Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates on Friday met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and said he was more optimistic than ever about the progress that India was making in health, development, and climate. The billionaire said India is showing what is possible "when we invest in innovation". "I hope India will continue this progress and share its innovations with the world," Gates, who is in India and meeting some top personalities, said.
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Gates hailed India's digital revolution, Co-WIN platform, Covid vaccines, which he said allowed people to schedule billions of vaccine appointments and delivered digital certifications for those who were vaccinated. He said India has an amazing ability to manufacture lots of safe, effective, and affordable vaccines, some of them supported by the Gates Foundation.
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"Vaccines produced in India have saved millions of lives during the pandemic and prevented other diseases around the world," he said. Two early vaccines for Covid - Covishield and Covaxin - were manufactured in India. Covishield was manufactured by Pune-based Serum Institute and Covaxin was produced by Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech.
On Co-WIN, Gates said India created an open-source platform that allowed people to book appointments and delivered digital certifications. This platform, he said, was now being expanded to support India's universal immunization program. "Prime Minister Modi believes that Co-WIN is a model for the world, and I agree," the American business magnate said.
Gates also hailed India's Gati Shakti program, which digitally connects 16 ministries, including rail and roads, so they can integrate their plans for infrastructure projects and accelerate the work of scientists and engineers. He said the plan is a great example of how digital technology can help governments work better.
The 67-year-old investor said he and PM Modi discussed India's G20 Presidency this year. He said it was an excellent opportunity to highlight how innovations developed in India can benefit the world and help other countries adopt them. "Supporting these efforts—especially spreading its digital ID and payments systems to other places—is a high priority for our foundation (Gates Foundation)," he added.
"Education was another focus of our conversation. It was great to discuss India’s initiative to promote universal foundational literacy and numeracy across the country," he said, adding that although the pandemic hit the country's school system hard, as it did everywhere else, India is using digital tools to make learning more accessible through several different avenues, including TV.
Finally, Gates said, the Prime Minister and he talked about climate change. "We’ve been working together on climate for years—India is a key partner in Mission Innovation, the program launched in 2015 to accelerate work on clean energy technologies," he said. "I’m looking forward to getting together with the MI partners during the COP28 Summit this December to accelerate the development of new sources of affordable, reliable clean energy."