I'm a big believer in the power of research to help people who are underestimated and underserved by the commercial side of technology. I think that distributing knowledge and tools through mechanisms like open source, freely-available courses, documentation, and examples is the best chance we have of unlocking the potential of many more people around the world, not just the lucky few who benefit from the right circumstances. As Stephen Jay Gould wrote in The Panda's Thumb:
"I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops".