MIT's South Asian Commencement Speaker
Bangladeshi to become Bangladeshi to become MIT’s first South Asian commencement speaker Muhammad Yunus, microcredit pioneer who won 2006 Nobel Prize By JULIE MASISMuhammad Yunus will give MIT’s commencement speech this year.
Issue Date: January 16-31, 2008CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — A Nobel Peace Prize laureate from Bangladesh has been chosen as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s commencement speaker this year, marking the first time that a South Asian will be a commencement speaker at the Institute, according to MIT spokeswoman Patti Richards.
Microcredit pioneer Muhammad Yunus, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for providing credit to 7.3 million poor villagers in Bangladesh without asking for collateral, will deliver the commencement address at MIT on June 6.MIT’s first South Asian commencement speaker "Like so many members of the MIT community itself, Dr. Yunus is a practical visionary,†MIT President Susan Hockfield said in a press release about the 2008 commencement. “Our graduates will be inspired to hear how social entrepreneurship and technical expertise can, together, change the world. I can think of no better choice for our 2008 MIT Commencement speaker."
Yunus will be the first Nobel Peace Prize winner to deliver a commencement address at MIT since 1982, when the Institute began having commencement speakers at every year’s graduation ceremony.
Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and the former Secretary General of the United Nations Kofi Annan did deliver commencement speeches at MIT in 1996 and 1997, but this was before they won Nobel Peace prizes.
Yunus received a Ph.D. in economics from Vanderbilt University in 1970 and taught at Middle Tennessee University from 1969 to 1972. After returning to Bangladesh, he joined the University of Chittagong as head of the Economics Department, according to the MIT press office. Yunus has also won dozens of international awards, including the Indira Gandhi Peace Prize, the press release said.
Other MIT commencement speakers included Bill Clinton, former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, former president of the World Bank James Wolfensohn, and the former presidents of Mexico and Colombia, Carlos Salinas de Gortari and Virgilio Barco.
Only seven students from Bangladesh currently attend MIT, according to the Institute’s International Student Office.
Source: [indianewengland.com]
