Dr. Muhammad Yunus: First nobel prize winner in bangladesh
Dr. Muhammad Yunus is a social entrepreneur, philanthropist and Nobel laureate. He is serving as Interim CEO from August 8, 2024. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for promoting the Grameen Bank and the Riddin and Directive Initiative.
Professor Muhammad Yunus was born on June 28, 1940. He is the founder and managing director of Grameen Bank, which pioneered microcredit. He established the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh in 1983, fueled by the belief that credit is a fundamental human right. His objective was to help poor people escape from poverty by providing loans on terms suitable to them and by teaching them a few sound financial principles so they could help themselves.
Born in 1940 in the seaport city of Chittagong, Professor Yunus studied at Dhaka University in Bangladesh, then received a Fulbright scholarship to study economics at Vanderbilt University. He received his Ph.D. in economics from Vanderbilt in 1969 and the following year became an assistant professor of economics at Middle Tennessee State University. Returning to Bangladesh, Yunus headed the economics department at Chittagong University. From 1993 to 1995, Professor Yunus was a member of the International Advisory Group for the Fourth World Conference on Women, a post to which he was appointed by the UN secretary general. He has served on the Global Commission of Women’s Health, the Advisory Council for Sustainable Economic Development and the UN Expert Group on Women and Finance.
He has won a number of other awards, including the Ramon Magsaysay Award, the World Food Prize and the Sydney Peace Prize. Within Bangladesh, he has received the President’s Award (1978), Central Bank Award (1985), and Independence Day Award (1987), the highest national award. The Bangladesh government brought out a commemorative stamp to honour his Nobel award. Prof Yunus was inducted as a member of the Legion d’Honneur by President Chirac of France. In January 2008, Houston, Texas declared January 14 as Muhammad Yunus Day. He is one of the founding members of the Global Elders, chaired by Nelson Mandela.
