Bill Gates
The Lifeboat Foundation Guardian Award is annually bestowed upon a
respected scientist or public figure who has warned of a future fraught
with dangers and encouraged measures to prevent them.
The 2015 Lifeboat Foundation Guardian Award has been given to Bill Gates
in recognition of his fight against infectious diseases, his warnings
about artificial intelligence, and his funding of improvements in
education since a smarter civilization is one that is more likely to
survive and flourish.
Infectious Diseases
Bill Gates has donated billions of dollars to help fight malaria,
pneumonia, diarrheal diseases, and an array of parasitic infections. This includes working on the development of vaccines to prevent
infectious diseases including HIV, polio, and malaria. He also recently
committed $50 million dollars to contain the Ebola outbreak. Bill has
repeatedly announced his goal to completely eliminate malaria. Learn
more at
https://www.gatesnotes.com/Health/Eradi...neration.
He also launched a network of sites across Sub-Saharan Africa and South
Asia — known as the Child Health and Mortality Prevention Surveillance
Network, or CHAMPS — which will track the ebb and flow of disease,
making sure that vaccines and aid can be delivered where they're most
needed. This network is planned to expand over time.
Artificial Intelligence
"I am in the camp that is concerned about super intelligence," Bill
wrote. "First the machines will do a lot of jobs for us and not be super
intelligent. That should be positive if we manage it well. A few decades
after that though the intelligence is strong enough to be a concern. I
agree with Elon Musk and some others on this and don't understand why
some people are not concerned."
Education
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is committed to ensuring that all
students in the United States have the opportunity to receive a
high-quality education. They have two programs that work in concert
toward this goal. Their College-Ready Education program aims to ensure
that all students graduate from high school prepared to succeed in
college, and their Postsecondary Success program aims to dramatically
increase the number of young people who obtain a postsecondary degree or
certificate with labor-market value. Areas of intersection include
practical approaches and policy strategies to better align K-12
standards with expectations in college-level courses.
Learn more at
http://lifeboat.com/ex/press.releases.b...d.winner
Resources
Learn about "Architecture for building a people-first Digital Earth" at DigitalEarth2025.com
Books
Read "The Telomerase Revolution: The Enzyme That Holds the Key to Human Aging...and Will Soon Lead to Longer, Healthier Lives" at http://amzn.to/1R93BIV
Blog
Recent interesting blog posts include:
"Can Governments Ban Bitcoin?" by Philip Raymond at
http://lifeboat.com/blog/2016/01/can-go...-bitcoin
"The First International Beauty Contest Judged By Robots" by Zoltan Istvan
at http://lifeboat.com/blog/2016/01/the-fi...y-robots
"Lunar Leap: Europe Is Reaching for a Moon Base by the 2030s" by Odette
Gregory at
http://lifeboat.com/blog/2015/12/lunar-...pace-com
"Printable Organs Are Closer Than Ever Thanks to Three Bioprinting Breakthroughs"
by Klaus Baldauf at
http://lifeboat.com/blog/2016/01/printa...throughs
"Register Christmas Lecture — Anders Sandberg on Transhumanism" by Amnon H. Eden at http://lifeboat.com/blog/2016/01/regist...humanism
"Researchers Develop Stretchy Material for Wearable Tech" by Dan Kummer at
http://lifeboat.com/blog/2016/01/resear...ble-tech
"Researchers Say Retrieving Information From a Black Hole Might Be Possible"
by Sean Brazell at
http://lifeboat.com/blog/2016/01/resear...possible
"VetiGel: The Band-Aid of the future" by Shallesh Prasad at
http://lifeboat.com/blog/2015/12/vetige...e-future
Growing Membership
Recent donations/pledges we have received since our last newsletter:
Donald Maclean: $500,
Wilfrid Nixon: $150,
Stormy L. Brinson: $120,
Brenda Cooper: $120,
Robert Enderle: $100,
Paul Epping: $100,
Tihamer 'Tee' Toth-Fejel: $100,
Eric B. Baum: $85,
Michael Dickey: $85,
Sergio M.L. Tarrero: $85,
Philippe Van Nedervelde: $85,
Kenneth P. Weiss: $85,
Sam Gutterman: $50,
G. Christom Larsin: $50,
Hunter Williams: $40,
Caroline Nguyen: $35,
Anonymous: $25,
Venita Davis: $25,
Matthew L. McGuirl: $25,
Brent L. Reitze: $25,
Donna M. Simmons: $25,
Nicholas Sansbury Smith: $25,
Frank W. Sudia: $25,
Allen G. Taylor: $25,
Mohan K. Tikku: $25,
Stephen Thaler: $20,
Rebecca R. Cooper: $10,
Alexander Macrae: $10,
Aaron Mayzes: $10,
Philip Morehead: $10,
Roland Schiefer: $10,
Peter Smafield: $10,
Joel D. Ticknor: $10,
Kelley White-Ricks: $10,
Best Flight Delay Compensation: $5,
PromoCardWatch: $5,
and Knife Fellas: $1.
Our Join Us page at https://lifeboat.com/ex/join.us now allows you to
pay for your membership anywhere from monthly to every ten years.
