Yunus Joins celebration of 200th year of Presidency University in Kolkata.
Yunus Centre Press Release (10 January, 2017):
Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus addressed the Presidency University Global Education Summit on the occasion of its Bicentennial celebration on 10 January. Later he was received by the Governor of Bengal at Rajbhaban and joined him in a dinner. He was accompanied by Professor Anuradha Lohia, the Vice-Chancellor of Presidency University.
Presidency University was born out of Presidency College which initially started as an initiative of a small group of educational activists as Hindu College two hundred years back in 1817. Hindu College was the first institution of western higher learning in British India. In 2010 Presidency College was upgraded into a university.
Professor Yunus spoke in Derozio Auditorium of the university before a packed audience .
Professor Yunus was invited to give a public lecture on 'Redesigning Economics to redesign the world' as a part of its celebrations of 200th anneversary. It was advertised in all major news papers of Kolkata.
Professor Yunus based his speech on his own experience with Grameen Bank and various social businesses that he created. He said his experience of the 1974 famine in Bangladesh made him realize that conventional economics was not of use to real people's life. For example loan sharks were ruining the life of the poor villagers, but conventional banking was of no help to them. That led him to conceptualise and operationalise Grameen Bank to give the poor access to credit .
He told the audience that whenever he wanted to address a social problem, he created a social business, which needed complete redesigning of conventional business, the basic goal of which is profit maximization. On the other hand Social Business is designed for solving a social problem, and the investor does not take any dividend from it .
Professor Yunus emphasized that the world is building up a very serious problem through continuous accumulation of wealth in the hands of a fewer and fewer people. This trend will soon lead the world economy to a crush, he argued. One solution is to unleash the entrepreneurial potential which every human being have, to help them turn themselves into job creators rather than to stay as Job seekers. In this context he described how his organisations are creating thousands of new young entrepreneurs from mong Grameen families. This is done by means of social business funds created to provide financial investments to new entrepreneurs. Similarly, in many other countries of the world, different social problems are being solved through social businesses.
A new world is being created gradually by social businesses in place of businesses driven by greed. And in this new world soon the three zeros will be achieved -- zero poverty, zero unemployment, zero carbon emission.
Prof. Yunus then answered questions from the audience. Professor Anuradha Lohia , the Vice Chancellor of Presidency University presided, and conducted the question -answer session.
Photo Caption 1: Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus addressing the Presidency University Global Education Summit on the occasion of its Bicentennial celebration on 10 January, 2017 in Kolkata, India.
Source: Yunus Centre
Updated Date: 22nd January, 2017