Software Billionaire Bill Gates grabbed his audience’s attention yesterday when he unleashed a jar of mosquitoes on his audience. He was trying to make a point about the problem of malaria in the Third World. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is working to eradicate malaria.
“Malaria is spread by mosquitoes,” Gates said while opening a jar onstage at the Technology,Entertainment, Design Conference — a gathering known to attract technology kings, politicians, and Hollywood stars. “I brought some. Here I’ll let them roam around. There is no reason only poor people should be infected.”
Gates was using a tried and true method of connecting with an audience — the physical demonstration. Â His chief rival Steve Jobs has long used the physical demonstration to connect with audiences. Jobs is famous for finding fun ways to produce the next new thing from Apple. When he introduced the MacBook Air notebook computer, he slid it out of an inter-office mail envelope to demonstrate its thinness.
