Bill Gates has joined China’s WeChat messaging service

Kit McDonald

Bill Gates has always been interested in reaching more people for his philanthropic tendencies. The former CEO of Microsoft and co-founder of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is known for making a financial stand for global health and higher education time and time again. So it isn’t much of a surprise that Gates is now joining WeChat (via The Verge.)

The Chinese micro-messaging platform is an app available for mobile and the web with features such as broadcasting, voice messages, video conferencing, games, sharing photos, and just plain old chatting. In China, it is the most popular messaging service and globally, it boasts around 800 million users.

Gates posted his introductory video to the blog just a few days ago, and surprisingly the world leader announced his decision in Mandarin. As The Verge pointed out in their report, this is a big deal to enthusiasts that follow Gates closely. The former CEO had always voiced a regret about learning a foreign language. Perhaps we’ll even see more of this as the WeChat blog moves forward.

For now, if you’re a WeChat user, you can follow the GatesNotes username for updates on his personal blog including ‘people he meets, books that he is reading, and what he’s learning’. Gates closes the 25-second long snippet by inviting people to join in on the conversation.