Melinda Gates Age, Boyfriend, Husband, Family, Biography & More

Some Lesser Known Facts About Melinda Gates

• Melinda Gates is an American businesswoman and philanthropist. She is also a global advocate for women and girls. Melinda is the co-chair of the “Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation,” world’s largest private charitable foundation.

• She grew up in a middle-class family in Dallas.
  

  Melinda Gates in childhood

• Melinda was a brigh student in her high school days and always topped her class.

• Although Melinda’s mother, Elaine, herself never went to a college, she was very particular about her children’s education. Her mother maintained her rental properties on the weekends to provide for her children’s school and tuition fee.
  

  Melinda Gates in her teens with her mother and grandmother

• When Melinda turned 14, her father gifted her an Apple II (an 8-bit home computer).

• While in high school, she was introduced to a math teacher named Mrs. Bauer by her father. While Melinda learnt advanced math from her teacher, she developed an interest in computer science and the BASIC programming language.
  

  Melinda Gates math teacher Ms. Bauer

• While studying in the Duke University, Gates was a member of the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority, Beta Rho Chapter.

• During her graduation years, Melinda worked as a mathematics and computer programming teacher for a while.

• After pursuing an MBA, Melinda joined Microsoft Corporation as a product manager in 1987. As a product manager, she worked on multimedia and interactive products like Cinemania, Encarta, Publisher, Microsoft Bob, Money, Works (Macintosh), Expedia, and Word.
  

  Melinda Gates ID Card

• She rose to the position of General Manager of Information Products in Microsoft and resigned from the same in 1996 after working nine years in the company.

• In 1996, she became a member of Duke University’s Board of Trustees. She held the position till 2003.

• In 2004, Melinda’s name was added in the Board of Directors of The Washington Post company

• She was also a Board of Director at Drugstore.com, but gave up the position in August 2006 to focus on philanthropy.

• Melinda, along with her husband, Bill founded the charitable organization Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2000 in Seattle with an aim improve public health, education, and climate change.

• For efficient working of her organization, in 2006, Melinda divided the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation into three major departments: worldwide health, global development, and U.S. community and education.

• Since its incorporation in 2000, Bill & Melinda Foundation has worked to develop prevention strategies, provide vaccines and treatments for diseases such as HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.
  

  Melinda and Bill Gates in Cambodia during malaria screening and treatment program

• In 2011, Melinda restated the mission of her foundation as “improving equity in four areas: global health, education, access to digital information via public libraries, and support for at-risk families in Washington State and Oregon.”

• In 2012, Melinda granted $560 million to improve the access to contraception for women in poor countries.

• She has worked hard to bring a change in the state of education in the United States. Her foundation also launched a Gates Millennium Scholars program through which it became easier for students to fund their studies.

• In the past two decades, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has spent around $50 billion to combat poverty and diseases. Not only in the US, the foundation also works to improve the conditions of poor living in countries like India, South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya.
  

  Melinda Gates during her visit to a Self Help Group in India

• Her foundation is one of the largest private philanthropic foundation in the United States and the world with its net assets worth $43.3 billion (according to the 2019 full-year financials shown on its website).
  

  Melinda Gates during the Annual Employee Meeting of her foundation

• Melinda has also founded a separate foundation named Pivotal Ventures whose aim is to identify, develop, and implement innovative solutions to problems affecting US women and families. The foundation was established in 2015.

• In 2019, Gates launched her book “The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World.” The book is based on the link between women’s empowerment and the health of societies.
  

• Melinda has been a sports fanatic since childhood. She used to play soccer in her high school and college days. Even today, she enjoys watching the game whenever she is free.
  

  Melinda Gates playing soccer in her high school days

• Melinda had a conversation with Bill for the first time during a trade fair in New York. The couple started dating each other and got into a wedlock in 1994 in a private ceremony on the Hawaiian island of Lanai.
  

  Melinda Gates dancing with her father-in-law at her wedding to Bill gates

• Talking about his relationship with Melinda in a Netflix documentary, Bill Gates said,
  

  We cared a lot for each other and there were only two possibilities: either, we were going to break up or we were going to get married.”

• Recollecting how Bill made a list of the pros and cons of marrying her, Melinda said in an interview,
  

  Methodical it seems even in matters of the heart – writing a list on a whiteboard with the pros and the cons of getting married.”

• Reportedly, the pair hired all the local helicopters on their wedding day to stop unnecessary traffic flying over their wedding venue.

• It was during their vacation to Africa in 1993 that the duo decided to establish an organization for philanthropy work. The organization came to be known as the “Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.”
  

  Melinda and Bill Gates during their trip to Africa

• Melinda is influenced by the work of the Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai.
  

  Melinda Gates with Malala Yousafzai

• She is also a public speaker. In 2014, Melinda, along with Bill, appeared at Vancouver’s first TED conference to talk about their “Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.”
  

  Melinda and Bill Gates at TED conference in Vancouver

• In May 2014, Gates was one of the participants of the talk on saving newborn lives at the World Health Assembly in Geneva.
  

  Melinda Gates at World Health Assembly in Geneva

• In April 2015, She met the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and extended her support to improve sanitation and bring nutrition solutions for India’s most vulnerable.
  

  Melinda Gates with Indian PM Narendra Modi

• In May 2021, the couple announced their divorce through identical tweets. Their tweets read,
  

  After a great deal of thought and a lot of work on our relationship, we have made the decision to end our marriage. Over the last 27 years, we have raised three incredible children and built a foundation that works all over the world to enable all people to lead healthy, productive lives. We continue to share a belief in that mission and will continue our work together at the foundation, but we no longer believe we can grow together as a couple in the next phase of our lives. We ask for space and privacy for our family as we begin to navigate this new life.”

•  After the news of their divorce came, Bill Gates relationship with his ex-girlfriend, Ann Winblad made the headlines on the internet. During one of his interviews, Bill Gates said that he continued his annual vacations with his ex-girlfriend, software entrepreneur and venture capitalist Ann Winblad, even after marrying Melinda.
  

  Ann Winblad