Exemplary lives - Two men who changed the world

THOUGH they have never been out of the limelight for long two of the world’s most influential individuals will be the focus of more than usual attention over the next few days.

One because he, aged 52, has just retired from the business that made him the richest man in the world.

The other because he celebrates a birthday he might well not have reached.

Bill Gates steps back from the frontline at Microsoft and Nelson Mandela will mark his 90th birthday on July 18. Year-long celebrations honouring Mandela began with a massive concert in London’s Hyde Park last night.

Bill Gates has set himself — and his billions — an entirely different type of challenge for the rest of his working life.

The men are of different generations, from different continents and have led very different lives.

As one was released from jail — in 1990 — after spending 27 years of his life behind bars because he opposed apartheid in South Africa the other had begun a career unequalled in modern capitalism. He was well on his way to becoming the world’s youngest self-made billionaire at 31.

The American has shaped our culture and our economies, made communications easier and challenged the inventiveness of anyone who sits at a keyboard. He made it easier for ideas to be a universal currency and though some of his business methods have been criticised, he has contributed significantly to empowering those with free access to computer communications.

In his “retirement” he will continue this work through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation which, among many other projects, has made grants to seven countries working to give citizens free access to computers, the internet, and technology training in public libraries. Programmes in Chile and Mexico are well-established, others are planned in Botswana, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, and Ukraine.

The efforts of totalitarian regimes put into controlling internet access is testimony to the revolution in which Gates has played such a central role.

Nelson Mandela has become the epitome of what we all could aspire to.

Loving and loved, wise and inspiring, a symbol of freedom and equality. Mandela is what we hope is the inevitable victory of right over wrong made human.

In the modern imagery of doing right, of doing the hardest thing of all, loving your enemies, Mandela’s gesture at the 1995 Rugby World Cup final has few if any equals. As the first democratically elected president of South Africa he wore the Springbok rugby shirt, white South Africa’s most potent symbol, and united a once-divided nation.

The great generosity and courage of that symbolism shows our petty squabble about singing God Save the Queen at Croke Park in a very poor light.

One man used technology, ideas and capitalism to change the world and intends to continue that project by giving away billions of dollars to fight disease and hunger, educate and empower. Rarely has such generosity been combined with the resources to achieve such grand visions.

The other’s tools were equally powerful, if not more so. He used his life as an example of what a human might be and what a human might achieve.

We could learn a lot from both, though if we learned a little it might be enough.