1.10.2009
The conference “Growing through Knowledge” of T-Hrvatski Telekom, in which two exceptional lecturers delivered their speeches – Professor Muhammad Yunus, Nobel Peace Prize winner and founder of the Grameen bank, and Professor Dan Ariely, acknowledged behavioral economist and expert on human behavior, was held on 1 October in Hypo Center, Zagreb.
During his inspiring lecture, Professor Muhammad Yunus talked about fulfillment of human potentials, mutual influence of people on each other, and struggle against poverty through his experience with the Grameen model and companies whose goal was to achieve social good and not profit (so called social business). Professor Dan Ariely showed, in an interesting manner, through experience, researches, and distinctive experiments, how a number of factors frequently resulted in wrong decisions, leading us to difficulties at a personal, but also at a wider social and economic level.
Professor Muhammad Yunus explained that the micro-credit system, which contributed to Bangladesh’s transformation from the country of famine to the country of education: "Should banks determine whether people are creditworthy or should people estimate whether banks deserve their trust? Our bank is led by the second principle, which makes it successful. We are operating oppositely from other banks: we credit the poor, not the rich, we address women, not men, we credit villages, not businesses, and we among people, we do not wait for people to come to us."
Professor Dan Ariely talked about irrational behaviors which sometimes forced us to certain decisions. He vividly showed mechanisms causing irrational behaviors on a number of examples talking about the contrariety between the reality and the subjective reality, decisions based on illusions, values of the first assessment, and different aspects of trust and deception.
"The whole world is burdened by challenges, just like Croatia, so we do not have to suffer from the inferiority complex. Problems will become even bigger if we all together take no action. At the Professor Ariely’s lecture we saw how difficult it was to change oneself and the world. But we also saw on the example of Professor Yunus how an individual may change the world and their environment by removing stereotypes. And when we say we can do anything, then we can really do anything. Each one of us has to review their own mission and try to be an individual who changes the world around them. A better future lies ahead of us, if we want it, and the common thread is knowledge. Knowledge we have learned at this conference is the way in which we can change individuals, companies, and societies," concluded Ivica Mudrinić, President of the Management Board of T-Hrvatski Telekom, at the end of the conference.
The conference was attended by a number of guests from the business, political, and intellectual life of Croatia, the best students from faculties, which T-HT had been successfully cooperating with for a number of years, and management and employees of T-HT.
The T-HT conference under the slogan "Growing through Knowledge” was organized for the second year in a row. Emphasis is placed on the importance of knowledge for individual and social growth. The conference invites respectable and inspiring experts and speakers, who in a recognizable manner contribute to and help humankind through their ideas, acts, projects, and knowledge at a local and global level and inspire to thinking or action.