Melinda Gates

Last week, I gave a TEDxChange talk in Berlin, and the video is now ready for viewing here and at TED.com. My argument is simple:

1. Birth control is an uncontroversial idea (practiced by a billion people) that has unfortunately become controversial.

2. As...

With only a few days to go, I’m eagerly anticipating TEDxChange: The Big Picture and putting the finishing touches on my talk. The TEDx speakers I have watched online this year have certainly set a high bar.

This close to an event, it’s always a little nerve-wracking....

Everywhere I go, people ask me how they can help.

Fighting big issues like hunger and poverty, and working to save women's lives can be overwhelming. Where do you start?

What if we started by thinking about helping one woman give birth in a clean, safe health facility...

After an amazing amount of progress on women's and children's health in 2011, I'm starting off 2012 by heading to Bangladesh. I'll be learning even more about two of the biggest killers of children -- pneumonia and diarrhea. Bangladesh has made incredible progress in recent years, reducing the...

As I mentioned in my blog post last week, many of the tools needed to save lives already exist, but we need to do a better job making sure those tools reach the children who need them most.

On this World Pneumonia Day, I think it is worth...

As the world's population hit 7 billion yesterday, there's been a lot of talk about the incredible advances the global community has made improving the health of the world's poorest people and saving lives, especially when it comes to children. In 1960, about 20 million children died before they turned...

Today I'm excited to welcome some of the world's foremost experts and advocates to Seattle for the foundation's second Malaria Forum. As we head into this exciting day, I can't help but reflect on the tremendous progress we have made in building public support to end malaria since the last...

This weekend, I am traveling to New York City for an occasion I’ve been looking forward to for a long time – NBC’s Teacher Town Hall. It is always a thrill for me to spend time talking to teachers, hearing about their lives, and bringing those stories back to...

Each year, I eagerly await the publication of one number: the number of childhood deaths around the world. That number, which has gone down from 20 million in 1960, to about 12 million in 1990, to less than 8 million last year, makes a powerful statement about the progress the...

As the head of a foundation focused on what I consider to be some of the world's most pressing issues -- health, education, and poverty -- I'm constantly aware of the urgency underlying our work. There is not a moment to waste when millions of people's lives and futures are...

Innovation can transform a company, a culture, and even the world. But innovation doesn't have to come in the form of a gadget. It can come in the form of a smiling neighbor knocking at a family's door, toting some basic supplies and the skills to address matters of life...

In my work at the foundation, I'm proud to highlight voices of the global effort to alleviate poverty, promote health and ensure that every student in the U.S. has an effective teacher. Witnessing this life-saving work firsthand has made me an optimist.

For...

I have believed for more than a decade now that children in the poorest parts of the world should have access to the same life-saving vaccines available to children in rich countries. That's why I'm excited that the GAVI Alliance announced today they will be able to bring...

I recently sat down with foundation staff member Amie Newman to answer some of her questions about maternal health. It's a topic about which I am passionate. I'm honored to talk about my own mother, the mothers I've met in my work for the foundation, and to talk to the...

Private rural practitioners, or "quacks," deliver the vast majority of healthcare in many countries around the world; there is a real opportunity to improve the health and well-being of millions of poor families if we can figure out how to best engage with these providers to improve their practice.

What can I do? This is the question I get asked all the time. Join me at TEDxChange @ TEDxDelhi, where I discuss what I've learned about how we can each make a difference in the lives of people living in poverty and with disease. It starts with...

I talk a lot about the amazing progress the world has made in child health, especially that we have dramatically reduced the number of childhood deaths each year from 12 million to 8 million in the past 20 years alone. A lot of that progress has come about because we...

When I returned to work in Seattle following my trip to Kenya and Ghana last January, I was filled with tremendous optimism mostly due to one fact: while we here at the foundation work hard to help lift people out of poverty, the poor work harder.

On a recent trip to Kenya, I visited a family planning clinic in an urban slum in Nairobi. For women in poor communities, where getting food or basic health care is a struggle, family planning becomes even more urgent. The line at the clinic was out the door, with about...

We stand on the shoulders of some amazing female pioneers from the early 20th century. We honor them by carrying on their work, which in this day and age means making the case for supporting foreign aid and improving the health and lives of poor women and children...