Opening up your creativity

　　"The power of creativity and intelligence can make the world a better place."——Bill Gates

　　“人类凭创造力和聪明才智可以让世界日益美妙。”

　　——比尔·盖茨

　　背景资料

　　比尔·盖茨（Bill Gates），全名威廉·亨利·盖茨（William Henry Gates，1955年10月28日——），美国微软公司的前任董事长，首屈一指科技天才，大慈善家、环保人，与保罗·艾伦创办微软公司，曾任微软首席执行官和首席软件设计师，持有公司超过8％的普通股，是公司最大的个人股东。1995年到2007年的《福布斯》全球亿万富翁排行榜中，比尔·盖茨连续13年蝉联世界首富。2008年6月27日正式退休，但仍任微软董事长以保证公司的运营，并把580亿美元个人财产捐到比尔和梅琳达·盖茨基金会。2009年，比尔·盖茨超越沃伦·巴菲特成为世界首富。而在2010年至2013年，均被墨西哥富豪卡洛斯·斯利姆·埃卢超越，其成为蝉联3年的世界首富。2012年9月19日，《福布斯》2012年美国富豪排行榜发布，比尔·盖茨第19次蝉联美国首富桂冠。至今为止，比尔·盖茨以720亿美元的净资产连续第20年蝉联美国首富宝座。

　　2014年2月4日，比尔·盖茨卸任董事长一职，出任公司技术顾问。该篇为盖茨2005年在哈佛大学的演讲。

　　Opening up your creativity

　　——Bill Gates

　　I've always been an optimist and I suppose that is rooted in my belief that the power ofcreativity and intelligence can make the world a better place.

　　For as long as I can remember, I've loved learning new things and solving problems. So whenI sat down at a computer for the first time in seventh grade, I was hooked . It was a clunky oldTeletype machine and it could barely do anything compare d to the computers we have today.

　　But it changed my life.

　　When my friend Paul Allen and I started Microsoft 30 years ago, we had a vision of "acomputer on every desk and in every home", which probably sounded a little too optimistic at atime when most computers were the size of refrigerators . But we believed that personalcomputers would change the world. And they have.

　　And after 30 years, I'm still as inspired by computers as I was back in seventh grade.

　　I believe that computers are the most incredible tool we can use to feed our curiosity andinventiveness -to help us solve problems that even the smartest people couldn't solve on theirown.

　　Computers have transformed how we learn, giving kids everywhere a window into all of theworld's knowledge. They're helping us build communities around the things we care about and tostay close to the people who are important to us, no matter where they are.

　　Like my friend Warren Buffet, I feel particularly lucky to do something every day that I loveto do. He calls it "tap-dancing to work". My job at Microsoft is as challenging as ever, but whatmakes me "tap-dance to work" is when we show people something new, like a computer that canrecognize your handwriting or your speech, or one that can store a lifetime's worth of photos, andthey say, "I didn't know you could do that with a PC!"But for all the cool things that a person can do with a PC, there are lots of other ways we canput our creativity and intelligence to work to improve our world. There are still far too manypeople in the world whose most basic needs go unmet . Every year, for example, millions ofpeople die from diseases that are easy to prevent or treat in the developed world.

　　I believe that my own good fortune brings with it a responsibility to give back to the world.

　　My wife, Melinda, and I have committed to improving health and education in a way that canhelp as many people as possible. As a father, I believe that the death of a child in Africa is no lesspoignant or tragic than the death of a child anywhere else, and that it doesn't take much to makean immense difference in these children's lives. I'm still very much an optimist, and I believe thatprogress on even the world's toughest problems is possible-and it's happening every day. We'reseeing new drugs for deadly diseases, new diagnostic tools and new attention paid to the healthproblems in the developing world.

　　I'm excited by the possibilities I see for medicine, for education and, of course, fortechnology. And I believe that through our natural inventiveness , creativity and willingness tosolve tough problems, we're going to make some amazing achievements in all these areas in mylifetime.

　　参考译文

　　释放你的创造力

　　——比尔·盖茨

　　我天生乐观，坚信人类凭创造力和聪明才智可以让世界更加美好，这一信念一直根植于我的内心深处。

　　自从记事起，我就热衷于接触新事物、挑战难题。可想而知，我上七年级时第一次坐在计算机前是何等着迷，如入无我之境。那是一台锵锵作响的老牌机器，和我们今天拥有的计算机相比，它相当逊色几乎一无所用，但正是它改变了我的生活。

　　30年前，我和朋友保罗·艾伦创办微软时，我们幻想实现“在每个家庭、在每张办公桌上都有一台计算机”，这在大多数的计算机体积如同冰箱大小的年代，听起来有点异想天开。但是我们相信个人电脑将改变世界。今天看来果真如此。

　　30年后，我仍然像七年级的时候那样为计算机而狂热着迷。

　　我相信计算机是我们用来满足好奇心及发明创造的最神奇的工具——有了它们的帮助，最聪明的人凭自身力量无法应对的难题都将迎刃而解。

　　计算机已经改变了我们的学习方式，为全球各地的孩子们开启了一扇通向大千世界知识的窗户。它可以帮我们围绕我们关注的事物建立“群”，让我们和那些对自己重要的人保持密切联系，不管他们身处何方。

　　就像我的朋友沃伦·巴菲特一样，我为每天都能做自己热爱的事情而感到无比幸运。他称之为“踢踏舞工作”。我在微软的工作永远充满挑战，但使我一直坚持“踢踏舞工作”的是我们向人们展示某些新成果的那些时刻，当他们看到计算机能辨认笔迹、语音或者能存储值得保留一辈子的照片时就会赞不绝口：“我不敢相信个人电脑竟如此万能。”

　　但是，除了能用电脑做出很酷的事情之外，我们还能通过许多别的方式在工作中发挥自己的创造力和聪明才智，以改善我们的世界。全球仍有许许多多的人连最基本的生存需求都未能解决。举例来说，每年仍有数以万计的人死于那些在发达国家易于预防和治疗的疾病。

　　我认为，我所拥有的大量财富也使我负有回馈社会的责任。我的妻子梅琳达和我致力于为尽可能多的人改善健康和教育。作为一个父亲，我认为，非洲孩子死去所引起的痛苦和悲伤丝毫不亚于任何其他的孩子的死亡；我认为，使这些孩子们的命运发生翻天覆地的变化并不费太大力气。

　　我仍是一个坚定的乐观主义者，我坚信即使世界级难题取得进展都是有可能的——其实每天也都在发生着这种事情。我们看到治疗致命疾病的新药、新的诊断器械不断出现，而且，发展中国家的健康问题进入了人们的视野并日益得到重视。

　　我为医药、教育，当然还有技术发展的诸多前景而欢欣鼓舞。我相信，凭借人类与生俱来的发明创造能力和不畏艰难、坚忍不拔的品格，在我的有生之年里我们将在所有这些领域都创造出可喜的成就。