Watch: When Bill Gates raced with Emirati racing star Amna Al Qubaisi

Dubai: Bill Gates recently joined Emirati racing star Amna Al Qubaisi for a quick race at the Yas KartZone on the Yas Marina Circuit.

The chair of Gates Foundation was in Abu Dhabi for a special campaign that saw the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) unveil The Last Square Campaign at the Abu Dhabi Formula 1 Grand Prix — a global awareness campaign to mark the final stretch in the race to eradicate polio.

“We’ve made amazing progress and I am beyond proud of the role my country, the UAE, has played in getting us this far to end polio. We’re closer than ever to winning this race for children everywhere,” said Amna.

Amna along with Mika Hakkinen were enlisted as campaign ambassadors.

As part of the campaign, the two motorsport athletes lent their voices to a series of short films in which they reflect on their own experience of seeing the chequered flag during a race and what it meant to them. The significance of the campaign’s chequered flag for the athletes reveals the importance of the finish line for a different kind of race — one that will eradicate polio entirely.

“Polio is a horrific disease that paralyses vulnerable children around the world. We’ve almost ended this disease for good. But this last square represents the 0.1% of polio cases we still need to stop” said Mika Hakkinen, the Finnish former Formula 1 driver reflecting on his own racing achievements over the years. Hakkinen won two Formula One World Drivers’ Championship titles during his professional racing tenure.