Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, a Bangladeshi banker/economist and champion of the poor, will deliver the commencement address at Duke University on May 16, 2010, the school announced Friday.
Yunus is considered the father of microfinance, a concept he developed as an economics professor that provides loans to entrepreneurs too poor to qualify for traditional bank loans. In 1983, he founded the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, which helped poor people escape poverty by teaching them sound financial principles so they can help themselves and by providing loans on terms suitable to them.
In 2006, he and Grameen Bank were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, "for their efforts to create economic and social development from below."
"Muhammad Yunus has shown himself to be a leader who has managed to translate visions into practical action for the benefit of millions of people, not only in Bangladesh, but also in many other countries," the Norwegian Nobel Committee said in a statement announcing the award. "Loans to poor people without any financial security had appeared to be an impossible idea."
In addition to the Nobel Peace Prize, President Barack Obama awarded Yunus the 2009 Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States' highest civilian honor.
Duke President Richard H. Brodhead said Duke is honored to have Yunus speak at next year's commencement ceremony, which is held at Wallace Wade Stadium on the Duke campus and is open to the public.
"Recognizing that entrepreneurship is a fundamental human gift, Muhammad Yunus has created a viable business model for the world's poor, using his academic training to unleash human potential around the globe," Brodhead said. "He will give our graduates an inspiring example of education's far-reaching power."
Catalina Blanco, a Duke senior from Bogata, Colombia, who was part of a group of students who advised Duke's president on the selection of the commencement speaker, said Yunus "was one of the people we were rooting for. I think that he stood out to all of us."
Added Taren Greenidge, a third-year law student from Rochester, N.Y.: "I think it's so great to have someone who's so relevant today, who can impact people." Yunus, 69, serves on the board of directors of the United Nations Foundation, a public charity created in 1998 with entrepreneur and philanthropist Ted Turner's historic $1 billion gift to support U.N. causes and activities.
Yunus is also a founding board member of Grameen America, a microfinance nonprofit organization that provides loans, savings programs, credit establishment and other financial services to entrepreneurs living below the poverty line in the United States. He is a founding board member of Grameen Foundation, which works to reduce poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, the Arab world and the Americas.
Yunus, who will receive an honorary degree during Duke's commencement ceremony, is the author of books such as "Banker to the Poor: The Autobiography of Muhammad Yunus, Founder of Grameen Bank," and "Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism."
He studied economics on a Fulbright Scholarship at Vanderbilt University, where he received a Ph.D. in economics in 1969. Yunus then taught economics at Middle Tennessee State University before returning to Bangladesh, where he headed the economics department at Chittagong University.
Yunus has served on the International Advisory Group for the Fourth World Conference on Women, the Global Commission of Women's Health, the Advisory Council for Sustainable Economic Development. and the U.N. Expert Group on Women and Finance.