Professor Yunus Attends Rio Olympics 2016 Opening Ceremony as Official Guest
Yunus Centre Press Release (8 August 2016):
Nobel Laureate Professor Yunus was a honored guest of International Olympic Committee at the opening ceremony of the 2016 Rio Games on evening of 5 August at Maracasna stadium in Rio de Janeiro. He watched the spectacular four hour long program which included the march past of the Olympic team from Bangladesh to three billion audience who were watching the event throughout world. Professor Yunus was enjoying this breathtaking opening ceremony from the VIP gallery along with Sachin Tendulkar, and professor Yunus's friends, such as former Greek Prime Minister Papandreou, and Michelle Jean, former Governor General of Canada.
Earlier in the day he visited the Olympic Broadcasting Service, a massive temporary broadcasting facility built Olympic media centre. CEO of the Centre Yiannis Exarchos received him and gave an one hour guided tour personally acting as the tour guide to show the state of the art television and broadcasting technology installed within this structure.
From this facility of International Broadcast Centre at the Olympic Park the transmission of all the events of Olympic Games go out to 3 billion people around the world. Nine thousand people operate the service during the Olympic games. Professor Yunus was briefed on the latest developments in the technology of broadcasting. Many of the developments were designed just to meet the unique needs of the Olympic games, including the use of 8K camera filming to give vivid images of the events, virtual reality experience of sports. A new global TV channel named as Olympic Channel Services is about to be launched at the end of this month. Professor Yunus was interviewed by the Olympic Channel for broadcast on 21 August 2016. He is invited by the president of International Olympic Committee to be an advisor on creating educational content for the channel.
Later in the day Professor Yunus visited the German House, a beautiful house located right on the beach. This head quarters the German National Olympic Committee in Rio. This visit was a response to the invitation of the President of the German National Olympic Committee to explore how the NOC can get involved in social business. The President, the CEO and their team explored with Professor Yunus how sports celebrities and retired athletes can become advocates for social business and promote the goals of three zeros. Yunus Centre, German NOC and Grameen Creative Lab will jointly develop a concept paper on how to involve German sports clubs and federations to work on social business.
On August 6 he flew to Sao Paulo for activities of Yunus Social Business Brazil. This is a subsidiary of YSB Global, head quartered in Frankfurt, Germany. YSB Brazil now has 13 regional offices in 13 states of the country. YSB Brazil is in the process of creating an US $10 million social business fund and a corporate Action Tank which is a platform for Brazilian companies to get involved in social businesses. Professor Yunus addressed 250 potential social business entrepreneurs and investors and had a meeting with Brazilian university partners working on social business. Fort-eight universities of Brazil were present in the discussion to create Social Business Centres in their universities.
Professor Yunus will return to Rio on August 7 to join a dinner hosted by Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, and to watch Olympic events particularly the events competed by Bangladeshi participants.
Photo Caption 1 : Professor Yunus attended the opening of Rio Olympic games in special VIP box as honored guest of IOC president Thomas Bach. Photo: Lamiya Morshed/Yunus Centre
Photo Caption 2: Matteo Renzi, Prime minister of Italy greeting Nobel laureate Professor Yunus on sideline of the Rio Olympics. Photo: Lamiya Morshed/Yunus Centre
Photo Caption 3 : Mr Yiannis Exarchos, CEO of Olympic broadcasting Centre gave a guided tour to Professor Yunus at the international broadcast center from where the Olympics is broadcast to 3 billion people. Photo: Lamiya Morshed/Yunus Centre
Photo Caption 4: Professor Yunus met Mr Alfons HÖRMANN, Director General, National Olympic Committee (NOC), Germany and members of German national Olympic team at the German Olympic house to discuss how social business can become part of IOC activities. Photo: Lamiya Morshed/Yunus Centre
Source: Yunus Centre
Updated Date: 17th January, 2017