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October 4, 2004 Vol
75, no. 6F
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| OPENING UP THE GATES:
Some lucky engineering students met Bill Gates at a reception following
his talk. EJC president and BioE junior Ryan Doan shakes hand with
Gates. |
Bill Gates
speaks to an audience comprised mostly of engineering students
You might love him or hate
him, but there’s no denying that Bill Gates is the most successful
software guru and computer visionary of our time. More than 1,600 engineering
students and faculty packed Zellerbach Hall Friday morning, October
1 to hear one of the world’s richest and most famous men talk about
the future of computing and software.
Some students, particularly EECS majors, were star struck as the father
of the personal computing and software revolution sat speaking before
them.
EECS senior Lilya Krivulina (December ’04) was thrilled to see
Gates in person.
“I couldn’t imagine a more exciting graduation present than
hearing Bill Gates talk. I really admire him and think he is doing great
work,” she says.
Gates covered varied ground during his hour-long appearance. In an interview-style
discussion with Dean Richard Newton, he talked about the mistakes he
had made at Microsoft (getting into TV-related software before its time),
the technology areas with the biggest potential for growth (artificial
intelligence, voice recognition, and graphics), how to increase computer
penetration in developing countries (use Wi-Fi and bay stations) and
his ecological vision (creating a paperless office).
Gates also said that the people likely to solve the technology problems
of tomorrow are those trained in both biology and computer science.
Those technology breakthroughs, he predicted, will occur in the next
10 to 20 years. He also touched on issues of globalization and education.
“The global economy is not a zero sum war, but if the U.S. is no
longer the richest country in the world, it’ll have to compete
on merit only. The number one reason the U.S. has been so successful
thus far is because of its world-class university system and a handful
of top technological institutions,” he said.
Gates, who is known for his generous national and international philanthropy
and foundations, joked that it was more difficult to give money away
than it was to earn it.
“You have to be smarter when doing philanthropic work because it’s
much harder to measure its impact,” he said.
He also spoke on intellectual property, citing it as one of Microsoft’s
biggest concerns. “Microsoft software is free in China because
their licensing compliance is very low,” he said.
It was fitting that at Berkeley, the birth place of the Berkeley Software
Distribution (BSD) open source software movement, Gates discussed Microsoft’s
stance on open source versus commercial software.
“BSD is a fantastic thing that allowed many CS students to learn
about code. Free and commercial software will always exist and the equilibrium
will shift between them. The interplay works well and keeps us on our
toes. Right now, Microsoft releases source code for half of what we
do,” Gates said.
Gates concluded by saying he was proud of setting the model for the
PC and software industries, and added that it was Microsoft’s collaboration
with top research universities that “made all the difference in
moving the company to a new level.”
To view Bill Gates’ talk go to www.coe.berkeley.edu/multimedia.
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