Muhammad Yunus

"My greatest challenge has been to change the mindset of people...we see things the way our minds have instructed our eyes to see."

Winner of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize.

Professor Muhammad Yunus, founder of the Grameen bank, is responsible for many innovative programs benefiting the rural poor. He is the developer and founder of the concept of microcredit, the extension of small loans to entrepreneurs too poor to qualify for traditional bank loans. In 2006, Yunus and the bank were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, "for their efforts to create economic and social development from below."

Yunus himself has received several other international honors, including the ITU World Information Society Award, Ramon Magsaysay Award, the World Food Prize and the Sydney Peace Prize. He is the author of Banker to the Poor and a founding board member of Grameen Foundation.

He attended Vanderbilt University on a Fulbright Scholarship and received his Ph.D. in Economics in 1969. He taught briefly in the US before returning to Bangladesh, where he joined the Economics Department at Chittagong University.

In 1974, Dr. Yunus pioneered the idea of Gram Sarker (village government) as a form of local government based on the participation of rural people. This concept proved successful and was adopted by the Bangladeshi government in 1980. In 1978, Yunus received the President's award for Tebhaga Khamar (a system of cooperative three-share farming, which the Bangladeshi government adopted as the Packaged Input Program in 1977). Dr. Yunus is also noted for the creation of "micro-credit," which provides "micro" loans to the poor and serves as a catalyst for improving their socio-economic conditions.

The UN Secretary-General appointed Professor Yunus to the International Advisory Group for the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing from 1993 to 1995. Professor Yunus has also served on the Global Commission of Women's Health (1993-1995), the Advisory Council for Sustainable Economic Development (1993-present), and the UN Expert Group on Women and Finance. Professor Yunus has received numerous international awards for his work, including the Ramon Magsaysay Award from Manila, the Aga Khan Award for Architecture from Geneva, the Mohamed Shabdeen Award for Science from Sri Lanka, and the World Food Prize from the United States. Within Bangladesh, he has received the President's Award, the Central Bank Award, and the Independence Day Award, the nation's highest honor.

Dr. Yunus lives in Dhaka, Bangladesh, with his wife Afrozi and their daughter, Deena.