CAGJ/AGRA Watch & Town Hall Seattle Present
Author Tim Schwab: The Bill Gates Problem: Reckoning with the Myth of the Good Billionaire
WED December 6, 7:30 – 9PM: Get your sliding-scale tickets
In his new book The Bill Gates Problem: Reckoning with the Myth of the Good Billionaire, investigative journalist Tim Schwab finds that Bill Gates brings the same monopoly ethos he exercised at Microsoft to his philanthropic career at the Gates Foundation. Schwab argues that while Gates may be well-meaning as a philanthropist, he is helping people the only way he knows how: by taking control, often in ways that hurt the very people he aims to help. The Gates Foundation presents a stunning display of undemocratic power by a tech billionaire that is more oligarchy than charity—-and that must be challenged.
Join Tim Schwab in discussion with researchers, writers and activists who have been holding the Gates Foundation accountable for two decades:
- Ashley Fent, AGRA Watch researcher
- Jesse Hagopian, Public educator and a leader of the movement to reject standardized testing
- Steve Gloyd, Physician & Faculty, UW Department of Global Health
- Daniel Maingi, Kenyan scientist & Practitioner Fellow, The Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society
Location: Town Hall Seattle, 1119 8th Ave, Seattle, WA 98101. Doors open at 6:30. Light refreshments served.
Tickets: Sliding scale starting at $5, FREE for youth 22 and under!
ASL/CART: By Request: [email protected]
Get the book: Order online, or purchase from Elliott Bay Book Company at the event, and get your copy signed by the author!
Produced by Town Hall Seattle with Community Alliance for Global Justice & AGRA Watch. The event will be audio and video recorded and shared widely after the event.
Get your sliding-scale tickets and learn more from Town Hall Seattle.
Please contact CAGJ if you have questions: [email protected]
BIOS
Tim Schwab is an investigative journalist based in Washington, DC. His groundbreaking reporting on the Gates Foundation for The Nation, Columbia Journalism Review, and The British Medical Journal has been honored with an Izzy Award and a Deadline Club Award. The Bill Gates Problem is his first book.
Ashley Fent, AGRA Watch Researcher
Ashley Fent is a former research director of AGRA Watch, a campaign of Community Alliance for Global Justice. She co-founded CAGJ’s AGRA Watch campaign while still an undergraduate at University of Washington. She has ten plus years’ experience as a social-environmental researcher, writer, and multimedia content producer. She holds a Ph.D. in Geography from UCLA and a M.A. in Anthropology and African Studies from Columbia University.
Daniel Maingi, Kenyan scientist & Practitioner Fellow, The Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society
Daniel Maingi is a science and development practitioner in Kenya with a 15-year career helping to bring learning on appropriate and sustainable technologies to Civil Society Organizations in Eastern Africa. Daniel is a policy campaigner for CSOs at the Inter-Sectoral Forum on Agrobiodiversity and Agroecology (ISFAA). He is currently researching the digitalization of agriculture in Kenya as a Stanford University Fellow (2023-24) with the Digital Civil Society Lab & The Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society (PACS).
Specializing in the area of Biosciences, Daniel uses that experience to simplify jargon and stress strategies that put the rights of communities first, reversing power relations away from that of extraction and exploitation. This enables social change and innovation in an environment that brings justice, reconciliation, and diversity to underserved communities.
By focusing on issues of science and policy, Daniel has been able to put his extensive knowledge to good use in areas of legislation and framework negotiations ranging from trade agreements and climate change dialogue, to community rights and natural resources, including controversial biotechnologies in African food and seed systems. His strengths as the founder of the non-profit Growth Partners Africa garnered recognition from African civil society.
Daniel may spend his days at small urban farms in Nairobi, but what gets him up in the morning is his understanding that consumers and farmers across Kenya can achieve their rights to the best products, knowledge and health. Daniel is an avid bicyclist and loves spending time growing his organic chicken in the streets of Eastlands, in Nairobi.
Jesse Hagopian, Public educator & organizer
Jesse Hagopian has been an educator for over twenty years and taught for over a decade Seattle’s Garfield High School–the site of the historic boycott of the MAP test. Jesse is an editor for the social justice periodical Rethinking Schools, is the co-editor of the books, Black Lives Matter at School, Teaching for Black Lives, Teacher Unions and Social Justice, and is the editor of the book, More Than a Score: The New Uprising Against High-Stakes Testing. Jesse serves as the Director of the Black Education Matters Student Activist Award, is an organizer with the Black Lives Matter at School movement, and is founding member of Social Equity Educators (SEE). Learn more.
Stephen Gloyd, Faculty in UW Department of Global Health
Stephen Gloyd, MD, MPH, is a family practice physician who has been a University of Washington faculty member since 1986. He has worked for over 30 years in Africa, Latin America, and Asia as a clinician, manager, researcher, teacher, and policy advocate. His work has focused on improving primary health care, including maternal-child health services, tuberculosis control, and STD/AIDS. He has written and spoken extensively on the political economy of global health care and the connection between neoliberalism and health.
Dr. Gloyd is Director of the Global Health MPH Program in the UW’s Department of Global Health where he directs efforts to expand curricular options to address global workforce needs. His work with Health Alliance International is designed to improve approaches to global health assistance and to strengthen primary health care with the Ministries of Health of Mozambique, Côte d’Ivoire, Sudan, and Timor-Leste.
Dr. Gloyd has received many awards, including the WK Kellogg Fellowship, the APHA Mid-career Award, the Barsky Award for Political Activism, the UW Distinguished Teaching Award, and was the 38th Annual UW Faculty Lecturer. He received his BA and MPH from Harvard, his MD from the University of Chicago, and his family medicine residency at the University of Washington. Learn more.
