Bill Gates (sic)

I had the opportunity to hear Bill Gates address a capacity crowd of 2300 in Southam Hall here at the NAC on Tuesday. I even met him briefly backstage while he was waiting for his (surpsingly small) entourage to sherpa him off to his next appointment on Parliament Hill.

He didn’t impart the gathering with any remarkable bits of insight, which you’d half expect coming from one of the most influential people on the planet. (Well, he did mention that we are currently witnessing a blurring between the desktop application and web applications … gasp!)

That said, he didn’t come off as the devil incarnate either (which I’m fully predisposed to believe). Au contraire, his foundation’s work came up a couple of times in the Q&A session after his presentation. You have to admire the money and effort he has put into his organization’s work in Africa. He got a very long and deserved round of applause for his humanitarian work.

Other than that I really can’t think of anything else to say. It was somewhat of a non-event.

I probably have Steve Jobs’ keynotes to thank for setting my expectations high — It’s almost as if I was expecting Bill to announce the Zune phone, that he thinks Steve Ballmer is a baffoon, or that he checked out the NAC’s podcast offerings on his way over.