An Hour With Bill Gates

Tuesday, January, 29th 2019

Last Thursday I was invited to an intimate session at the Royal Institute hosted by the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation.  The foundation had invited representatives from leading healthcare charities and governing bodies. The title of the session was “Making The Case For Global Health” and it was fascinating to hear the macro view of one of my business heroes, William Henry Gates III.

The invite had come from Nancy Durrell McKenna and Erica Belanger of Safe Hands For Mothers who, for the last 15 years have been on a mission to educate on the topics of sexual and reproductive health and rights, primarily in Sub Saharan Africa.  We at Say It Now have been talking to them about using digital messaging tools (chat bots) to help amplify the reach of their work.  

The rapid rise of smartphone penetration and network technology in Africa is opening up huge opportunities to reach ever larger groups of people.  Where the delivery of basic education carries the power to positively impact many lives we believe a mobile (or chat bot) first approach can be transformational and are thus heavily invested in the area.