Bill GatesCuenta verificada

I hope you have a happy and healthy start to 2019.

In the meantime, Melinda and I are working on our next Annual Letter, which we’re going to send out in February.

Although I’ve never been one for New Year’s resolutions, I’m making one for 2019: I’m committing to learn and think more about the balance between privacy and security, as well as the use of technology in education.

The good news is that there has been progress toward a vaccine that would protect you from every possible strain of the flu. But the world still needs to develop a global system for responding to epidemics.

I had hoped that hitting the 100th anniversary of the Spanish flu would spark a lot of discussion about whether we’re ready for the next global epidemic. Unfortunately, it didn’t, and we still are not ready.

This year @btenergy, the clean-energy investment fund I’m involved with, announced the first companies we’re putting money into.

Almost a decade ago, I predicted that the world would soon be polio free. But we had more polio cases in 2018 than in 2017. Even so, I remain optimistic that we could eradicate polio soon.

Just over a year ago, I made my first investment in Alzheimer’s research. I’m hopeful that we can make a lot of progress in the coming years.