In a recent speech at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, Bill Gates urged students to explore careers in math and science and to be mindful of what they can do with their expertise to help the world’s poor, reports The Montreal Gazette.

Mr. Gates told the crowd that he did not have a real understanding of poverty as a young man and hoped that the students developing technological skills would be mindful of the role they can play in alleviating global suffering.

Mr. Gates’s lecture, part of a five-campus tour of North American universities, follows an announcement by Microsoft this week that the company will give away versions of its commercial development and design software to more than 35 million students. Microsoft hopes the project, called the DreamSpark program, will help fill a growing global demand for developers, scientists, and mathematicians.