Bill Gates unleashes mosquito swarm on TED Conference attendees

Brian Ambrozy 4 Feb, 2009 at 5:09pm ET Article published in Tech

Bzzzzz. Look at meeeeee.

According to several conference attendees, Bill Gates unleashed a swarm of mosquitoes upon TED conference attendees, announcing “not only poor people should experience this.”

The stunt was clearly designed to make a vivid point about the continuing battle against malaria in developing nations, as Mr. Gates was at TED to discuss his work with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The Foundation has spent millions on fighting malaria in poor nations.

No word yet on the legality of his actions. One has to imagine that some sort of health code violation took place. We’ll keep on eye on the story as it develops.

Comments

4 Feb 2009 ~ 5:18pm Snarkasm Pretty sure the mosquitoes have to be proven carriers of malaria for it to be anything illegal regarding health codes.
4 Feb 2009 ~ 6:43pm Khaos Here is a picture courtesy of the TED2009 Blog entry showing Gates unleashing the mosquitoes. It was more of a small jar on the stage than a swarm on the conference, but it appears to have made quite the impression on the attendees and the public who heard about it so quickly via Twitter.
4 Feb 2009 ~ 6:46pm jokerz4fun Oh there's so many other ways to get you point across. Just another fail moment for Bill.
4 Feb 2009 ~ 7:20pm Garg Regardless of the morality or legality, I find it fascinating that Bill did something seemingly out of passion.
4 Feb 2009 ~ 9:53pm DrLiam /sarcasm O god, how could he do that. Mosquitoes. What a cruel world we live in.
4 Feb 2009 ~ 10:20pm Komete Way to stick it to the man. Although, you kinda are the man. Nice job anyways.
4 Feb 2009 ~ 10:46pm Leonardo

Oh there's so many other ways to get you point across. Just another fail moment for Bill.

Quite the contrary. The simple act got his point across, and into the worldwide press better than hours of lecture.
5 Feb 2009 ~ 12:47am Casey Tinsley First Windows and now mosquito's! dang-it Bill quit subjecting us to your wrath!
5 Feb 2009 ~ 1:04am BuddyJ Can't suck blood from a robot.
5 Feb 2009 ~ 7:44am Liberator Now that he's no longer at Microsoft, he needs a new way to unleash bugs on the world. It looks like he found a much better engineered vector than Windows.

Evidently it's his mission in life to send annoying, self replicating bugs out into the world.
5 Feb 2009 ~ 8:33am kryyst His plan has finally come to fruition. He used the mosquito's to deliver a tiny mind effecting microchip. This was his test group, next it's the world.
5 Feb 2009 ~ 9:06am Linc Nano swarm! Run!
5 Feb 2009 ~ 9:25am GnomeQueen I personally think this is pretty effing awesome, myself.
5 Feb 2009 ~ 10:05am Thrax

Gnome Queen wrote:

I personally think this is pretty effing awesome, myself.

Truth.
5 Feb 2009 ~ 2:41pm Nostradamus "One has to imagine that some sort of health code violation took place."
Or one could actually do the RESEARCH to determine if there was a violation. But that might mean one would have to actually DO something, rather than repackage items one found on the web.
5 Feb 2009 ~ 2:42pm primesuspect True