CEO of Microsoft Bill Gates told Iceland’s President Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson at a meeting in Scotland yesterday that he believes Iceland could be an ideal location for future development of software and telecommunications.
According to RÚV, Grímsson and Gates met at a conference in Edinburgh, Scotland, called the Microsoft Government Leaders Forum, where the influence of telecommunications technology on democracy and on industrial development in Europe was discussed.
Grímsson told RÚV the Microsoft founder and CEO expressed an interest in Iceland’s technological knowledge at the meeting and said he believed the country had great potential in the field of telecommunications due to its pure energy sources.
According to Iceland’s president, all electrical power in Iceland comes from pure energy sources. That, combined with the fact that internet penetration rates and mobile phone usage in Iceland is very high, makes the country an ideal location for technological development.
Grímsson said he had stressed those two points at the meeting with Gates and that they had both agreed that Iceland has great future potential in the field of telecommunications and software research and development.
After the meeting Gates gave the president a sample of Microsoft’s new operating system, Windows Vista, which will not be available in Iceland until next summer.
