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Gates: Health comes first Says computers aren�t top priority for poor people By Gene Johnson The Associated Press SEATTLE � The way to solve the world�s problems is not to give everyone a computer, the head of the world�s biggest software company says. Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, offering the closing remarks Wednesday at a three-day business conference, said it�s more important to spread health than technology. The World Resources Institute conference focused on how to improve life in underdeveloped countries by improving access to computers � and how to make a buck doing it. Gates� message wasn�t exactly what attendees were expecting. "There are things those people need at that level other than technology," Gates told them. He said that when people are living on less than a dollar a day, they have little interest in learning how to use computers. "Do you have any idea what it�s like to live on less than a dollar a day?" asked Gates, the world�s richest man. Matt Morrison, executive director of a public-private partnership called the Pacific Northwest Economic Region, said being reminded that those in poor countries have problems besides a lack of computers helped put things in perspective. "It was refreshing," Morrison said. Gates has had plenty of experience dealing with poorer countries � from both health and technology standpoints. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has given millions of dollars to help eradicate diseases like measles and to improve schools, libraries and myriad other institutions. He said it�s too narrow-minded to focus only on computers. He lamented that 95 percent of health care money is spent in the developed world and called it criminal that so little money is being devoted to ending malaria. "He clearly understands the benefits of technology," said Trevor Neilson, spokesman for the Gates Foundation. "And he knows there are some things it can�t fix." Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2000 Mail Tribune, Inc.