Bill Gates buys 25,000 acres in Arizona to build a smart city

2017-11-13T13:53:00-05:00

Belmont Partners, an investment firm run by Microsoft founder Bill Gates, has bought 25,000 acres in Arizona to create a planned community reports KPNX. The large plot of land was bought for $80 million and is 45 minutes from Phoenix, within Maricopa County, in an area called the West Valley.

Plans for the new city, which will be appropriately named Belmont, include 80,000 residential units, 3,800 acres for office, commercial and retail space and 470 acres for public schools. According to a press release put out by the firm, they plan to build "a forward-thinking community with a communication and infrastructure spine that embraces cutting-edge technology, designed around high-speed digital networks, data centers, new manufacturing technologies and distribution models, autonomous vehicles and autonomous logistics hubs."

Let’s get our sh*t together and reinvent the toilet

2011-07-21T12:57:27-04:00

The sanitation revolution has done more to save lives and improve health than any public health intervention in the past 200 years. But the flush toilet has only reached one-third of the world’s population. Clearly, we need to encourage new ideas and new approaches to accelerate safe and affordable access to sanitation for everyone.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced the launch of a strategy to help bring safe, clean sanitation services to millions of poor people in the developing world. The foundation also announced $42 million in new sanitation grants that aim to spur innovations in the capture and storage of waste, as well as its processing into reusable energy, fertilizer, and fresh water. In addition, the foundation will support work with local communities to end open defecation and increase access to affordable, long-term sanitation solutions that people will want to use.

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Bill Gates buys 25,000 acres in Arizona to build a smart city

Let’s get our sh*t together and reinvent the toilet