The folloncing excerpt is from the 2013 Duke University commencement address, giten
by Melinda Gates, co-founder of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The people who say technology has disconnected you from others are wrong. So are
the people who say technology automatically connects you to others. Technology is just a
tool. It's a powerful tool, but it's just a tool. Deep human connection is very different. It's
not a tool. It's not a means to an end. It is the end-the purpose and the result of a
meaningful life and it will inspire the most amazing acts of love, generosity, and humanity.
In his famous speech "Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution," Martin Luther
King Jr. said, "Through our scientific and technological genius, we have made of this world
a neighborhood and yet we have not had the ethical commitment to make of it a
brotherhood....
What does it mean to make of this world a brotherhood and a sisterhood? That probably
sounds like a lot to ask of you as individuals, or even as a graduating class. I'm pretty sure
none of you will respond to the annoying question "What are you going to do after
graduation by saying "I plan to have the ethical commitment to make of this world a
brotherhood."
many
But you can change the way you think about other people. You can choose to see their
humanity first-the one big thing that makes them the same as you, instead of the r
things that make them different from you....
Paul Farmer, the Duke graduate I admire most, is a testament to the deep human
connection I'm talking about. As many of you know, Paul, who's here today, is a doctor and
global health innovator. For years, he travelled back and forth from Boston, where he is a
professor of medicine, to Haiti, where he ran a health clinic giving the highest quality care
to the poorest people in the world. Now, he lives mostly in Rwanda, where he's working on
changing the country's entire health care system.
I first met Paul in 2003, when I went to see him in Haiti. It took us forever to walk the
100 yards from our vehicle to the clinic because he introduced me to every single person
we met along the way. I am not exaggerating. Every single person.
As we moved along, he introduced each person to me by first and last name, wished
their families well, and asked for an update about their lives. He hugged people when he
greeted them and looked them in the eyes throughout each conversation. If you believe love
plays a role in healing, there was healing happening at every step of that journey....
Of course, not everybody is Panl Farmer. Not everybody is going to dedicate their whole
life to connecting with the poorest people in the world. But just because you don't qualify
for sainthood doesn't mean you can't form deep human connections-or that
connections can't make a difference in the world.
your
That's where technology comes in. If you make the moral choice to connect deeply to
others, then your computer, your phone, and your tablet make it so much easier to do.
Today, there are 700 million cell phone subscribers in Africa. I travelled to Kenya
recently and spent a day in Kibera, which many people consider the largest shum in Africa.
One image that sticks with me is all the cell phones piled up in a small kiosk where locals
paid to recharge their batteries. Most people in Kibera don't have electricity-even the cell
phone charging businesses steal it from the city's power grid-but everywhere I looked
young people were on their phones. And guess what they were doing? Exactly what y
do... they were texting
you
You and they can share your stories directly with each other, with literally billions of
people, because you're all using the same technology..