But humanity’s greatest advances are not in its discoveries – but in how those discoveries are applied to reduce inequity. Whether through democracy, strong public education, quality health care, or broad economic opportunity – reducing inequity is the highest human achievement.
但是，人类的进步不在于这些新发现，而在于如何运用这些发现减少社会不公。不管是通过民主政策、健全的公共教育、高质量的医疗保健还是广泛的商机，消除不平等始终是人类最大的目标。

I left campus knowing little about the millions of young people cheated out of educational opportunities here in this country. And I knew nothing about the millions of people living in unspeakable poverty and disease in developing countries. It took me decades to find out.
离开校园的时候，根本不知道在美国上百万年轻人没有接受教育的机会。也对发展中国家被贫困和病痛折磨的人们一无所知。我花了几十年才明白这些事情。

You graduates came to Harvard at a different time. You know more about the world’s inequities than the classes that came before. In your years here, I hope you’ve had a chance to think about how – in this age of accelerating technology – we can finally take on these inequities, and we can solve them.
如今，在座的各位应该比我更了解世界上的这些不平等现象。在你们的求学之路上我希望你们已经思考过这个问题——如何在这个高速发展的时代解决不平等现象。

Imagine, just for the sake of discussion, that you had a few hours a week and a few dollars a month to donate to a cause and you wanted to spend that time and money where it would have the greatest impact in saving and improving lives. Where would you spend it?
试想一下如果你每周捐出几个小时，几块钱，来参与一项能够拯救生命和提高生活品质的项目，你会如何选择？

For Melinda and for me, the challenge is the same: how can we do the most good for the greatest number with the resources we have.
我和妻子梅琳达就面临着这样一个问题：怎样才能充分利用我们拥有的资源。

During our discussions on this question, Melinda and I read an article about the millions of children who were dying every year in poor countries from diseases that we had long ago made harmless in this country. Measles, malaria, pneumonia, hepatitis B, yellow fever. One disease I had never even heard of, rotavirus, was killing half a million kids each year- none of them in the United States.
举棋不定时我们读到一篇文章，文章里说在贫困的国家里，每年有数百万，儿童死于于美国早已战胜的疾病——麻疹、疟疾、肺炎、乙肝、黄热病，还有一种从未听说的轮状病毒每年会夺走五十万儿童的生命，而在美国没有一例死亡病例。

We were shocked. We had just assumed that if millions of children were dying and they could be saved, the world would make it a priority to discover and deliver the medicines to save them. But it did not. For under a dollar, there were interventions that could save lives that just weren’t being delivered.
当时我们就震惊了。我以为全世界会不遗余力地拯救这些在死亡线上挣扎的儿童们，然而这些不值钱的救命药却没有送到他们手中。

If you believe that every life has equal value, it’s revolting to learn that some lives are seen as worth saving and others are not. We said to ourselves: “This can’t be true. But if it is true, it deserves to be the priority of our giving.”
如果你坚信人生而平等，把生命分等级的做法简直令人发指。我们对自己说：“这绝不可能。但万一这是真的，那么这将成为我们慈善事业的首要任务。

So we began our work in the same way anyone here would begin it. We asked: “How could the world let these children die?”
于是我们开始行动了 我相信这也会是你们的选择。我们疑惑：“这个世界怎么可以眼睁睁看着这些孩子死去？”

The answer is simple, and harsh. The market did not reward saving the lives of these children, and governments did not subsidize it. So the children died because their mothers and their fathers had no power in the market and no voice in the system. But you and I have both. We can make market forces work better for the poor if we can develop a more creative capitalism.
答案简单却残酷。市场经济中，拯救儿童没有利润，政府也不会给予补贴。父母无财无权 孩子们就死了。我们不一样，我们可以让市场更好地为穷人服务，如果我们可以改进现有资本主义制度。

If we can stretch the reach of market forces so that more people can make a profit, or at least make a living, serving people who are suffering from the worst inequities. We also can press governments around the world to spend taxpayer money in ways that better reflect the values of the people who pay the taxes.
改善市场环境，让更多的人赚到钱、维持生计，缓解苦难。给世界各地的政府施压 让他们把纳税人的钱花到最值得的地方。采取一些既满足满足穷人的需求，又能带来商业利润并为政治家带来选票的措施。

If we can find approaches that meet the needs of the poor in ways that generate profits for business and votes for politicians, we will have found a sustainable way to reduce inequity in the world.This task is open-ended. It can never be finished. But a conscious effort to answer this challenge will change the world.
采取一些既满足满足穷人的需求，又能带来商业利润并为政治家带来选票的措施，我们就摸索到了减少世界不平等的可持续发展道路。然而这项任务并没有终点，我们也许无法彻底解决。但只要不懈努力，就可以改变世界。