Bill Gates this morning gave a few more clues about the issues he'll be talking about during a series of events with college students across the country this week, starting later this morning at UC Berkeley.

"How do we get the best minds, including young people, working on the biggest problems – poverty, global health, education, energy, and climate change?" the Microsoft chairman wrote in a short preview today on the Gates Notes, his recently launched site. He called it "an issue I’ve been thinking about a lot lately."

Should be an interesting discussion, and hopefully there will be plenty of Q&A with the students to mix things up. The Berkeley speech starts at 11:15 a.m. Pacific time today, and it will be available for live viewing online in a variety of places, including Gates' Facebook page. The event at Harvard later in the week will be available for viewing at noon Pacific time on Wednesday.

Gates is appearing later this week at Stanford, the University of Chicago and MIT.

The Microsoft co-founder and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation co-chair has been speaking out more often and more assertively in a variety of public ways in recent months, settling further into the new era of his life following his departure from full-time work at Microsoft.

His talk about environmental issues at TED earlier this year was well-received, and he's one of the subjects of a new Wired magazine cover story by Steven Levy (not yet available online). He's also appearing Wednesday with Melinda Gates on American Idol's "Idol Gives Back" television special.