new “applications”-new tools often meeting needs we don’t even foresee now. Today’s internet only hints at tomorrow’s.” As an author, he displayed extraordinary prescience in predicting that “apps” will fulfil customer needs that one could not imagine in 1995. Yet, even armed with that rare foresight, as a CEO of Microsoft Gates, was not able to foresee the emergence of a company like Apple which silently kindled an app-driven revolution.
I received an invitation letter in February 1997 signed jointly by Dewang Mehta of Nasscom and Rajiv Nair, Managing Director of Microsoft India to two events in Mumbai. The first was a big event where Gates would speak to a large audience at the Oberoi (now Trident) ball room and the second was an interactive session where only a dozen CEOs of software companies had been invited.
Bill Gates landed in Delhi on March 4 1997. He met the then Prime Minister Shri H.D. Deve Gowda and the Finance Minister P.Chidambaram and addressed a meeting of CII and then headed for Mumbai on the 5th March. The big meeting in Mumbai was full of speeches and adulations. The smaller interactive meeting , which lasted only 90 minutes, took place in a room hired by Microsoft in the hotel. There were no presentations.
The meeting started with Dewang Mehta presenting a solid brass image of Ganesha to Bill Gates. Bill Gates was a little perplexed. He may not have seen a god with the head of an elephant before. Dewang explained to him, “This is our god of success and he is very business-friendly. Our business men need the blessings of Siddhivinayak to achieve success.” Gates thanked him for the gift. Dewang added with a beaming smile, “For another reason we thought that the Ganesha idol would be an appropriate gift for you. Because both Gates and Ganesha achieve success by straddling a mouse.”
Gates told us how he had started small, how luck had played a role and how Microsoft’s unwavering vision of “a computer in every home” had changed the world and Microsoft. Rajendra Pawar, Founder of NIIT, asked him a question: What was Gates’s view on automation of learning through use of computer technology? I had expected Gates to be gung-ho about e-learning. Surprisingly, he was not. His view was that computer technology would supplement but never replace learning in physical spaces. He said, “If I want to learn Physics I can buy a video lecture of the best professor and I can also buy the best book. But at Harvard, where I did not complete a degree, I learnt more from my fellow students and the energy the discussion unleashed. The value of interactions is under-estimated. Computers will help but never replace the human interactions and peer learning.”
At the end of the inter-active session, Gates spoke to us individually for a few minutes each. He had a nasal monotone and spoke with unfailing courtesy. He appeared to me to be a very driven and focused young man who was both knowledgeable and passionate about technology and his company Microsoft. I left with a very different impression of him. He was an amiable person. In those days, the Western media often projected a negative image of Gates.
A few weeks later I received a letter from Rajiv Nair, Managing Director of Microsoft India dated 24th April 1997:
“Dear Mr Roy,
I am delighted to send you Bill Gate’s new book “The Road Ahead” The copy is personally signed by him. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did.” The revised second edition of the book was enclosed—– personally signed by Gates.
Gates came to India after 1997as well. As I was then a member of the Executive Council of Nasscom, I had the privilege of meeting him there and also at the meetings of the World Economic Forum in Delhi. The last time I met him was in October 13th 2008 at the Centennial Global Business Summit of Harvard Business School (HBS) at its campus in Soldiers Field in Boston where he was the keynote speaker.
At meeting which marked the 100th year of HBS, Gates spoke passionately about the flaws of pure market-driven capitalism. He said, individuals who live in areas where tuberculosis, AIDS, and malaria are still common are often too poor to afford the drugs needed to cure or prevent those diseases. He added, “These people have no voice in the marketplace. As a result, ten times as much funding is devoted to research on the prevention of male baldness as malaria, a disease that kills more than 1 million people each year.” His foundation’s objective was to rectify that imbalance.
It was clear that he was now focused more on giving back to society and serving humanity. He said, “It’s an idea that I sometimes call creative capitalism. But it’s not just about dollars. It really is about the innovation power that American businesses could unleash by allowing their most creative and innovative people to spend 5 percent of their time working to solve social problems.”
When my son Arupendra began studying in Boston to become a computer engineer, I gave away the signed copy of The Road Ahead to him. I do not know if the gift had any influence on him. When he passed, he joined Microsoft as an engineer in Redmond, Washington where the company is headquartered.