VIDEO: Bill Gates Says Poverty Can Be Eradicated by 2035 on CBS THIS MORNING

Microsoft Founder and philanthropist Bill Gates said today that poverty can be eradicated by 2035, if we can debunk the myths associated with poverty and focus on the positives rather than the negatives, in an interview that was broadcast livetoday, Jan. 21, 2013 on CBS This Morning (7:00-9:00 AM) on the CBS Television Network.

"There's been really mind-blowing progress in my lifetime, where back in 1955 there were a few rich countries, but overwhelmingly, countries were poor," Gates told co-hosts Charlie Rose, Gayle King and Clarissa Ward. "Today, more countries are middle income."

Gates said that there's too much focus on the negatives in the headlines, telling CBS This Morning that "The kind of negative mindset people have that poor countries are stuck, that's going to hold us back. That's why that myth is a disaster."

Excerpts of the interview follow. Watch the appearance in its entirety below!

CHARLIE ROSE: You start your annual letter by saying "By almost any measure the world is better than it's ever been," yet at the same time OxFam has a new report out this morning suggesting that 85 people in the world, of which I'm assuming you're one, own as much wealth as half of the world's population. Connect those two ideas, which might seem to some, in conflict.

BILL GATES: People are living longer lives than ever before. We've got the number of children who die down. We need to do more. And certainly taking philanthropy, taking the wealth that I'm lucky enough to have, and applying it on behalf of those people, to invent vaccines and get them out there. That's a very just thing. We want to lift those people up. We want to get the childhood death rate down from the 5% that it is now down to the level it was in the United States in 1980 - 1.6%. And it's going to take some of that wealth and a lot of ingenuity to get it there.

CHARLIE ROSE: Income inequality is a big theme, it will be the theme at DAVOS, where you will be. When you look at the effort you're making, you seem to emphasize that there are three myths that we must worry about. One is that the poor are doomed to be poor. What do you mean?

BILL GATES: There's been really mind-blowing progress during my lifetime, where back in 1955 there were a few rich countries, but overwhelmingly, countries were poor. Today, more countries are middle income. They've moved up, countries like Mexico, Brazil and China. So we have remaining poor countries. In the next 20 years, if we're focused on it, we'll have that down to a very small number, less than 10. And only by knowing the progress we've made, though, will we dedicate ourselves to this effort. If you look at the headlines you might get the impression that we're not making progress. When are we supposed to report the gradual improvement that's taking place? Instead you hear about the setbacks, the tornado, not the wonderful result of lifting these countries up.

CHARLIE ROSE: You want to create a mindset that things are getting better and we have to continue that effort.

BILL GATES: Yeah, and look at where it's gone well, be willing to put the resources and effort in to match the countries where it's gone spectacularly well.

GAYLE KING: You even say that extreme poverty can be solved, you say by 2035, which is an amazing number to think about. If we use ingenuity. What kind of ingenuity are you thinking about and talking about?

BILL GATES: We have to take Science and help the poorest, for example, to get rid of a disease like malaria. It will take new medicines, new vaccines. To get their farming productivity, which is 1/3 of U.S. farming productivity, UP close to that level so they can feed themselves, send their kids to schools. They need new and better seeds. A lot of that ingenuity comes from the richer countries, governments, philanthropists, but we can see that this is possible. And the kind of negative mindset people have that poor countries are stuck, that's going to hold us back. That's why that myth is a disaster.

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