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Bill Gates, U2 rocker Bono, and Melinda Gates, Persons of the Year.
The world richest man Bill Gates along with wife Melinda Gates and rocker Bono are named Time magazine’s “Persons of the Year.” These dynamic trio were chosen base on being the people most effective at finding ways to eliminate eradicate such distresses as HIV and AIDS and poverty that kills more than 8 million people a year.
The rocker’s job is to be raucous, grab our attention. The engineers’ job is to make things work. 2005 is the year they turned the corner, when Bono charmed and bullied and morally blackmailed the leaders of the world’s richest countries into forgiving $40 billion in debt owed by the poorest; now those countries can spend the money on health and schools rather than interest payments—and have no more excuses for not doing so. The Gateses, having built the world’s biggest charity, with a $29 billion endowment, spent the year giving more money away faster than anyone ever has, including nearly half a billion dollars for the Grand Challenges, in which they asked the very best brains in the world how they would solve a huge problem, like inventing a vaccine that needs no needles and no refrigeration, if they had the money to do it.
[Time]