Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates spoke up on Saturday for liberal immigration into the US to help research and development, and saw a robust economic life after the current US recession, aided by new products and innovations.
Gates, on an Indian visit to promote philanthropic work on healthcare and also to receive the Indira Gandhi prize on behalf the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, praised the Unique Identification (UID) project of the government now being spearheaded by former Infosys co-chairman Nandan Nilekani as one that could aid development.
“The number of applications that can be done out of that are really phenomental,” he told corporate chief executives at a session organised by the National Association of Software and Service Companies.
Gates started the day by meeting young members of Parliament at a breakfast meeting organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). He met Mohammad Hamdulla Sayeed, Priya Dutt, Mausam Noor and Ijyaraj Singh.
Later, speaking at a panel discussion organised by Microsoft’s research arm in India, Gates praised Indian talent, which has helped his company boost the popular Windows platform.
“We came to India 20 years ago and some of the people we hired here have gone ahead to run some of our bigger product groups. Immigration restriction is terrible for the US and also terrible for the world.”
{{/usCountry}}“We came to India 20 years ago and some of the people we hired here have gone ahead to run some of our bigger product groups. Immigration restriction is terrible for the US and also terrible for the world.”
{{/usCountry}}Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar also met Gates to discuss healthcare issues.