Then again, he always has. Recently, the director of Sun Microsystems' science office proposed a new push to identify schools the world over not yet connected to the Internet and match them with volunteers willing to help. The idea is an ambitious extension of his well-known NetDay project, which has been successful over the last three years in bringing the people and resources together to wire some 50,000 schools and libraries in the United States. It is typical of the man to believe he can pull it off and equally typical that he believes in the power of other individuals to make it happen. For an idealist, he is a very pragmatic man.
Gage orchestrates one of the most advanced computer research groups in the world.
Sun's innovations are legendary, from symmetrically parallel architecture chips to the Java programming language. As its chief scientist, he represents the company in dialog with governments and institutions at the highest levels. But he has never lost sight of the goal of scientific progress, as one gets to know when they listen to him. He really believes his mission is to improve all our lives. Beach Boys music and all.