The digital divide was a focus of mine in 1997, when I took my first trip to South Africa. I went there on business so I spent most of my time in meetings in downtown Johannesburg. I stayed in the home of one of the richest families in South Africa.

当我在1997年首次出访南非时，我便开始关注“数码鸿沟”。因公事出差的我将大部分时间都花费在约翰内斯堡的市区开会中。当时我住在南非最富裕的一户家庭中。

It had only been three years since the election of Nelson Mandela marked the end of apartheid. When I sat down for dinner with my hosts, they used a bell to call the butler. After dinner, the women and men separated and the men smoked cigars. I thought, good thing I read Jane Austen, or I wouldn't have known what was going on. (Laughter).

那时距离尼尔森•曼德拉上台，并结束种族隔离只有3年。当我同主人共进晚餐时，他们使用铃铛来使唤管家。在晚饭后，男女相互分开而男人们开始抽雪茄。当时我想，幸好我读过简•奥斯汀的书否则我就不知道发生了什么。（笑声）

But the next day I went to Soweto, the poor township southwest of Johannesburg, that had been the center of the anti-apartheid movement. It was a short distance from the city into the township, but the entry was sudden, jarring and harsh.

但在第二天我去了索韦托，约翰内斯堡西南的一个贫穷小镇，那里曾经是反种族隔离的中心。尽管从约翰内斯堡到索韦托路程不长，但从进入索韦托的那一刻起，一切都令人无比震惊。

I passed into a world completely unlike the one I came from. My visit to Soweto became an early lesson in how naive I was. Microsoft was donating computers and software to a community center there. The kind of thing we did in the United States.

我觉得我来到了一个和我所来自的地方截然不同的世界。索韦托之行让我很早便意识到自己竟是如此天真。微软向那里的一个社区中心捐赠计算机和软件。和我们在美国所做的一切相同。

But it became clear to me, very quickly, that this was not the United States.

但是我很快明白了，这里并不是美国。

I had seen statistics on poverty, but I had never really seen poverty.The people there lived in corrugated tin shacks with no electricity, no water, no toilets. Most people didn't wear shoes. They walked barefoot along the streets, except there were no streets, just ruts in the mud.

我曾经阅览过有关贫穷的调查数据，但是却未曾目睹过贫穷。那里的人们住在用铁皮搭成的简陋棚户里，没有电，没有自来水，也没有厕所。人们几乎不穿鞋，赤脚行走。或者可以说根本没有街道，只是一些坑洼的泥土路。

The community center had no consistent source of power. So they rigged up an extension cord that ran 200 feet from the center to the diesel generator outside. Looking at this setup, I knew the minute the reporters left, the generator would get moved to a more urgent task. And the people who used the community center would go back to worrying about challenges that couldn't be solved by a personal computer.

由于社区中心没有持续供电的设施，所以他们安装了一根延长线连接到200英尺以外的柴油发电机上。看过了这些装置，我明白了一旦记者离开后，发电机将会被运用到更紧迫的任务上。使用社区中心的人们也会因此而离开，为电脑所不能解决的问题而担忧。

When I gave my prepared remarks to the press, I said Soweto is a milestone. There are major decisions ahead about whether technology will leave the developing world behind. This is to close the gap.

当我向媒体道出已准备好的发言时，我谈到索韦托的经历对我而言是一个里程碑，我们所面临的重大决定是科技是否会让发展中国家落后。这也便是要缩小差距。

But as I read those words, I knew they weren't super relevant. What I didn't say was, by the way, we're not focused on the fact that half a million people on this continent are dying every year from malaria. But we are sure as hell going to bring you computers.

但当我说出这些词时，我发现他们并不是如此相关。我没有说的是，“顺便说一下，我们并没有注意到这个大洲上每年都会有50万人死于疟疾的事实。”但我们还是万分确信我们会为他们带来计算机。

Before I went to Soweto, I thought I understood the world's problems but I was blind to many of the most important ones. I was so taken aback by what I saw that I had to ask myself, did I still believe that innovation could solve the world's toughest problems? I promised myself that before I came back to Africa, I would find out more about what keeps people poor.

在我去索韦托之前，我认为自己很理解这个世界存在的问题，可那时我才明白我忽视了最重要的问题，我不停问自己‘你还认为创新能解决世界上最棘手的问题吗？’我向自己保证，在重回非洲之前，会找到更多让人们贫穷的原因。

Over the years, Melinda and I did learn more about the pressing needs of the poor.

数年来，我和梅琳达确实发现了穷人们的当务之需。

On a later trip to South Africa, I paid a visit to a hospital for patients with MDR-TB, multi-drug resistant tuberculosis, a disease with a cure rate of under 50%. I remember that hospital as a place of despair.

在后来一次到南非的时候，我去了一家住有很多抗药性肺结核患者和耐多药结核病患者的医院，这是一种治愈率不到50%的顽疾。我还记得那个充满绝望的地方。

It was a giant open ward, with a sea of patients shuffling around in pajamas, wearing masks. There was one floor just for children, including some babies lying in bed. They had a little school for kids who were well enough to learn, but many of the children couldn't make it, and the hospital didn't seem to know whether it was worth it to keep the school open.

在一个巨大的开放性病房里，住着很多很多病人，他们穿着睡衣，带着口罩，慢慢挪动着。有一层楼是专为孩童开设的，其中包括还在卧床的婴儿们。医院中也为适龄儿童设有小学校，但是大多数孩子都无法战胜病魔踏入学堂，因此医院似乎并不确信是否有必要开设这所学校。

I talked to a patient there in her early 30s. She had been a worker at a TB hospital when she came down with a cough. She went to a doctor and he told her said she had drug-resistant TB. She was later diagnosed with AIDS. She wasn't going to live much longer, but there were plenty of MDR patients waiting to take her bed when she vacated it. This was hell with a waiting list.

我同一位30多岁的病人做了交谈，并了解到她曾肺结核医院的一名职工，因为咳嗽而病倒。她看了医生，医生告诉她患上了耐药性结核病，在后来也被诊断患有艾滋。她活不了过久了，但有很多耐多药结核病患者却“觊觎”着她即将空出的床位。这是一个有很多候场病人的地狱。

But seeing this hell didn't reduce my optimism. It channeled it. I got into the car as I left and I told the doctor we were working with I know MDR-TB is hard to cure, but we must do something for these people. And, in fact, this year, we are entering phase three with the new TB drug regime for patients who respond, instead of a 50% cure rate after 18 months for $2,000, we get an 80% cure rate after six months for under $100. (Applause).

但是目睹了这个地域并不能减少我的乐观心态，相反，它指导着乐观的前行。在我们离开时，我在车里跟与我们同行的医生说，我虽然知道耐多药结核病是一种顽疾，但我们必须为这些人做一些实事。实际上，在今年，我们进入了新结核药物研发的第三阶段，对于那些病人而言，他们不再需为18个月50%的治愈率而花费2000美元，我们的新药物花费不超100美元便能在6个月后实现80%的治愈率。（掌声）

Optimism is often dismissed as false hope. But there is also false hopelessness. That's the attitude that says we can't defeat poverty and disease. We absolutely can.

乐观常被视为错误的希望。但是错误的无望也存在于世，那就是我们无法击败贫困和疾病的态度。但我们却能够做到。