Having children made us look differently at all these things that we take for granted, like taking your child to get a vaccine against measles or polio.

Our desire to bring every good thing to our children is a force for good throughout the world. It’s what propels societies forward.

My undergraduate work was in computer science and economics. It just happened to be at that time when 34 percent of computer-science majors were women. We didn't realize it was at the peak at the time.

In the developing world, they don't have smartphones yet. They have the older plastic phones, but women are saving money on those, because they don't have access to banks. Having that access to digital money changes everything for her because she actually doesn't have to negotiate with her husband, which she will tell you is very hard in these circumstances, especially when the means are meager. She's expected to have money to pay for the kids' health or to help with the school fees.

All of a sudden people in the United States start to realize that vaccines make a difference. The controversy and the myth that's there, we're always trying to bust through that. So when I see a disease outbreak, I say to myself, "OK, that'll get people realizing how lucky we are to have vaccines."

After a number of years dating, we decided we were good partners.

I've travelled extensively in the last 16 years - to slums in Bangladesh, to townships in South Africa, to all kinds of places in India, etc. When I would go and talk to villagers about something like vaccines, if I stayed long enough, the women would bring the conversation around and say: "What about this family planning tool? We can't keep having the number of children we're having."