When you head the largest philanthropic foundation in the world, it's no surprise when you get an award for humanitarian efforts. Bill Gates has been honored by several countries for his charity, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and now he's receiving a relatively new award titled the James C. Morgan Global Humanitarian Award.

The award is presented by The Tech Museum. "From Microsoft's early days, to the founding of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Bill Gates has consistently made philanthropy a priority, and demonstrated that technology can be applied not just to business problems, but for the benefit of humankind," said The Tech Museum's president, Peter Friess. "We are delighted to honor Bill Gates with this award, and to celebrate his humanitarian contributions with the next generation of innovators who can take great inspiration from his example." This comes not too long after Bill pledged more time to the foundation beginning in 2009, as part of his decision to step down from Microsoft. In the end of 2005, the foundation endowment totaled $29 billion and just recently Warren Buffett announced he was donating $37 billion of his own money to Gates's organization.

It's surprising to me that Gates didn't receive this award in its first year (I mean, an award honoring a humanitarian in the tech world? Bill Gates is the only person that comes to most people's minds). Anyway, congrats to Bill, who has said that he is "honored" to be receiving this award.

Report Published by: Mark Raby