Bill Gates Says Google's Project Loon Isn't Worth Anything to Malaria Victims

Bill Gates - one of the world's biggest philanthropists with a net worth of $67 billion as of March 2013 - apparently doesn't think Google's attempt to bring the internet to developing countries is a high priority.

Google's Project Loon is an attempt to uplift struggling areas by bringing the internet to regions of the world that have limited access and infrastructure. But Gates thinks that's not quite what they need. In an interview with Bloomberg Thursday, Gates took a swipe at Google's project.

"When you're dying of malaria, I suppose you'll look up and see that balloon, and I'm not sure how it'll help you," said the multibillionaire software mogul turned philanthropist. "When a kid gets diarrhea, no, there's no website that relieves that."

Gates is the head of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which, along with multibillionaire Warren Buffett (net worth $53.5 billion) is the largest private charitable foundation in the world. The foundation's primary aims are to enhance healthcare and reduce poverty around the world.

Still, the Microsoft founder stated that bringing digital technology to the poor isn't a bad thing. "Certainly I'm a huge believer in the digital revolution. And connecting up primary-health-care centers, connecting up schools, those are good things," said Gates to Bloomberg. But he still thinks it's not as high a priority as healthcare: "But no, those are not, for the really low-income countries, unless you directly say we're going to do something about malaria."

Project Loon is an initiative by Google's secretive division, Google[x], which seeks to bring the internet to difficult-to-access regions via balloon. The internet company has begun its project by launching about 30 superpressure high-altitude balloons in New Zealand as a test. The balloons carry electronics powered by solar panels, which broadcast internet signals to the ground. The internet speeds are comparable to 3G.

The idea is to create a low-cost way of getting the internet down to the ground. "Just because in principle you could take a satellite phone to sub-Saharan Africa and get a connection there, it doesn't mean the people have a cost-effective way of getting online," said Richard DeVaul, chief technical architect at Google[x] when Project Loon took its first steps. "The idea behind Loon was that it might be easier to tie the world together by using what it has in common - the skies - than the process of laying fiber [optic cable] and trying to put up cellphone infrastructure."

While Project Loon's balloons float in the stratosphere, about 12 miles above Earth, specialized antennae on the ground collect the internet signals and can connect hundreds of people to the balloon's broadcast internet.

Meanwhile, on Bill Gates' side of the philanthropic aisle, a new experimental vaccine has been recently developed which may prove an effective weapon against malaria. The vaccine, named PfSPZ reportedly gave a durable and lasting protection against malaria in a small-scale short-term study. You can read more about it here.