Bill Gates, billionaire philanthropist and Microsoft co-founder, is heading to Seoul this week to deepen partnerships with South Korea’s corporate heavyweights, including Samsung, in a bid to expand innovation-driven social impact in public health, sanitation and equal opportunities.
The trip, beginning Thursday, marks Gates’ first visit to Korea in three years since 2022.
He is expected to hold meetings with top conglomerate chiefs – among them Samsung Electronics Co. Chairman Lee Jae-yong, known internationally as Jay Y. Lee, and SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won – to discuss philanthropic projects backed by the Gates Foundation, chaired by Gates.
LONG TIES WITH SAMSUNG LEE
At the center of Gates’ visit is Samsung’s Lee, with whom he has maintained close ties for years.
Their relationship has been instrumental in advancing a Gates Foundation initiative to reinvent low-cost, water-efficient toilets for developing countries.
In 2018, Gates urgently reached out to Lee for Samsung’s help in developing new toilet technologies under the Reinvent the Toilet Challenge initiative launched by the Gates Foundation in 2011 after engineers working on the project hit a technological snag.
Samsung Electronics’ research arm, Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology, went on to develop heat-treatment and bioprocessing technologies that safely process human waste, recycle water and neutralize pathogens.
The system enables the treated water to be fully recycled, according to Samsung.
Samsung has agreed to make patents related to the project available royalty-free to developing countries once commercialization begins.
The Gates Foundation plans to roll out the Samsung-powered “green toilets” soon.
VACCINES AND BEYOND
Gates is also expected to explore new philanthropic projects with Lee during his stay, as well as meet SK’s Chey and other Korean conglomerate leaders involved in global vaccine development.
SK is one of the Korean business groups, alongside LG Group, participating in vaccine development led by the International Vaccine Institute (IVI) set up in Seoul National University in 2000 with significant funding from the Gates Foundation.
SK Bioscience Co. and LG Chem Ltd. are key players in developing vaccines for diseases that disproportionately affect low- and middle-income countries.
“Gates has often said that Korea’s conglomerates, which helped engineer the Miracle on the Han River, should now share their expertise and resources with the world,” said one Seoul-based industry official. “This visit could pave the way for new partnership models.”
Headquartered in Seattle, the Gates Foundation is one of the world’s wealthiest charitable organizations, with an endowment of $77.2 billion as of the end of 2024.
Since its founding in 2000, the foundation has committed more than $102 billion to causes ranging from global health to education.
After stepping down as Microsoft chairman in 2008, Gates has focused on philanthropy in poverty alleviation, global health and education.
He is also expected to meet with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung during his visit this time, according to a Yonhap News report.
Write to Jeong-Soo Hwang at hjs@hankyung.com
Sookyung Seo edited this article.
