HH, the Ruler of Sharjah receives Chairman of Microsoft and Philanropist Bill Gates

His Highness Sheikh Dr. Sultan bin Muhammad Al Qasimi, UAE Supreme Council Member and Ruler of Sharjah, received the business magnate and philanthropist Bill Gates.

His Highness, the Ruler welcomed Bill Gates with a small introduction of Sharjah and its importance: The UAE is a wonderful and highly successful mosaic not only of a host of nationalities, race and religion [ ] but also of a healthy mix of constructive politics, commerce and cultural development. Above all else, we care for our people, their wellbeing, and their development on all fronts: including standard of living, awareness and education, and respect and care for their fellow human beings.'

This came during his meeting on Thursday evening at the Al Badi'i Palace, where Bill Gates was welcomed by His Highness's entourage and a number of important guests from the emirates.

His Highness Sheikh Dr. Sultan Al Qasimi praised Bill Gates for his past business success through Microsoft and more importantly for being a global philanthropist and the continuous services to humanity. His Highness thanked Bill Gates for his visit We thank you for your visit to the United Arab Emirates and are honored to host you here in Sharjah as the caring human being that you are.'

Furthermore His Highness noted not to forget the emirate's endeavor's to take care of its people While we take care of the development of the individual here in Sharjah, we have not lost sight of his or her community, not matter where he or she comes from.' His Highness stated that over the past four decades, Sharjah pioneered the encouragement of light industry, and has now a large light industrial base. To complement and further encourage development of this industrial base [ ], we have designated a large area of 450 acres for the AUS Technology Park adjacent to and in conjunction with the American University of Sharjah. To develop this Park, we have signed cooperation agreements with the University of Cambridge and the UK's Royal Academy of Engineers, and are now in the process of investigating international consultants for its development.'

His Highness concluded his speech by looking forward to Bill Gates next visit [ ] I would again like to welcome our honored guests, and emphasize that Sharjah's doors are open to you all, not least to our honored guest Mr. Bill Gates.'

On his part, Bill Gates expressed his gratitude for the hospitality of His Highness Sheikh Dr. Sultan bin Muhammad Al Qasimi and overwhelming experience at his first visit to Sharjah. He started his speech with an interesting momentum with His Highness I've been asking His Highness some questions about the history of the UAE, and basically he's written lots of books about it, and he gave me a book [that] I get to read on my flight back tonight to know a little about some of the interesting history here.'

The philanthropist talked about his career path and the reasons for founding the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Furthermore he raised challenges and issues he's facing while trying to rescue lives of people from all ages and in countries such as Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria. My first career was obviously about innovation, [ ] breakthroughs and micro-processors and internet [ ]. As I was in my 40's I was thinking about the responsibility of the wealth I was lucky enough to have [ ], and so I took some time and started learning about needs of the poorest, what kinds of diseases they get and what kind of nutrition do they lack, what are their conditions like for the two billion people on the planet or in the toughest circumstances.

So seeing that you could really improve lives and looking at the plans of how we can reduce sickness and improve nutrition, I decided to fund research and try to create this thing to get them out to people in need, so that's what the Gates Foundation does, the majority of it is related to health issues so we look hard at why do children die and we say to ourselves we want to cut it down dramatically [ ].

Starting last night and all through today we had that event, we were able to announce, in fact raise a billion dollars which absolutely guarantees that we will be able to raise the entire sum.'

Bill Gates ended his speech with his passion for the Foundation and thanked His Highness for coming to this wonderful place' and his warm welcome.

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