Philanthropy. The term comes to us by the union of two Greek words, Philos and Anthropos, with the former, in its literal sense, meaning love and the latter human beings. So the term is self-explanatory as to a philanthropist would be, the person who loves other human beings. But there’s a twist, in this day and age intentions hardly stand any chance against the effect on an action and hence the definition has twisted up a little too. To the 21st century people, a philanthropist is a person who dedicates and applies himself to the welfare of others around in the society that surrounds him/her. This article gives insight on funding for Technologies.
Speaking of the rise of technology, many people have made a fortune by grinding out innovation and thus making advanced inventions, the computers that were created for federal use have transformed themselves from a young girl’s amusement to all sorts of applications in the times we live. However, this is the not the only good for the general society, the people behind these ungodly inventions have remained true to the society around them and hence have involved themselves in acts of philanthropy time and again. This article would tell you about some of the most famous names.
1) Pierre Omidyar
Omidyar is a name not unheard of in those that keep themselves up to date with the news of the techno world. He is one of the founders and the current chairman of eBay, the famous online shopping forum. Omidyar’s generosity can be scaled by one of his random decision to sell 10% of his eBay share once which amounted to close to 300 billion US dollars. Over his lifetime, he has donated over 1 billion US dollars in charity. He and his wife also founded the Omidyar foundation which further encourages other people to come up and donate.
2) Mark Zuckerberg
This is perhaps the most famous name to come on this list, Mr. Zuckerberg who doesn’t know of him? The self-made made is amongst the youngest to enter the elite club of billionaires. Those who follow Zuckerberg on Facebook (courtesy of the man himself) know that he deeply concerns himself with what’s going around in the community around him. It is this concern that has seen him donate over 1.5 billion US dollars at such a young age and he aspires to donate almost half of his entire net worth over the course of his career which as of now amounts to over 50 billion US dollars. His major emphasis is on education and has his foundation under the name of Silicon Valley Community Foundation.
3) Gordon Moore
Gordon Moore is the most generous man that you’ll find on this list; this man has given away almost 80 percent of his net worth over his lifetime. For those who don’t know about Gordon, he found Intel with some of his friend, the company that gave the techno world so much.
4) Azim Premji
Associated with an Indian based IT consultancy named Wepro, Azim made his fortune but saw almost half of it gone away in his pursuit of providing quality education to his fellow countrymen.
5) Bill Gates
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, bares the name of this man and his wife, this foundation has spent more money than all the other men on this list combined amount up to around 28 billion USD. Bill Gates focus of generosity, however, has been more on improving the health standards in the third world countries and for that matter, his foundation has collaborated with WHO on multiple occasions.
6) Dietmar Hopp
German IT entrepreneur Dietmar Hopp is the co-founder and former chairman and CEO of SAP, a multinational company that provides application and analytics software and software-related services for enterprises worldwide. He has donated over 2 billion dollars over his career.
7) Li Ka-shing
Li deals in disruptive technology and is one of the richest men in Asia. His foundation’s biggest project to date was funding Shantou University, the only privately funded public university in China. Li has also made personal donations to the China Foundation for Disabled Persons and flood victim relief in China.
8) Paul Allen
Paul also happens to be one of the co-founders of Microsoft and shares Bill Gates generosity habits, of his 18 Billion USD net worth he has spent over 2 Billion in works of charity, which was once considered to be a biggest philanthropist’s donation. He stands among the top tech philanthropists.
9) Michael Dell
Yes, the guy who found the company which manufactured the machine I use to write this article. He’s the director of the foundation named after his wife and him which saw him donate over a billion USD in about 15 years of its existence, Mr. Dell’s philanthropy is an example for many to follow.
10) Elon Musk
Amongst many things Elon is an inventor and had publicly proclaimed many times of his will to make the life of others better. Like other men in this list, his donations amount in billions and as young as he is, his charity days have just started, we hope to see a lot of him for the time to come. He’s as of now the CEO of SpaceX.
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