Professor Muhammad Yunus on the cover page of Newsweek as one of the world's Superclass of influential thinkers and personalities of our day.

The Bangladeshi Nobel laureate wins yet another award - this time for contributions to technology. He talks to Fortune about where tech might take the poor.

By David Kirkpatrick

President Nicolas Sarkozy of France received Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus at Elysee Palace in Paris yesterday for a special meeting to discuss microcredit and poverty alleviation strategies for the developing world.

What if you could harness the power of the free market to solve the problems of poverty, hunger, and inequality? To some, it sounds impossible. But Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus is doing exactly that. As founder of Grameen Bank, Yunus pioneered microcredit, the innovative banking program that provides poor people––mainly women––with small loans they use to launch businesses and lift their families out of poverty.

Where you can obtain copy of the book

Reviews on Creating a World Without Poverty

Honorary Doctor of Law degree from University of British Columbia

March 14, 2008

Professor Muhammad Yunus received an honorary Doctor of Law degree in a ceremony at the University of British Columbia when he came to inaugurate the Michael Smith Nobel Lecture. Over 3000 people attended the numerous events in the day long program. The degree ceremony started with Bangladesh and Canada's national anthems, folk songs and traditional dances. Flags were also hoisted to mark the occasion.

Bangladeshi banker to the poor turns the tables on the West 

Vancouver Sun
March 15, 2008   by Don Cayo

It's a shop-worn cliché at best -- the white man trekking off to distant corners of the world to enlighten or enrich. The rich world's better aid and development agencies well know the best help is often to be found far from head office, and the best ideas are apt to come from staff who are plugged into the places and the cultures where they work.

But who better to turn such a dated view completely on its ear than Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel-prize-winning economist. 

Small Loans, Significant Impact

After Success in Poor Nations, Grameen Bank Tries New York

NEW YORK -- "Señoras!" calls the banker, summoning her borrowers to attention at their first loan-repayment meeting.

The small-business borrowers -- day-care providers, clothing sellers, jewelry makers -- crowd into the living room where their children are napping, eating cereal and watching TV.

Khaleej Times:  Yunus urges Bangladeshi workers to abide by rules and regulations in force in Saudi
By Habib Shaikh, Date: 28 February 2008

JEDDAH — The situation of foreigners living and working in any country other than their own is always a tough one and gets touchy depending on the situation, especially when unemployment in the host country increases and crime rate rises, not necessarily because of joblessness.

'Nobel rock star' gets standing ovations at Concordia today
Amy Dalrymple, The Forum Published Saturday, March 08, 2008

MOORHEAD - Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus received three standing ovations this morning from a sold-out crowd at Concordia College.

Yunus, who won the Nobel Peace Price in 2006 for founding the Grameen Bank, delivered the keynote address for the 20th annual Nobel Peace Prize Forum.

“Professor Yunus is a Nobel rock star,” Concordia President Pam Jolicoeur said in her introduction.

Professor Yunus visited Benin on 20 February on invitation of HE Dr Boni Yayi, President of Benin. The government of Benin is launching microfinance for the poor as a national strategy and had invited Professor Yunus to visit this West African nation and share his experiences. Professor Yunus delivered a special lecture at the Palace in the presence of the President, all cabinet ministers and other top policy makers of the country. He also visited special poverty alleviation project which included a grand and colorful meeting with 5000 micro credit borrowers. At the end of his visit, Professor Yunus was decorated in the "Order of Benin" by the Grand Chancellor of Decoration in a ceremony at the Presidential Palace in Cotonou on 20th February 2008.

[Photograph: Professor Muhammad Yunus with President of Benin, Dr Boni Yayi.  The President ceremonially robed  Professor Yunus in national dress at the Presidential Palace on 20 February 2008]

Financial Express Mumbay
Feb 28, 2008     By RAJIV TIKO

When the Grameen Bank and French food major Danone set up Grameen-Danone Foods in early 2006 in Bangladesh, it was not a usual joint venture. Though the initial funding of $1.1 million was to be shared equally by Danone and four Grameen Companies, the venture was designed as a social business enterprise to reduce poverty by offering affordable and healthy nutrition to the poor. The venture provided for payment of 1% token dividend to investors. The Grameen Bank founder, Muhammad Yunus, has quoted the example in his latest book to illustrate his vision of tapping into businesses to solve the problem of worldwide poverty. Since he set up the Grameen Bank way back in 1983, his idea of microcredit has grown into the concept of social business. The accidental banker has unveiled it in detail in his just released book, Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism. The new way of doing business has become imperative because governments, multilateral institutions and nonprofits have failed the poor,he says.

BusinessWeek

When the Bottom Line Is Ending Poverty -Creating a World Without Poverty:

Social Business and the Future of Capitalism By Muhammad Yunus

Muhammad Yunus is a humble man who would resist being compared to Mahatma Gandhi. But the two have much in common as campaigners for social progress. While Gandhi's goal was the end of colonialism, Yunus' is just as grand: He means to reform capitalism to make it a tool for ending poverty. Think of him as Gandhi with a BlackBerry (RIMM).
Yunus won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for his work as founder and managing director of Grameen Bank, the pioneering microcredit organization in Bangladesh. He launched Grameen 31 years ago to help poor people start businesses. Since then the microcredit movement has gone global, with copycat organizations springing up in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

Business Visionaries
February 27, 2008  by David A. Andelman

Muhammad Yunus won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 along with his Grameen Bank for pioneering the concept of micro-finance in his native Bangladesh--a financial model that has now spread across much of the Third World and intrigued large segments of the business communities of the developed world as well.
In this interview with Forbes.com Executive Editor David A. Andelman, he talks about his model, his dream and his new book-- Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism, Public Affairs 2007, 261 pages, $26.

Wall Street Journal
March 1, 2008     By EMILY PARKER

In a Jackson Heights shop for colorful saris and glittering bracelets, several women have gathered to meet with their banker. They laugh and chat in Bengali. Sultana, a 39-year-old woman wearing a headscarf, hands him $128 in cash. She is making her first repayment of the $3,000, six-month loan she'll use to help with her husband's candy store.
Welcome to Grameen America, Muhammad Yunus's brand-new microfinance venture. Mr. Yunus, along with his Bangladesh-originated Grameen Bank, won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for battling poverty by lending out small sums of money to the poor. The loans are mainly for income-generating activities -- from making baskets to raising chickens. Since its establishment in 1983, Grameen has given out billions of dollars in loans, helping to pull families out of poverty and inspiring similar operations all over the world.

Yunus trashes reports of crimes by Bangladeshis in Saudi Arabia 

Daily Star 27 February 2008

Nobel laureate Prof Muhammad Yunus, now on a visit to Saudi Arabia, has brushed aside allegations in Saudi media that a large number of Bangladeshis are breaking the law in the kingdom.

Any people can turn to crimes anywhere and so it is not fair to single out a certain nationality, he said during a reception hosted by Consulate General of Bangladesh at Al-Salam Holiday Inn in Jeddah Sunday evening, daily Saudi Gazette reported yesterday.

Dawn

February 25, 2008   By SULTAN AHMAD

World food prices have been rising for long. They had more than doubled within the last two years and within a year the price index of the Economist of London has registered a rise of 54.1 per cent. The process continues to the glee of those who are growing food crops.

Spurred by such developments, farmers in Pakistan are calling for support prices at the world level. If that demand had been met, wheat would have cost more than Rs40 a kilo.