Bill Newton Dunn MEP meets Bill Gates

5.39.48pm GMT Mon 13th Nov 2006

East Midlands Lib Dem MEP, Bill Newton Dunn, was invited to meet Bill Gates in Brussels last Thursday. Bill Gates is chairman of Microsoft and the world's richest man, worth an estimated sixty billion dollars. The two Bills took part in a private discussion between Gates and a small group of MEPs at the Microsoft headquarters in Brussels.

The MEPs heard about new planned developments in the software world including machine translation, and a new portable computer for schools which will cost less than textbooks, and they discussed developments in the EU, climate change, the challenge of China and India, and the worry that fewer western youngsters are studying science while increasing numbers do so in the east.

Bill Newton Dunn meets Bill Gates

Another meeting is planned the same time next year. Commented Bill Newton Dunn "I found Bill Gates very normal and intelligent and not remote or grand or pompous as some might have become in his position."