Professor Muhammad Yunus

Professor Muhammad Yunus is a 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner and founder of the Grameen bank. This renowned Bangladeshi economist and banker has helped a number of poor families and jumpstarted Bangladeshi economy when, as an economics professor, he used a simple solution, microcredits, to help entrepreneurs who had been too poor to turn to traditional banks for assistance. Professor Yunus is a charismatic person with plenty of ideas and strength to help thousands. He is an inspiring and emotional speaker who talks passionately about his goals and dreams, offering his audiences simple but effective ideas for a successful implementation of the model that can help fight poverty around the world.

Professor Yunus completed his B.A. in 1960 and M.A. in 1961 at Dhaka University in Bangladesh. He received Ph.D. in economics from Vanderbilt University in the United States.

Professor Yunus became involved with the poverty reduction after observing the faming of 1974. He discovered that very small loans could significantly improve a poor person's life. At the time he established a rural economic program as a research project. His first loan, amounting to USD 27 from his own pocket, was made to women in the village who were making bamboo furniture.

In 1976 he founded the Grameen Bank to make loans to the poor of Bangladesh. Since then the Grameen bank has issued over USD 5.1 billion for approximately 5.3 million of Bangladesh’s inhabitants. To ensure the return of the loans the bank uses the "solidarity groups" system. These small informal groups apply jointly for loans, and its members act as co-guarantors of repayment and support one another's efforts at economic self-advancement. The success of the Grameen model has inspired similar efforts in a number of developing countries and even in industrialized nations, including the United States. Grameen model of financing has been applied in 23 countries in the world.

Besides the Grameen Bank, Professor Yunus has founded a number of Bangladesh-based companies focusing on different poverty- and development-related issues, including Grameen Communications, Grameen Fund, Grameen Trust, Grameen Telecom and Grameen Healthcare Services.

Professor Yunus is the first Nobel Prize winner from Bangladesh. He is also the recipient of numerous international awards and has been awarded more than 40 honorary doctorate degrees. He is the author of Banker to the Poor (1998) and Creating a World without Poverty (2008).

 “Poverty in the world is an artificial creation. It doesn't belong to human civilization.”, Professor Muhammad Yunus.