Former South African President Nelson Mandela will be at the UW Health Sciences Center Thursday, Dec. 9, to participate in an invitation-only forum on challenges facing those striving to improve health conditions throughout the world.

The forum, sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, will be netcast live at 9:45 a.m. PST (17:45 UTC) on the Foundation's Web site :

http://www.gatesfoundation.org

The forum will be held in Hogness Auditorium. The audience will include researchers, campus and community leaders, and 100 UW students chosen through a random lottery.

The panel will include experts in global health and other fields; Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who this week donated $3 million to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS among young people in South Africa; his father, William H. Gates, Sr., president of the UW Board of Regents; Seth Berkley, president of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative; and William Foege, global health senior advisor to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Foege is a 1961 graduate of the UW School of Medicine.

Mandela's participation is part of a visit he is making with his wife Graca Machel, former minister of education for Mozambique, to raise awareness of the Nelson Mandela Foundation and the Foundation for Community Development in promoting peace and social justice in Africa. Mandela was a co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize with Fredrik Willem De Klerk in 1993.