Professor Muhammad Yunus - Social Business: to solve society's most pressing problems

your excellencies ladies and gentlemen I'm Peter Sullivan [Music] I'm Peter Sutherland I'm chairman of the board of governors and I'm delighted to see so many here today but I can say that I'm not surprised because provides testimony of testimony were needed as to the importance of the guests that we have in the school today professor muhammad yunus was to be awarded an honorary degree as you all know he has made an outstanding contribution to the eradication of global poverty that contribution is evidence now all over the world the Grameen Bank which he founded in Bangladesh in the 1970s to make loans to entrepreneurs to poor to qualify for traditional bank loans now has 7.5 million borrowers and the success of the model that he created has led to similar initiative initiative in over a hundred countries including in the United States the crucial importance of microcredit in the struggle against poverty was recognized by the award of a Nobel Prize to Professor Yunus and the Grameen Bank in 2006 so it's a great honor to the school but he is accepted this award and he's been able to join us here today to accept it and I'd now like to call on professor Stewart corage who is going to give the oration [Music] Thank You Jen director ladies and gentlemen it's a great honor and privilege to propose professor Muhammad Yunus from honorary degrees as everyone here must know professor Eunice's worked with the Grameen Bank has helped to improve the lives of tens of millions of people and most of all poor women borrowers in his native country of Bangladesh many of us also know Professor Yunus is one of the most respected and I would say most loved visitors to the school and I expect that tonight again it will be some time before he sits down to a dinner in his honor professor Yunus always makes time for our students and visitors and his kindness his warmth and his charisma are appreciated I think almost as much almost as much as his extraordinary achievements in the fields of microfinance and social business so let me please tell you a little bit more about the man and his work Muhammad Yunus was born in 1940 in a village close to the city of Chittagong in Eastern Bengal to then parts of British India he mainly grew up in Chittagong and went to school there before enrolling in the economics department of Dhaka University where he received his BA in 1960 and his MA in 1961 in the same year professor Yunus was appointed to a lectureship in economics at Chittagong College he stayed there until 1965 when a Fulbright scholarship took him to Vanderbilt University in the United States for his doctorate in economics after short teaching stint in the u.s. professor Yunus returned to newly independent Bangladesh following the war of liberation in 1971 while teaching at the university of Chittagong professor Yunus became increasingly interested in rural economics and in the plight of small and landless laborers famously in 1976 he led the equivalent of 27 US dollars to 42 people in Jabra village close to Chittagong with the aim of releasing bamboo workers there from the grip of local moneylenders this in a very real sense was the start of what became in 1983 the Grameen Bank and indeed I would say of the worldwide microfinance movement and his in his recent and best-known incarnation professor Yunus realized that traditional banks were not lending to poor people and especially not to women they were not considered creditworthy the Grameen Bank in contrast took the view and still tastes the view the poor people will use loans to work or manufacture their way out of poverty they then repay their loans at least as reliably as anyone else now sometimes difficult now in 35 years on to recognize just how enabling just how revolutionary these intuitions were in the early days professor Yunus has to make himself the guarantor for a credit line from the junta bank to poor households in jabra yet by the end of the last decade the Grameen Bank had over 7.5 million borrowers 97% of whom were women in Bangladesh alone the Grameen or the village Bank has lent more than 7 billion u.s. dollars to poor people since the mid-1980s and today it has a presence in over 95 percent of that country's villages it's also to be found in countries throughout the global south and indeed in New York and the UK I think in Glasgow professor Yunus is extraordinary achievements and those of the Grameen Bank more widely were recognized as the chairman said by the award in 2006 of the Nobel Peace Prize the Norwegian Nobel Committee recognized the poor people without secure generally pull their way out of extreme income poverty by finding wage work or by accumulating small assets economic and social development thus happens partly from below as the Nobel Citation has it by enabling millions of people to access microfinance and technologies that otherwise would have been unavailable to them the Grameen Bank has helpful families to live lives of respect dignity and opportunity the same I think can also be said of professor Yunus is more recent innovations in the field of social business or entrepreneurship the Grameen Phone Grameen Shakti and energy company that remain textile and agriculture companies and more recently the tie up with a French company to know that professor Yunus wrote about in his 2007 book creating a world without poverty in addition to the Nobel Peace Prize professor Yunus the banker to the poor has been awarded more honorary degrees and national and international prizes than I'd written academic books and papers really if I was to read out the list of his awards it would prolong this joyful occasion by at least half an hour let me just say the professor Yunus has recently been honored by the following universities amongst many many others Duke University in the US or Duke if you're an American are you sure University in Japan the Catholic University of choir quilt in Ecuador the higher School of Economics in Moscow and Glasgow Caledonian University in Scotland in addition professor Yunus has been the recipient of the Independence Day award which is Bangladeshis highest award in 1987 the Mohamed shardene award for science to 1993 the World Food Prize in 1994 the king who's saying humanitarian Leadership Award in 2000 the Volvo environment prize in 2003 and the Franklin D Roosevelt Freedom Award in 2006 now this year notwithstanding these myriad achievements fessor unity has been having some difficulties with the retirement age in Bangladesh he's been - he's been told that he's too old to be a managing director of a bank there well it's not for me or or LSE to judge the laws of Bangladesh although I do know that several international figures including Mary Robinson Hillary Clinton and John Kerry have expressed concern about Professor Eunice's position I would like to let you know however professor Yunus that the government of the United Kingdom in his wisdom if that's the right word has just within the last month or two remove the default retirement age in this country so if you do find yourself this is totally implausible if you if you do find yourself with time on your hands which seems so unlikely given your extraordinary energy and commitments and this is the real bit to always please consider yourself well here at the LSE if you want somewhere to teach please poncey that those [Applause] with that happy thought in mind may I director request but that by the authority of the court of governor's you admit professor Muhammad Yunus to the degree of science economics honoris causa right by the authority of the court of governor's I admit you to the degree of doctors some economics [Applause] the less time we will have to thank you [Applause] that's the good thing about coming here you get a job offer thank you I was a jobless person now I feel happy I got it put in employment unemployment rate going so high yeah very reassuring good evening I'm delighted to be back here but this time it's a great occasion and I feel trill I feel extremely honored for the recognition you give it is not a personal recognition for me the recognition to millions of poor women who have been struggling hard to make a difference in their lives and young people who work for Grameen Bank to make any come true it's a recognition of the human capability human spirit that given a chance they can take care of themselves and that's what coming Bank is all about I feel very happy to come back here because I met students and previous occasions I was amazed after that wherever I go I meet people young people come oh I saw you I heard you when you came to Elysee and that gives me a feeling that Elysee graduates are everywhere so I don't know how many times I'll hear this again because of this gathering here then Elysee has a special contribution to come in initiatives because one of your gadgets Lamia Murshid is right here today he right here yeah she has been working with us she is the executive director of UNICEF and she runs an international program for Grameen all the programs that you see happening in many different countries so this is a direct connection with us with Elysee when I come back to University campus every time I get a chance it brings me back to my university days when I enjoy working with the students and coming back was born with the students because when I go to the village I always took my students between it would be impossible to create this Bank without other students around me so I always enjoyed having them with me and they are the one who kind of encouraged me and assured me that the things I want to do can be done will be done they will querida and they did and they remained with me when they created the bank and they are the top letters of coming back hierarchy the other one who started in the first village Jabra as you mentioned I had no banking background I didn't know anything about banking but I bumped into it and I did something which later on saved it is banking it was I had no idea that that's what I was doing but on hindsight I think the best thing that I ever had I didn't know anything about banking that was the best thing happened to me because I think if I knew about Bank if I learned about banking I'll go back to their logic of banking and I'd follow the same thing they opened told to me since I was not told since I didn't know anything I was a free person I could create anything I want and that freedom is very important for me because then we adjusting without any limitation so when you learn you think this is a good thing you're learning which it is but if you don't know about something don't feel bad about it maybe that's the idea that you'll finally get through and make a big difference because you could create things in a no own way unlearning is very important thing too because sometimes things that we learn become burden on us we cannot see clearly and that lesson comes to me repeatedly as I grow up but the mindset that we are we create in his institution of education that we carry for the rest of our life it's very difficult to absorb new things because it doesn't fit into the things that we have done so I always emphasize the unlearning process so that you are always ready to give up one to take upon that's what makes you keep alive how did I do this if I didn't know anything about it I made it very simple you know if I tell the whole story you'll notice almost specialize in doing little things I always did very little things and you mentioned $27 that's my start giving loans to 42 people imagine how small the each one was that was my beginning and you'll continue to see still we called the whole thing that we created microcredit tiny cut then it became big global and another thing properly is specializing I do things which I don't know anything about every time and I'll tell you some of the other things that I did but how did I did without knowing anything advantage yours I've made it very simple I don't want to go in a complicated way and that factor interesting in a very simple way I just come close us to possible to the problem and I called it warms I view that you see things at very close range see it very clearly then you avoid the chance of mistakes sometimes we pride ourself of having bird sake you know everything you see everything but you see blood things hazy things you don't know what you're seeing you make up stories you see didn't exist the way I did it I can only describe it this way I said whenever I needed a procedure banking what I'd have to do now I just look at the conventional banks they're everywhere so it's easy to find out what they do in that case once I learned what they do I just do the opposite and it worked it never failed me everything you hear about coming back is nothing but doing the opposite they go to the rich I went to the port they worked in the city center I decided to do in the village in the remote village they go to men I went to them they won't collect rum I said nope electro forget it they want big lawyers to tie you up so that you cannot run away from them we said no lawyers Grameen Bank is probably the only bank in the world which doesn't have any lawyers it makes life so much easy because the only thing you have is trust and amazingly Trust works we forgot that there's something called trust I keep your trust you keep my trust that's it that works out and third thing about microcredit is about building them trusts conventional banks one their borrowers to come to their office we reversed it we go to the borrower's ourselves we made a first principle of Grameen Bank without knowing anything when we were just tiny little thing in one village our first principle was people should not come to the bank banks should go to people and we still do that we have now more than five and a half million in the meantime we have grown a lot with 8.3 million borrowers all over Bangladesh every single village in Bangladesh it's our duty to go to every single person of this 8.3 million to meet them every week to do the business whether it's a gigantic task but it works like a clockwork rain shine doesn't matter coming banks work goes on that's a great discipline and network that gives an enormous stamina to the organization conventional banks are owned by rich people and most likely rich men Grameen Bank is owned by poor people 97% of the owners are women that the borrower's of Grameen Bank owned remember so it's a very interesting Bank in that way so this is how we reverse the system and it works today nobody can tell us that poor people are not credit worthy I had an amazing experience in 2008 we started because we had debate but always insisting that it can be done in any country so I was challenged to do it in New York City I said I'll do it so we started to call it come in America started in New York City any word beautiful we do everything we do in the villages of Bangladesh in New York City this is a new this is a different country dr. Yunus he taught worked here I said I'll figure it out I'll find out let me talk try in it working beautifully but the second half of 2008 he remember financial crisis came over almost it's over this has seemed to observe in New York City on the one side of the street all these big banks are collapsing huge banks on the other side of the street drumming Bank is flourishing no problem I said I wish somebody here will ask me a question a journalist from New York Times would come and ask me question who is credit worthy I said I was so proud to answer this question so there is no problem at that but still we still have the same financial institution that we always have despite the fact the idea of microcredit is spread all over the world under all circumstances whether it is in the mountains of Guatemala or it is Inner Mongolia or sexual in China doesn't matter they work exactly the same or New York City checks on height or bronze or whatever we have four branches in New York City right now with six and a half thousand borrowers in New York City repayment rate no Kohler travel nothing exactly the way I described it the payment rate is 99.5 people were warning us these are people New York New Yorkers you watch out this is not Bangladeshi village woman you do everything you ask them to do these are the people who tell you one thing - something else 99.3% never fail in the last four years it's still going on this so impressive we are asked to do it invited us to do it in Omaha Nebraska so we have a branch in Omaha Nebraska exactly the same is working beautifully then asked to do it in India Indianapolis opened a branch in Indianapolis this year we're invited to in San Francisco in Detroit we said we'll go anywhere you just test us any way you want they still work the same way they still work the same way and you know what what we did we send the people from Bangladesh to run the program in New York City and the person who came everyone never been to United States in their life they don't nothing so they are very scared when they're coming out we don't know anything about them I said that's that when did you got if you know you'll be confused you do exactly what you do in the villages apparently - forget about the America these are people people who need money there the need is exactly same as they and they did it in the continued to do it then we wonder what kind of system we pride about all these financial institutions that we build almost 2/3 of the world population is excluded from their services people need money but they cannot do this New York City only placing the poor person can get money the Lord ours payday lenders industry thousand percent fifteen hundred percent I'm sure in London you have that term but what are the financial institutions doing if this thriving business goes on right in from under your own nose nobody cares let me go to the next one that I did I started looking at the problems microcredit is one people need it then other things started attack attracted my attention how do we solve this then Ivan's instinct instinct responds to every problem I see whenever I see a problem I create a business to solve it people say how can you do business with a problem I said it works beautifully if you make a business it work first strength is you have to know it very well to design a business when you can design a business then money circulates it doesn't disappear anymore if you try to address a problem by putting in charity money charity money cause it never comes back so you are going around singing raising money give me some money for the right these people so you give again you use it gone next day you come back again and that is a such a limitation you waste your time raising money rather than being the word if you can transform it into business to solve problem it works beautifully then I look around whether that poverty is created by the poor people or somebody else every time I see my conclusion is the same poverty is not created by the poor people they are very hardworking people they are intelligent people poverty is created by the system that we built system that we learn in our university classes that has the authority so if we change the system for what will be gone because it's not the fault of the person it is externally imposed phenomenon it's not internally generated phenomena if you understand that then we can go back look at your textbooks where the seat of poverty is lying here is they get to pick them up one institutions are at fault like the financial institutions of just telling you however they did and the concepts frameworks on the concept side I concentrate on one issue particularly I look at the concept of business in the economic theory there is only one kind of business in economic theory business to make money and they emphasize it in textbook that it has to be maximization of profit so what our emphasis emphasis in article I keep saying that politicians who create that theory has misinterpreted him human being human beings are not robots only thing they do in their lifetime is make money human beings are much bigger entity many money-making entity we picked only one aspect of human being which is a selfishness or self-centeredness and build the whole theory of our business so the world world is on that side busy making money but that's what we have been trained as what we learned that's what we our mindset is created our institutions are created for them so we have created a world with money profit maximization sometimes it becomes an obsession with money it gets burnt damaged then you can imagine that obsession so the social dimension economics is supposed to be a social science but the social dimension is completely ice forgotten I said human beings are selfish accepted as part of us but human means same human they are also selflessly equally powerful yourself as me you don't use it in social sense in the economics so you're left out build whole the economy excluding that part I said that's where we made the mistake we made a very lopsided economic theory in world that we created out of that theory we pride ourselves back there for the form wrong absolutely obviously so now why don't we create business on the basis of selflessness that we have in selfish business everything is for me the more and make the more happy a gap in selfless business everything is for others the more and make other people happy I make myself happy why don't you do that people don't work like that I said I worked like that I created many companies more than 50 companies I never even thought about owning a single share of any of these companies they said maybe there are some crazy people like me too why didn't you give a little room for them so that they can work at least tell young people in this that there are two kinds of business one business to make money another business to change the world and human being has enormous capacity enormous creativity but all this creativity and technology is used for only one purpose making money I said if we can use this capacity that we have to change the world to solve the problem none of this problem can exist so that is the power of social business we continued to expand a lots of social businesses we created and we created one with a multinational company the norm to solve the problem of micronutrients among the children of Bangladesh we created yoghurt fortified with all the micronutrients make it very cheap so then everybody every child can afford it even the poorest child can afford it if you eat this yogurt to gradually overcome ultimately all the many additional it becomes a healthy child my truly sorry malnutrition means your physical growth is stunted you see lots of children aged 12 podesta see little boy because he has doomed or she has no physical growth amazing part of it mental growth is stunted so you spend lot of money on education but the receiving end doesn't receive it because they are stunted they cannot understand what you are talking about what a damage we make to the human being for simple reason that you can buy this for pennies the remains so this is the purpose of the community that Iran wants to make money or not remain wants to make money social business non loss non-division company to solve problems then we created many other companies like that multinationals kept coming to us during my two days here there are at least two big companies who contacted us we had a serious discussion to see how to create social business with them one company invited me adidas not now previously he said how do we create a social business is very simple like what I said you start with the create a new company and have a mission statement like what can we have a mission statement I said one mission statement you can frame nobody in the world should go without shoes as a shoe company is our responsibility to make shoes affordable even to the poorest person he was shocked to hear this he said he is a big gold I said yes but adidas is a big company why should we start with the small goal so did hurt is feeling like he got all his colleagues together talked hours and hours finally and evening he declared that we are going to take this challenge but he asked me how cheap the shoes should be in order to be affordable to the poorest person I said well it's very simple to make another one Europe said you are a very tough man but they took the challenge what two years of research running around and designing products inputs finally they came out issues we did the test marketing last year not this year we'll be doing them mass marketing so if you keep the challenge you have the technology simply you'll never thought about this so you imagine how many companies can know how many things in healthcare in environment everything so that such a and young people like you it's amazing generation your generation is so privileged never in human history ever we had any young generation as powerful as you are why are you so privileged why do you do that because of technology you know what I'm talking I see all those thing clicking it's a probably tweeting or whatever you call it but do you know that you do thousand males thousand texts per second this is pink that you have in your mind unbelievable it's limitless powering up imagine the child born today what a powerful child he would be you she was human you have unlimited power all of us a limited part but we've never had a chance to explore the path you are exploring access to information to you so simple for any question you just click it is there we didn't have that opportunity so what use you are going to make up this power that's the question you're asking each one of you has the power to change the whole world not just a corner of the world horror are you going to use that if you're not aware of this it will never be used just feel confident I can change the whole world and I want to make it happen how do we do it start to begin one suggestion start a small social business tiny little sort or imagine or design a source of business pick a problem and design a business out of it if you don't have the money to invest I'm sure there are a lot of people say hey this is a great idea I will invest because it's a tiny little company if it works if you can create a company just to create three jobs for unemployed people this holds purpose of your company to find good employment for three unemployed people if you can find that out you have kept the problem or unemployment when I say what disaster that we have right now all the crushing problems that are coming crisis after crisis I said it's a wake-up call we are still sleeping we don't want to wake up wake up call telling us this system is not working is the end of this civilization almost but we can create in your civilization in that new civilization there will be no word called unemployed I cannot even heals imagine a full able-bodied human being with all the unlimited creativity remain unemployed and utilizing waste anyway what kind of society is that it's totally unacceptable so it's our feeling that we do not know how to do this I even kid whatever joke about I said have you ever seen an animal remaining unemployed how come with all the glory of our knowledge millions of people random but in some country in Europe for the 6% of the young people unemployed in same country I'm just coming from same country there is region unemployment among the youth is as high as 70% what is shocking thing to happen is there's something wrong with this young man or a young woman no he is the same person who can change the whole world but we dismissed so we create a world it's our job now young people should not be waiting to see what the previous generation telling them to do you decide on your own and you can make it thank you very much [Applause] can you hear me back there on this microphone good professor Yunus has very kindly said that he will take questions we're going to do the moon one at a time and we only have about 25 minutes so I'm going to have to cut this brutally short unfortunately at the end and I've been told to take questions alternating between the two tears will come downstairs gentlemen professor Yunus congratulations on your degree and you are unstoppable I hope to join you soon as the PhD does what I'm doing my my little contribution with my best friend mechanic we've created social business world which is a social network like Facebook in time dedicated to the idea of social business the idea we're planting with is can we bring this down to the lowest possible level like you know that speed tweeting come can we use that energy to the grass to make social business be born so here's the question to you what does it good what it takes to have social business being born at a grass root so you mentioned unknown you mentioned in us what does it take to make it big at the grassroot level thank you we have been doing that a lot but I didn't mention this because this is something very local very small probably do not impress you I mentioned unknown even these multinational have a need for these social persons for their own sake for their own sanity they need that they can bring this technology to have makes things different and that's the challenge and if they can do that any company can do that but there's a company but individually anybody can do it that's what I've seen three jobs create the company to create three jobs that's all I just come in from a conference in Germany and one young kids just high school graduate he said I started a social business and it works very well so somebody else what is your investment he said my investment is hundred or 100 euro so everybody's shocked hundred euro you have a company said yes what I do someone makes beautiful scarves she could make just for her household what he's doing she makes it and he makes sure he sells it so he's selling so now that he's selling this scarf for one woman several women said we have a Scouts too so he is telling telling this is my business and market it not for my profit make sure they got the money so that they can sell it they started doing it for themselves in Germany so now when I was coming back he came to me he said I just got an order of 750 scarf for the company because they want to give it as a Christmas gift out of the social business so see people responding to it automatically it's a very simple idea but there's so many opportunities so that once you link from the make money making work you suddenly have a new world emerging and see how useful it can be in solving problems if you can solve a tiny new fraction of a huge problem you found the real crack ready to open completely so that is the beauty of making this tiny little companies and you can make anyone of us you don't have to go and do it just design a social business find the problem designing and designing it if you find out a good design you hit the ball it's a hit check part you now use everything before that anybody can invest in them to make it happen come to ask this I think there is a microphone that will come to you just so you can introduce yourself as well thank you hi my name is Raja Lakshmi main congratulations professor Kaman is very inspiring my question is with regards to women's empowerment which I interpret to be much much of it as a financial empowerment and much of a social empowerment and I can definitely see the financial aspect so what so I know there be a trickle-down effect to social things as well but what are the direct approaches or isn't this Grameen involved with domestic woman's apartment a lot of things for example not only give the loans she also encouraged them to form a group of five women so they're the first experience of creating an organization and they elect their own chairperson elected on secretary our profile and rotate because nobody can succeed within a year they had to change the role so to step down and somebody else offer so everybody has a chance of leadership role and the bigger group which we call a center has about 50 or 60 women they have to elect the center chief for the first time the women are asked to choose their own leader so that gives them the person who gets it she gets a leadership role to perform so gradually it opens up many things then we asked them to open a bank account to say and they save tiny money every week because every week you have to say and you do that we lend out over one and a half billion dollar income today and all this money come from deposit 56% of this deposit come from the borrower themselves from those tiny little salesmen and which is nearly a billion dollars so these poor women not only take loans have a billion that one and a half with a dollar they have their own savings of a billion nearly billion dollar that's a tremendous exchange know that I have money in the bank you may not use it but the knowing that I have the money particularly for women who doesn't own anything in the society today she's all that gives it tremendous status in circles she looks the same talks the same that the inner feeling is different she knows she is no longer a person that can be pushed out go upstairs again like you're the front here please again if you could just introduce yourself that would be nice I was just wondering the role that stable government plays in microfinance is coming from a country where there's really two running or cities or lights building business structures on top of that well each country has its own difficulties when wishes difficulties so we have to work in a neat whatever environment you are in because we cannot change the world so that I can work so we take the world as it is and start to work so that gradually that world changes the way we want it to be so we take it as it is and see how you overcome those problems microcredit easy and in all circumstances because he had believed it women together and so on as long as they need money they have the opportunity to make use of the money to earn money so to pay you back it works and then great is you grow institutionalization you may have problem because then you have separate units so that they are not becoming big just something so just try to see how under those circumstances it can work it's a relationship between human beings it's not yet that's why I said we don't have lawyers so you are not coming to framework where some rules and procedures of somebody else or is it rules and procedures that we designed for ourselves and that's what we want to do I think there's a good chance that I cannot tell you that everything would work and they're all circumstances but we bring our creativity we bring our ingenuity then that's what makes it happen good evening professor Yunus I'm a saloon dog posting my masters in economics at the NSC and I have a great respect field my question is on micro savings that is a huge need for the poor today to have a safe please they're saving so I was wondering if Tommy was doing any work on that yeah that's what I just told you about that nearly a billion dollars in savings from the poor work themselves so it's so powerful an idea that you have this money collectively it's so big when I talk to my business friends who have big companies and so on I'd tell them to look don't underestimate these poor women because they have enough money to buy off your company several times over so then that's a good thing to tell them and if the the women in the village feels very good that it can tell such things there's no scientific way of doing this young man up there Thank You professor unions pretty tiring talk rocks and Shoals I'm studying development management here so you mentioned the importance of information and I was wondering so in those countries where there are a lot of poor people at the base of the pyramid how can they actually assess the quality of the service and how how can we make the company accountable for those people we don't have the same access as we do to information thank you well I was just mentioning that so far to come in Bank is concerned it's owned by them so it's not somebody is making rules for them they sit in the board they are the one who rectifiers every single role that we have are we going to change it something is not going wrong you tell your representative course it's in the world but you elected her so this rule is no good for us chaser so they can go on the board and discuss and say okay we're changing it so that way the information flow is both ways it's not the bank telling it's not Bank coming from somewhere else is their parent this is in the board and they get the services of that and then we created other avenues for information the cell phone you know cell phone is everywhere while fans everyone we created a company called come in form is the largest mobile phone in the country and our first objective of this company was to make sure we bring the phone in the hands of the poor women of Bangladesh when Bangladesh didn't have more than half a million telephone in the whole country in 1996 we started this company in 97 today 2011 we have 65 million subscribers of telephones in the country out of a population of 100 system-level second imagine the penetration octoroon not coming from alone altogether but coming from has more than 50% market share our six operators so dense so another source we are using this cell phone to bring other services health care services banking services education whatever they so cell phone is the future almost you can do everything you want this is something to do we have high maternal mortality and we have struggling hard to bring it down one of the thing and complete continuously demanding the diagnostic tools maker ultra so no equipment make a residue do all these fancy things make it very expensive so that patients have to pay a lot they have to go to a doctor to do that what you should be doing now you should be put after so long into the mobile phone you have many icons one I cannot be artists on touch it you will become ultrasound and put plug in the probe and you'll take all the images and you just transmitted to this telephone to the desk of the expert who is sitting in the city so wherever there and then the expert picks up the phone talks to the world and tells you that your baby is okay looks fine take care come back two months later I'll talk to you again it's possible I said you can pick up the phone and you can touch the icon you find out the temperature weather of a country somewhere you don't even know where this 30 of what the city is you know this it's there the touch of the screen I said how come we can't transmit the temperature of my body the phone is just with my body I can touch any trance with the information what is my temperature running temperature why can't it take my heartbeat why can't I take my pulse it's possible simply we don't use our mind in that way you are using our mind to make money you're not using our mind to solve people's problems so these are the problems you can do this technology is right here I used to tell that technology the way it is happening someday we will have a lobbyist lamp in our hand and will touch it and digital Allah cyant will come out digital dreaming we say what can I do for your man I said today I don't have to say that because our King James is in our hands right now we touch it up it happens what is that you want to happen that's the question if you want something to happen it will happen if you don't think about what you want to happen it will never happen it's a question what you want to happen there's nothing called impossible today 20 years back what was impossible today is possible 20 years from today what we think impossible today will be a normal everyday thing everybody will be done so that distance between impossible impossible shrinking and shrinking and very soon it'll collapse yes you will be searching around what is impossible the kids are asking us the question what is impossible I can't find anything and that's the speed worth it so let's figure out what after Impossibles we have now this is our chance because we can make it possible before anybody else does because it will be possible no matter how impossible it is that's the human part you have to believe in the capacity of younger person the white shirt my friends gonna come to you thanks for giving me the opportunity professor first of all congratulations st. cloud group I'm a student from Bangladesh I we it gives me immense pleasure and honor to say this that I belong to the same city that Professor Yunus is from which is Chittagong and there there are certain criticisms about your programs your work and we all know about the professor professors already mentioned about the the political implications of your all the people in the government at the moment has done to your role in Grameen Bank and the opposition is promising to of course a lot of things when if they come in power next time but regardless of all that I as a citizen of Bangladesh want to say that we are very proud of you we are very proud to fight about the fact that you brought Nobel Peace Prize to our country for the first time that's one thing secondly yes about higher education in Bangladesh mmm as I see it all the universities Bangladesh the private ones are social business in one way or another as you mentioned if I read or understand your concept properly what do you think we should do to make the Higher Education or improve the higher education private universities if you have any comments well I'm just make a general comment letter then Bangladesh situation I think still we continue the old-fashioned education because we couldn't use a continuum of Education tradition history that we have but we have come to a big place in history when we can really make a breakthrough in education providing in a completely different way and rethinking of what are the messages that we give to the young people how do they learn how to process they are learning how to act how do they get connected with the real people at the beginning I was mentioning that I got into the warm side you must see it very clearly if you have the warm up you do the students have ones of you what they cut out get out of the university having bird's-eye view and feeling proud that I know everything and then undermine other people because I know everything I know in another way but I have never had this work alongside you to really understand the person in the problems and so so how do you integrate that this is one challenge another challenge is a kind of a message in the back you don't say too loudly or clearly probably for the back you work hard study hard get good grade get to the best university get to degree from there and find the best job I think that's not a big message for young people job is not like life is something else life is to create things job is to repeat things and how do you make that like we have been confronted with situation in Grameen Bank just happen because we encourage our young people to go to university in education law so that they can finish the education become doctors engineers and thousands of them they're always complaining for many years in the beginning saying that we have no jobs I get good education and good certificate I have no job in the beginning I was puzzled what to do then I stood up I said oh don't ever talk about jobs you are privileged young people you are children of cramming families you your mother owns a bank why are you looking for a job said always but the day you go to school you always think in your mind and you will keep this pledge every day you wake up in the morning I'm not a job seeker I'm a job Giver build yourself as a job giver and prepare yourself as a job killer money is not your problem your mother's bank has unlimited money you just just come up with ideas what you want to do it money if you anybody is going to apply for any job I will be very stern with them why I am looking for a job what happened something we don't know what to do I said again you are very lucky you have a very strong consultant in your home your mother she didn't know anything when she began she started raising chicken and then moved into raising cows and two three cows then 10 cows and this is how she made a business out of it and then sent you to school and you are telling me that you don't know anything what good is your education if you cannot do better than you're illiterate mother you're illiterate mother created her life she brought she brought whatever she knew into the world into the action and you are telling me that you don't know anything after all this education then why do we have education so what you can do you can make it 20 times bigger 50 times bigger what your mother does that's the beginning point you already have the base of your business whatever your mother did do it bigger that's what the education is for so anyway are we telling the students are we making them as job givers and job seekers together no and the premiership is built in feature of every human mind every human being but we let it dry up because we don't want to use it because you want to be job seeker always trying to see if I get the promotion with a contract position right company this is it so this is another part of the education part and the social business how do we contribute how to design so altogether we have to redesign as I was telling you that creating in your civilization these are the part of that we have to address all these things together because human history brought us to a point where life is changing very fast if you cannot get ready for it will go in the wrong direction so we don't want to go in the wrong direction we learned enough to save ourselves from them so that's important that we have to emphasize I feel that we've reached our last question which is change the upstairs once we've had this question I'm going to invite professor Yunus to take his satan in the director of the school professor Judith Reis will say a few was gentlemen in a blazer and tie up here has been wanting to ask a question for some time again if you could introduce yourself and keep it fairly short sir thank you thank you sir define me in the blue suit and tie I'm gay Mahesh I'm a law student not studying law to become a lawyer but I'm a great fan of professor Muhammad Yunus and have two short questions why is it that the political establishment in Bangladesh they are very concerned about your retirement age and B what should be the role of the government and poverty alleviation programs the second question everybody has it all it's a problem for all of us today the problem is we live leave it to the government they should solve the problem of poverty so poor politicians they keep trying to solve the problem of poverty which they have no clue how to do that so every time they come they promise you next time we are going to clean up poverty port for me I'll do that and people have to okay give them another chance they go back they can't do anything so they say promises after promises goes on nothing gets done but we citizens just can't sit around and say let me come and do it I'm busy making money I don't think this is a good explanation we have tremendous capacity to do that each one of us can do in our own way that is a problem I can contribute in solving the problem we have discussed about the microfinance we discussed about the social business somebody may have a better idea than that or similar idea isn't it all I'm saying we have the capability as a human being to remove this phenomenon called poverty from this planet and we are capable of doing that only need the structure and the concept as well and we should be creating a world where poverty will be only in the museum not in human society because it's unacceptable to anything by society you have anybody to say he or she is a poor person so that's the challenge that we have to accept it and if we take it as a challenge I'm sure we'll make it and that's why millennium Millennium summit adopted those Millennium Development Goals and number one goal is to reduce poverty by half by 2015 and many countries will be achieving them and Bangladesh is one country will achieve that goal by 2050 reduce poverty by half and many other - did we we wish to make all eight Millennium Development Goals happen and we are very close to only one item that we are falling behind is maternal mortality which you were struggling hard to make it happen so if you can reduce it by half by 2015 what is the big deal to make it zero in 2030 or somesuch year because you already make it happen see the question I'm going to halfway bomb so this but we can do it faster because we learned a lot and the technology settling structures is falling into place so we can do that it's a question of determination and commitment that we [Applause] I'm sure you realize how much everybody here actually appreciates not over your only your presence here but your work over a long period of time you've been an inspiration to many many people and you left rather a challenge and in fact I would love to be a fly on the wall when they when the head of economics reports your words to his staff but thank you for that challenge thank you very much [Applause] with a with the authority of the Board of Governors I declared the ceremony closed and I'd ask everybody to remain seated until the platform party have left thank you very much indeed [Applause] [Music]

Channel: LSE

Views: 33,745

Rating: 4.9016395 out of 5

Keywords: LSE, London, School, of, Economics, and, Political, Science, London School of Economics, University, College, Public, Lecture, Event, Seminar, Talk, Social, Business:, to, solve, society's, most, pressing, problems, Honorary, Degree, Ceremony, Professor, Muhammad, Yunus, Muhammad Yunus, enterprise, business, poverty, welfare, economy, Bangladesh, Bangladeshi, economic, social, development

Id: V2lXpKq_Jqw

Length: 68min 31sec (4111 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 28 2011