Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus to young entrepreneurs: Listen to your heart
Prof. Yunus urged young entrepreneurs to follow their hearts and that resources were secondary if passion was present.
Bengaluru: In an attempt to extend support to social business ventures amongst students, NS Raghavan Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning (NSRCEL) at IIM Bangalore hosted a talk called ‘Building Bridges – Social and Capital’ in the city on Wednesday by Nobel Laureate Prof. Muhammad Yunus, a social entrepreneur, economist, and civil society leader who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for founding the Grameen Bank, which is considered to be one of the pioneering models in the field of micro-credit and microfinance.
Prof. Yunus urged young entrepreneurs to follow their hearts and that resources were secondary if passion was present. “I didn’t plan for this to happen. Everything that I have done up until now has been circumstances that have pushed me in this direction. It began with the famines in Bangaldesh in 1974 and I was in the States teaching economics. I realized that it was one thing to read in class and another to live it on the ground. The elegant theories and the realities did not match,” said the 76 year old, dressed in a purple kurta, his face nostalgic. “I wanted to apply what I had learnt in my country and I took it one step at a time, with patience.” He added, “Resources are secondary. First we must ask ourselves, if we have it in our hearts.”
Speaking on his principal and the success behind the Grameen Bank, he said, “I realized that the banks are for the rich in the city, and worse, most of the policies were against women. I had always believed that though they were illiterate they were smart, they knew exactly what to do. It was only a matter of peeling off the history that told them they couldn’t. Our organization started with an equal amount of opportunities for both genders of entrepreneurs. It took us six long years to persuade them, but once they did, they snowballed.”
He also said, “There are three zeroes that drive me forward. Zero poverty, zero unemployment to a point that the word is obsolete and zero carbon emissions,” he said.