Pioneers 2.07
Muhammad Yunus
Muhammad Yunus
Recipient of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, Professor Muhammad Yunus is the founder and Managing Director of Grameen Bank which currently operates 1,781 branches providing credit to 5.6 million poor people residing in 60,815 villages in Bangladesh. He originated the concept of Grameen Bank, i.e. banking without collateral for the poorest of the poor.
Professor Muhammad Yunus studied economics in the Vanderbilt University, USA and received his Ph.D. in Economics in 1970. He taught economics in the Middle Tennessee University from 1969 to 1972. Returning to Bangladesh in 1972, he joined the University of Chittagong as Head of the Economics Department. He started the Grameen Bank Project in 1976. It was transformed into a formal bank in 1983. The Grameen Bank offers small loans for self employment for the rural poor, especially poor women.
Professor Muhammad Yunus serves in the boards of many national and international organisations. Besides Grameen Bank he has created a number of companies in Bangladesh to address diverse issues of poverty and development. Among the companies are : Grameen Phone (a mobile telephone company), Grameen Cybernet (Internet Service Provider), Grameen Communications (Rural Internet Service Provider), Grameen Software company, Grameen Information Technology Park.
The innovative approach to poverty alleviation pioneered by Professor Yunus in a small village in Bangladesh has inspired a global microcredit movement reaching out to millions of poor women from rural South Africa to inner city Chicago.
His autobiography, "Banker to the Poor: Microlending and the Battle Against World Poverty," has been translated in French, Italian, Spanish, English, Japanese, Portuguese, Dutch, Gujarati, Chinese, German, Turkish and Arabic.