This UCSD TV program is presented by University
of California Television. Like what you learn, visit our website or follow us on Facebook and Twitter to keep
up with the latest programs. [MUSIC] [APPLAUSE] So we are honored today to have Professor Muhammad Yunus
here as our keynote speaker. Please give a big hand. [APPLAUSE] He is known
worldwide for pioneering the concept of microcredit
and establishing the Grameen Bank to help impoverished people start
their own businesses. His achievements in
innovative thinking in innovative banking led to the global microfinance movement, which has helped millions
of people around the world. In 2006, the Nobel Peace
Prize was awarded jointly to Professor Muhammad Yunus
and the Grameen Bank for their efforts to create economic and social
development from below. He has devoted his whole
life to empowering people, especially people without means, by providing them
with opportunities. So when we invited
Professor Muhammad Yunus to be our keynote speaker, we knew that his personal story and his achievements
would inspire you all. He has shown that
one idea, one learn, one act of kindness, can actually transform a life, can transform a
community and a society. His commitment to social
mobility and human rights aligns with UC San Diego's
mission of service and our tradition of being
ranked six years in a row as the number one university in the nation by Washington
Monthly for our contributions, for your contributions
to public good. All of this makes
Professor Muhammad Yunus the ideal speaker for UC San Diego's first all campus
commencement in 16 years. It also makes him
the ideal person to receive the UC
San Diego medal. It is the highest honor
given by the University in recognition of significant
accomplishments in life. It has been awarded only 11 times since it was
first awarded in 1987. So Professor Muhammad Yunus, before you impart
your words of wisdom, it is my honor to present you with the
UC San Diego medal. Please join me. [APPLAUSE] [LAUGHTER] Thank you for the honor
that you gave me right now and also for inviting me for this thrilling occasion to meet all these young people here. Congratulations to all the
UC San Diego graduates, and also congratulations
to the parents and the friends who are attending this memorable
occasion this morning. I came here all the
way from Bangladesh, so I have to give you the greetings from the
other side of the planet. So I come almost
halfway coming here, and it's worth it. [APPLAUSE] You are graduating from UC San Diego. This is a special privilege. You remember how
many young people in the world don't have the
chance to go to school. How many of them can't
make it to college, and those who get to college
never make it to finish it. You're privileged, not
only you went to college, you went to UC San Diego, one of the most
dominant universities, top universities in the world, you just heard from
the Chancellor. So this privilege that you have, you have to remember and
you have to ask yourself, what use you're
going to make of it. That's the important thing. Preparing for life is one part and using that
preparation is another part. So that's the question I'll be raising with you
and probably you'll be raising with yourself
beginning today to making sure you make
good use of it. My journey began in the campus of another University back in Bangladesh, in
Chittagong University. Bangladesh is a full of
problems as you can imagine, and when I went back after
finishing my PhD here, it was extreme problems
in the country. I felt that I'm a lucky person, that I'm from Bangladesh, I was born in Bangladesh, it has so many problems. If you lift a finger, you can touch hundreds of
problems right around you, and that's exciting
for a young person, to look at those problems and
see what I can do about it. There are so many of them, I can do something about it. I wonder if I was born in a country where
there is no problem, what would happen to me? Every time I think about it, I feel I'll be bored to death. I wouldn't know what to do with myself. There is no problem. So this is how I
reacted to it and I wouldn't wait for any
pre-packaged solutions, I always tried to
do in my own way. I look at the problem, I try to figure out the
solution on my own, in my own way, I didn't wait
for anybody else to help me. When I saw the problem in the village about
the loan sharking , it's a age-old problem
everywhere in the region, everywhere in the world, but nobody seemed to
do anything about it, and I see face to face in a village next door to
the university campus. Suddenly occurred to me, I can do something about it, why don't I lend money myself? If I lend money, people don't
have to go to loan sharks, then the problem is solved.
What's the big deal? So I started lending money
out of my own pocket. It's a very tiny amount
of money needed, and I saw how eagerly
they were coming to me to borrow that money so that they don't have
to go to loan shark. That was the beginning
of something which I never dreamt
of will happen. Creating something
called microcredit and started lending
money to expand it, created a bank out of it. It started in 1976. We converted it into
a formal bank in 1983 and it became
a nationwide bank. The thing that we do became
known as microcredit, microfinance, and every other country wanted to imitate that, follow that. Today in Bangladesh,
the Grameen Bank, the bank that I created, has over eight-and-a-half
million borrowers, mostly women, 97% of them are women, destitute women who
join Grameen Bank. [APPLAUSE] [APPLAUSE] Not only they borrow
money from Grameen Bank, they own the bank itself. They sit in the
Board of the bank. They decide the
policies of the bank. So it's a very strange
bank in that way. It's a bank owned by poor women. It's a bank which is run by
poor women as policymakers. Let me take it off. [LAUGHTER]
It's trying to blow away. It's a bank which at the service of the
poor women everywhere. The basic principle
that we put right away, people should not come to bank, banks should go to people. Still, wherever the
microcredit programs are done, it's the
same principle. They don't have to
come to the program, the people go and serve
them at their doorstep. So all these
eight-and-a-half million borrowers in all the
villages of Bangladesh, which is 80,000
villages in Bangladesh, we meet them every week, serve them at their doorstep. People think lending tiny, little money is what is
microcredit. That's not true. The whole microcredit is challenging the existing
banking system. We are almost opposite of
the conventional banking. People tell me,
how did you decide the rules and
policies of the bank? How do you design
all those things, all the intricate details? I say it is very simple, whenever we needed a
policy and needed rule, we just look at the
conventional bank, how they do it, then we do the other way,
we do the opposite. [LAUGHTER] They go to the
rich, we go to the poor. They go to men, we go to women. [APPLAUSE] They go
to the city center, we go to remote villages. Even today, after 40
years of our work, still there's not a single
branch of Grameen Bank, Grameen Bank has 2,600 branches in the
country of Bangladesh, not a single branch is
located in any city, any town, any township
in the country. So all in the village.
We reversed that. Conventional banks
ask for collateral, we dismissed that thing. We said, this wall which separates poor people
from the banking system, we pulled down that wall. We said no collateral. We just do business on
the basis of trust. Since there is no collateral, there's no legal document between the lender
and the borrower. Since there is no legal document, there's no lawyer in our bank. The only bank in the world,
which is lawyer free. [APPLAUSE] You can walk in
anytime and ask for a loan, provided you are a poor person. Only thing you have
to substantiate very satisfactorily that
you are extremely poor. Again, this is the reverse
of the banking system. In the banking system, you have to explain how rich you are and then they give you money. Their rule is, the more you have, the more you can get. So we reversed the
entire banking system. Today, almost half
the population of the entire world is deprived
from the banking services. We wanted to fill that since it's not
impossible to do that. The whole thing began because I tried to do something in a way I thought it will be a solution for the people to stay away
from the loan sharks. Now that became a challenge
to the entire banking system, because most of the
problem we created in the world is because
of the banking system. Take the case of
wealth concentration. All the wealth of the world
is concentrated in few hands. Ninety nine percent
of the wealth of the world is owned by one
percent of the population. If you reverse it, 99 percent of the population of the world own only one percent of the wealth of the world. That's not a good world. That's the challenge to you. How do you reverse it? That's what you have to think. Because this is not sustainable, each day is becoming worse. So if you keep on
doing exactly the way we do it, tomorrow, there'll be 99.5 percent of the world owned by less than one percent of the
population of the world, and it will get worse
day after tomorrow. That's the challenge
we have to take and make it the other way. We continue to look
for those solutions. We look at the problems that the poor people face,
money problems, health problems,
education problems, sanitation problems, you name it. Every time I see a problem in
the village that I work in, I try to address that problem
by creating a business. I created a business
after business because there are so many problems, so I keep on creating businesses
to solve those problem. People say, "Why
are you doing that? You must be making a lot of money by doing this
business." I said, "No. I don't make any money
out of these businesses." "Then why do you run businesses?" Then my answer is, "I enjoy it." So they can't figure out, how can one run business without making money for himself
and he says he enjoys it? I said, "Is there any law in the country that if you decide not to take
profit from the company, you'll be punished for that?" I said, "There is no law. So I'm just taking
advantage of it. I don't take the profit
out of the company. The entire company is devoted
to solving problems." Then I realized, again, I'm challenging something else, the whole concept
of business itself. There's only one concept of
business in the whole world. Business to make
money, personal money. I said, "No, I don't want
to make myself money, I want to solve problems." It started calling these kinds of businesses as social businesses, and defined it by saying it's a non-dividend company
to solve human problems, and they continue to
create those things. Gradually, it became
very noticeable. Some big companies wanted
to do business with us. We agreed to do that. Among the many things that I created as a social business, I'll just give one example
out of many in Bangladesh. Bangladesh doesn't have
much of electricity. Villages don't have electricity, they have just kerosene lamps, and 22 years back, I thought, "Why don't we bring solar energy in Bangladesh?" I have no idea
about solar energy, all I read in the
newspaper, that's all. So I talked to people who
knows about solar energy. It doesn't fit good in
Bangladesh, it's good for Europe, it's good for North America, but not for Bangladesh,
and I said, "Why not?" So I figured that out. I said, "I can make it happen." I created a business, created a company called Grameen Shakti or Grameen Energy, and it started selling solar
home system in the villages. In the beginning, it was
extremely difficult to sell four or five solar
home system per month, but we never give it
up, we continued. Twenty years later, we were selling thousands solar
home system per day. It became a huge business, [APPLAUSE] a social business. Today, we have more than
two million households in Bangladesh with solar energy. It became so popular to our company that
other people came in. NGOs came in, companies came in, to sell solar home system. In total today, more than
four million homes in Bangladesh are served
by solar energy, just out of nowhere. So this became largest off-grid solar system
in the whole world. [APPLAUSE] This is what it come. So it's an idea, you don't
have to know everything. I didn't know anything
about banking, and people tell me, "What is the best thing that happened that you could create Grameen Bank?" I said, "Best thing
that happened to me, I never took a
course in banking." [LAUGHTER] I didn't have to
learn anything about it. Since I didn't know anything, I could do anything I want. Sometimes not knowing the
details is a blessing. You can figure it out yourself. When you figure it out, it will be different than
what is in the book. So don't give up on something
that you don't know. Always take advantage of it, make sure it happens. I mentioned lots
of big businesses are doing business with us. They are interested
in social business. I'll just give one example. We have done many like
with Danone, with Veolia, with BSF, McCain of Canada. One from the US, we
do the business, joint venture with
Intel Corporation. What we have done, we are very worried about the maternal death in Bangladesh. Out of Intel Corporation
collaborations, we design a part of bangles. The bangle, which will
give you two things. One, gives you the
signals or alarm when the air quality in the house that you're working
goes above a certain level. Because fume hurts the
pregnant women and their baby. So we wanted to
check because one of the major cause of death in Bangladesh is the air
quality inside the kitchen, so we want to address that. This bangle, this beautiful piece of ornament,
if you look at it, nobody will suspect
that you are wearing very high-tech
ornament in your hand. That gives you alarm
bell as soon as the quality of the air goes
above a certain level, and it gives you a voice message, you get out of the house, open all the windows and
doors until you have a better air quality
and you comeback. Then also it gives
voice messages, this is the fifth month
of your pregnancy, these are the symptoms
that you will feel. If you feel that way, it's okay. This is normal, don't
worry about it. If you have symptoms like this, press this button, we'll
get in touch with you. This is a communication. This is giving advice
to young women. We are trying to make more
and more into that bangle, so that nobody has to
die at childbirth. It's a common thing
all over the world. The women die at childbirth, because they don't know
this was a risky pregnancy. We are trying to identify
the risky pregnancies. So we continue to do that. One of the major
problems that we face, the children of Grameen families, their parents are illiterate. We wanted to make sure all
the children go to school. So it became part of Grameen Bank's program to encourage their parents
to send the children to school and we achieved 100 percent enrollment by the children of Grameen families. Then they come to college. [APPLAUSE] We gave them education loans so that they can
go to the college, so they don't have to
worry about money. Many went to higher education, went to get their
master's degree, get their PhD, Grameen
Bank provided the support. Then it created a problem. Thousands and thousands of
young people coming out of the colleges and
universities with degrees, no jobs. They keep complaining. Why did we have education?
There is no job. In the beginning, I didn't
know how to respond to that, then I figured out what to say. Then I challenged them. I said, "Who asked
you to have a job?" They couldn't answer
that question. Did your book tell you that
you have to have a job? Did your teacher tell
you to have a job? I tell them, "Always remember, job is a wrong idea. Don't ever look for a job, always tell yourself
that I'm a job creator, I'm not a job seeker, I'm a job creator." So be a job creator. [APPLAUSE] This is
a fundamental thing that remained with me. I believe that all human beings are born as entrepreneurs. We are told, "Go the
wrong direction. Look for jobs." I said human beings are packed with
unlimited creative capacity. If you take a job,
most of the cases, that's the end of
your creativity. Even if you are allowed some part of your creativity
to be used in your job, mostly in selling some
insignificant product, insignificant things, that's about the
creativity you can use, otherwise, it's a
repetitive process. A human being was full of energy, full of creative capacity. Taking a job, sacrificing the totality of this creativity, and rest of the life staying in a little
corner of creative life. I said, don't ever dream of that, be a creative person,
become an entrepreneur. In order to make it happen, what we did was to create
a social business fund and ask every young person
come with a business idea. Once you come up with
a business idea, we invest in your business. We become your partner. We invest all the money that you need and it's a joint
venture between you and us, make it successful, return
the money we gave you. We are a social business. We are not interested
in your profit. We are a problem-solving
business, so we solve your problem. You, we put you in the orbit. You go wherever you want
to go. They love it. Initially we started
with hundreds, now we have thousands of them
coming with business ideas. Hopefully, they'll be
multiple sub thousands very soon and every month beyond that everybody turns themselves
into entrepreneurs. Even they were arguing that, well, some of us may
not be entrepreneurs. I said, look, that's not true. Look at your mother. Your mother is a Grameen Bank borrower. She started with
the tiny loan, $30, $50 and she turned herself
into an entrepreneur. If millions of these women, illiterate women can
become an entrepreneur. What good is your education? If you're looking for
jobs and then sit idle, say I'm unemployed,
no human being should remain unemployed.
So one of the thing. [APPLAUSE] Unemployment is a
totally artificial concept created by our wrong thinking, when we came to this planet, we're not sitting around in the caves saying that
we are unemployed. We're not sending
job application from cave number five
to cave number 10. Do you have a job? We are
natural entrepreneurs. We are go-getters,
we're problem solvers. Our education system
made us forget that, made us into tiny
little job seekers. Unless we come out of this, discover ourself that's a chance you've got discover yourself. Be somebody that you want to be. Find out who you are, what you want to do, what's
the purpose of your life? Without defining your purpose of life, everything
becomes immaterial. It doesn't have any direction. So what I do, I put my purpose of life or my destination
of life in three zeros. Zero, number one, zero
poverty in the world. This is what I work for everyday so that we
can create a world. [APPLAUSE] We can create a world where there's not a single person anywhere in the world who
will remain a poor person. Then I say we create
poverty museums so that next generation will go
to the poverty museums to find out what poverty
used to be like. That's a goal, it's
a doable goal. There's nothing wrong
with a human being. Only the system put us
in the wrong direction. [APPLAUSE] So we have to undo that system which pushes us into
the wrong direction. We have to fix the
financial system, we have to fix the
education system so that we discover
ourselves. Our worth. We unleash our energy, unleash our creative capacity, rather than become jobseekers. The education system should not end with the job application. The educational
system would end with the gain ideas about
creating a new world. Zero number two, for me, zero unemployment in the world. Again, I said there
is no reason why anybody anywhere in the
world should be unemployed. Why anybody in the world
should be on welfare. Why anybody in the world
should just be homeless. There's no reason whatsoever, the same human quality exist
in every single human being. Third, zero is zero
net carbon emission. [APPLAUSE] We have to
do it, we can do it. Finally, the non-believers are coming to become believers. We had a signed an
agreement in Paris and we made sure we make it happen very fast. It can be done. When we put all this together,
three zeros implemented. All the zeros are accomplished. We lay down the foundation
of another world. We create new
civilization for us. The old civilization
that we are going through is not something that takes us out of the
problems that we've got because our
thinking is wrong, our formulations are wrong. So we have to reformulate. We have to create a
new civilization, which is coming out of
the civilization which is based on personal selfishness. The civilization based on greed. We have to get out
of that selfishness and get out of that greed and create a civilization
based on human values. That's the challenge
that you have and we can make it together. That's the challenge, we take it and that's what is worthwhile going to UC San Diego
and make it happen. Thank you very much.
[APPLAUSE] Thank you. [APPLAUSE]
