UW News

November 24, 1999

Former South African President Nelson Mandela to visit UW Health Sciences Dec. 9

Former South African President Nelson Mandela is scheduled to visit the University of Washington?s Warren G. Magnuson Health Sciences Center Dec. 9 to participate in a Global Health Roundtable sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Mandela will be joined in the 60-minute forum by a number of experts in global health and by others, including Foundation co-founder Bill Gates and his father, William H. Gates, Sr., President of the UW Board of Regents.

The invitation-only forum will begin at 10:15 a.m. in Hogness Auditorium and is expected to focus on major challenges facing those working to improve health conditions throughout the world. In addition to researchers and others, including campus and community leaders, the audience will include 100 UW students chosen through a random lottery organized by the UW Office of Student Affairs. Information on the lottery will be published shortly in the UW student newspaper, The Daily.

The public will be able to watch the forum live and in streaming video at the following website: www.gatesfoundation.org.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation places a major focus on helping to improve people?s lives through health and learning. Led by the senior Gates and Patty Stonesifer, the Foundation is located in Seattle, Wash. Significant Foundation projects include: the Bill and Melinda Gates Children?s Vaccine Program, a $100 million commitment to speed the delivery of lifesaving vaccines to children in developing countries; the Maternal Mortality Reduction Program, a $50 million commitment to prevent pregnancy-related deaths of women in developing countries; and the Gates Library Initiative, a major effort to help close the “digital divide” by bringing Internet access to libraries in the poorest communities in Canada and the United States.

The Warren G. Magnuson Health Sciences Center of the University of Washington was established in 1970. Health sciences schools are Dentistry, Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, Public Health and Community Medicine, and Social Work. In addition, the health sciences component of the UW is home to five major interdisciplinary research centers.

The UW has an Academic Medical Center that includes the School of Medicine and its owned, managed and closely affiliated hospitals, including Harborview Medical Center and University of Washington Medical Center, as well as nine UW Physicians neighborhood clinics.

Each of the units of the Health Sciences Center is committed to the maintenance and improvement of human health. The center is an integral part of the University of Washington and reflects the University?s three-part mission to provide outstanding programs in teaching, research and public service to the citizens of the state and region.