比尔盖茨毕业留言

you graduates came to harvard at a different time. you know more about the worlds inequities than the classes that came before. in your years here, i hope youve had a chance to think about how - in this age of accelerating technology - we can finally take on these inequities, and we can solve them.

在座的各位同学，你们是在与我不同的时代来到哈佛的。你们比以前的学生，更多地了解世界是怎样的不平等。在你们的哈佛求学过程中，我希望你们已经思考过一个问题，那就是在这个新技术加速发展的时代，我们怎样最终应对这种不平等，以及我们怎样来解决这个问题。

imagine, just for the sake of discussion, that you had a few hours a week and a few dollars a month to donate to a cause - and you wanted to spend that time and money where it would have the greatest impact in saving and improving lives. where would you spend it?

为了讨论的方便，请想象一下，假如你每个星期可以捐献一些时间、每个月可以捐献一些钱----你希望这些时间和金钱，可以用到对拯救生命和改善人类生活有最大作用的'地方。你会选择什么地方？

for melinda and for me, the challenge is the same: how can we do the most good for the greatest number with the resources we have.

对melinda（注：盖茨的妻子）和我来说，这也是我们面临的问题：我们如何能将我们拥有的资源发挥出最大的作用。

during our discussions on this question, melinda and i read an article about the millions of children who were dying every year in poor countries from diseases that we had long ago made harmless in this country. measles, malaria, pneumonia, hepatitis b, yellow fever. one disease i had never even heard of, rotavirus, was killing half a million kids each year - none of them in the united states.

在讨论过程中，melinda和我读到了一篇文章，里面说在那些贫穷的国家，每年有数百万的儿童死于那些在美国早已不成问题的疾病。麻疹、疟疾、肺炎、乙型肝炎、黄热病、还有一种以前我从未听说过的轮状病毒，这些疾病每年导致50万儿童死亡，但是在美国一例死亡病例也没有。

we were shocked. we had just assumed that if millions of children were dying and they could be saved, the world would make it a priority to discover and deliver the medicines to save them. but it did not. for under a dollar, there were interventions that could save lives that just werent being delivered.

我们被震惊了。我们想，如果几百万儿童正在死亡线上挣扎，而且他们是可以被挽救的，那么世界理应将用药物拯救他们作为头等大事。但是事实并非如此。那些价格还不到一美元的救命的药剂，并没有送到他们的手中。

if you believe that every life has equal value, its revolting to learn that some lives are seen as worth saving and others are not. we said to ourselves: "this cant be true. but if it is true, it deserves to be the priority of our giving."

如果你相信每个生命都是平等的，那么当你发现某些生命被挽救了，而另一些生命被放弃了，你会感到无法接受。我们对自己说："事情不可能如此。如果这是真的，那么它理应是我们努力的头等大事。"

so we began our work in the same way anyone here would begin it. we asked: "how could the world let these children die?"