我离开校园的时候，根本不知道在这个国家有数百万年轻人无法获得接受教育的机会。我也不知道，发展中国家里有无数的人们生活在无法形容的贫穷和疾病中。

　　It took me decades to find out.

　　我花了几十年才明白了这些事情。

　　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.

　　在座的各位同学，你们是在与我不同的时代来到哈佛的。你们比以前的学生更了解世界的不平等。你们在哈佛求学的几年里，我希望你们已经思考过一个问题：在这个新技术加速发展的时代，我们如何最终应对这种不平等，如何解决这个问题。

　　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

　　为了便于讨论，假想你每个星期可以捐献一些时间、每个月可以捐献一些钱——你希望这些时间和金钱可以用到对拯救生命和改善人类生活有最大作用的地方。你会选择什么地方？

　　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.

　　我和美琳达也面临着这样的问题：我们如何能将我们拥有的资源发挥出最大的作用，为最多的人做有益的事情。

　　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.

　　在讨论这个问题的过程中，我和美琳达读到了一篇文章，说在那些贫穷的国家，每年有数百万的儿童死于那些在美国早已不成问题的疾病。麻疹、疟疾、肺炎、乙型肝炎、黄热病、还有一种我以前从未听说过的轮状病毒，这些疾病每年导致50万儿童死亡，但是在美国没有一例死亡。

　　accelerating

　　adj. 加速的

　　eg. China's chemical industry is accelerating the pace of opening up to the outside world, and striding into the world.

　　中国化学工业加快对外开放步伐，大步走向世界。

　　malaria

　　n. 疟疾

　　eg. The malaria victim fevers intermittently.

　　疟疾病人间歇地发热。

　　pneumonia

　　n. [医]肺炎

　　eg. Penicillin cured him of pneumonia.

　　青霉素治好了他的肺炎。

　　hepatitis B

　　乙型肝炎

　　eg. All infants should receive the hepatitis B vaccine.

　　所有婴儿应接种乙型肝炎疫苗。

　　rotavirus

　　n. [微]轮状病毒（一种致婴儿或新生畜胃肠炎的病毒）

　　eg. Rotavirus can cause very unpleasant vomiting and diarrhoea.

　　轮状病毒能引起严重呕吐和腹泻。