November 15, 2012

Muhammad Yunus: Nobel Peace Prize Recipient

Fulbright scholar Muhammad Yunus is a Bangladeshi banker, economist, and Nobel Peace Prize recipient. Yunus is credited for developing the concepts of microcredit and microfinance-- loans given to entrepreneurs too poor to qualify for traditional bank loans.

Yunus was offered a Fulbright scholarship in 1965 to study in the United States. He obtained his PhD in economics from Vanderbilt University in the United States through the graduate program in Economic Development (GPED) in 1971.

In 2006 Yunus and his colleague received the Nobel Peace Prize for “efforts through microcredit to create economic and social development from below.” That same year, he was named top 12 business leaders in Time Magazine’s list of “60 years of Asian Heroes.”