Speech at Harvard by Bill Gates(1)

一位大學導師電郵給我們這篇Bill Gates在哈佛大學獲頒授 榮譽 博士學位時的演講辭。他說，這是近來最觸動他的文章。因為當今的世界首富，告訴哈佛的畢業生，人世間最大的惡是人與人之間難以言狀難以想像的不平等。而作為資本主義社會精英中的精英，最大的責任，是去努力消除這種不平等，拯救無數瀕臨死亡的窮人。

導師說在讀這篇文章時，他一直在想，「到底是什麼樣的文化和教育，才會使Bill Gates有這樣的想法？香港那麼富裕，我們的大學又天天說要學哈佛，讀到這篇文章，我才第一次真切的感受到，我們離哈佛有多遠。」

當我們的政府不斷提醒畢業生應具備怎麼樣的質素，以提高香港的生產力時，到底他們在「生產力」這類狹隘的經濟思維以外，有沒有Bill Gates講辭中 ‘Don't let complexity stop you. Be activists. Take on the big inequities.’這種人文意識和視野?也許，這就是中大和哈佛，香港和紐約/倫敦的分別所在。

有興趣但沒時間詳看的朋友，或許可看我highlight的部份。

 

Speech at Harvard by Bill Gates

June 8, 2007 - 12:36PM

Text of the speech given by Microsoft chairman Bill Gates at Harvard University on June 7, 2007.

President Bok, former President Rudenstine, incoming President Faust, members of the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers, members of the faculty, parents, and especially, the graduates:

I've been waiting more than 30 years to say this: "Dad, I always told you I'd come back and get my degree."

I want to thank Harvard for this timely honour. I'll be changing my job next year ... and it will be nice to finally have a college degree on my resume.

I applaud the graduates today for taking a much more direct route to your degrees. For my part, I'm just happy that the Crimson has called me "Harvard's most successful dropout." I guess that makes me valedictorian(【美】(畢業典禮時)致告別辭的學生代表)of my own special class ... I did the best of everyone who failed.

But I also want to be recognised as the guy who got Steve Ballmer to drop out of business school. I'm a bad influence. That's why I was invited to speak at your graduation. If I had spoken at your orientation, fewer of you might be here today.

Harvard was just a phenomenal experience for me. Academic life was fascinating. I used to sit in on lots of classes I hadn't even signed up for. And dorm life was terrific. I lived up at Radcliffe, in Currier House. There were always lots of people in my dorm room late at night discussing things, because everyone knew I didn't worry about getting up in the morning. That's how I came to be the leader of the anti-social group. We clung to each other as a way of validating our rejection of all those social people.(Kevin: It recalls my memories of those days of studying at CUHK, especially at the China Study Society(國是學會), where I spent three terrific years.)

Radcliffe was a great place to live. There were more women up there, and most of the guys were science-math types. That combination offered me the best odds, if you know what I mean. This is where I learned the sad lesson that improving your odds doesn't guarantee success.

One of my biggest memories of Harvard came in January 1975, when I made a call from Currier House to a company in Albuquerque that had begun making the world's first personal computers. I offered to sell them software.

I worried that they would realise I was just a student in a dorm and hang up on me. Instead they said: "We're not quite ready, come see us in a month," which was a good thing, because we hadn't written the software yet. From that moment, I worked day and night on this little extra credit project that marked the end of my college education and the beginning of a remarkable journey with Microsoft.

What I remember above all about Harvard was being in the midst of so much energy and intelligence. It could be exhilarating, (令人振奮的;使人高興的)intimidating, sometimes even discouraging, but always challenging. It was an amazing privilege - and though I left early, I was transformed by my years at Harvard, the friendships I made, and the ideas I worked on.

But taking a serious look back ... I do have one big regret.

I left Harvard with no real awareness of the awful inequities in the world - the appalling disparities of health, and wealth, and opportunity that condemn millions of people to lives of despair.

I learned a lot here at Harvard about new ideas in economics and politics. I got great exposure to the advances being made in the sciences.

But humanity's greatest advances are not in its discoveries - but in how those discoveries are applied to reduce inequity. Whether through democracy, strong public education, quality health care, or broad economic opportunity - reducing inequity is the highest human achievement.

I left campus knowing little about the millions of young people cheated out of educational opportunities here in this country. And I knew nothing about the millions of people living in unspeakable poverty and disease in developing countries.

It took me decades to find out.

...to be continued