Bill Gates, Chairman of Microsoft, visited the University last week on Friday, 7 December 2001 to meet the young people who are benefiting from the new scholarship programme established by his charity, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

He was welcomed to the University Centre by the Vice-Chancellor Professor Sir Alec Broers where he then spent time talking to some of the 151 Gates Cambridge Scholars who joined the University to pursue postgraduate study in October this year.

The scholars come from 51 countries and are studying subjects across the whole field of knowledge: arts, sciences, humanities, social sciences, technology and medicine.

Establishing a trust worth US$210 million, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation set up a scheme that will run in perpetuity and enable gifted graduate students to study at Cambridge. The benefaction is the largest single sum that the University of Cambridge has ever received.

After meeting the Gates Scholars Bill Gates went on to visit the William Gates Building - home of the University's Computer Laboratory on the West Cambridge site, off Madingley Road.

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