Welcome Speech forProfessorYunus by Arvind Ashta, Professor of Microfinance, Burgundy School of Business

March 6,2019

Professor Yunus, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen,

We are gathered here in fulfillment of a promise made ten years ago. In 2009, the BanquePopulaire offered to finance a Chair in Microfinance at our school. The school offered the chair to me. Then, our International Relations Director and I were sent by our Dean to a conference where you were speaking, Sir, to meet you and to invite you to Dijon. It was a NAFSA conference in Los Angeles. 6000 people were in the hall. And I got a chance to invite you in public. And you said: Yes! Some day…

I met you again, a year later in Mons, Belgium where you blessed the graduating ceremony ofthe European Microfinance Masters Students. One of those students, from that graduating class, Hayyan Alia, is now a professor in our school. On that occasion, again I invited you, again you saidyes.

Finally, when they celebrated the 25 years of the fall of the Berlin Wall, a Planet Finance group took me to a conference where you were speaking. Again, I invited you publicly.Since then five years had passed.

The microfinance chair evolved from 3 researchers and two assistants to about ten people in the school and as many associates from out of the school. Our school, the Burgundy School of Business, became globally renown in this micro-world of microfinance and crowdfunding.

Well the years went past and the chair just ended, you evolved from Microfinance to Social Business for Sustainable Development, the BanquePopulaire shifted its financing from Microfinance to Governance, and I myself am searching for a new meaning to my research dabbling in relating microfinance to Fintech and to Social Entrepreneurship and even Ecological Economics.

And then one day, I got a mail from Jean-Luc Perron,Vice President, Centre Yunus, Paris. Would our school host Professor Yunus? I personally had given up hope. But it seems you had not forgotten, and Jean-Luc had completed the connection.

Let me tell you why you are important to our school and me in particular.

Our school is a for-profit enterprise that does not give dividend. Is that a social business! It has a very particular statute which only a handful of schools have in France. We adopted this statute two years ago. Some firms and some regional entities are stakeholders.

Our school’s mission statement specifically mentions “to contribute to the development of the region's economy” and “corporate social responsibility”. Both notions are central to development of social businesses.

I myself had decided to get into microfinance research only a few months before you were awarded the Nobel Prize because it answered to my background in finance and for my need to give back to a community of developing countries from which I had come. Your Nobel Prize validated my decision to make this my research area. A decision that has been beneficial to me and to my school by over 60 publications in reputed journals. Thank you sir for your pioneering work in this field. Many do not realize it but if the Microcredit Summit did not have your support, if Grameen had not been giving data voluntarily to the Microfinance Information exchange, there would have been no data for researchers like me.

In Dijon, we offer a dedicated option of excellence to microfinance. It is a 20-hour course offered every year to about 30 to 40 students. Student evaluation rates it excellent: there is over 90%, even 95% student evaluation of the course. Already in 2010, students were saying:

This subject shall be made compulsory to all so as to benefit the society as a whole. A must learn course with social objectives attached to it. (2010)

An amazing introductory course to microfinance. (2010)

One of the most interesting and fascinating modules which I had so far! (2014)

The course is based in part on my lectures, in part on problem based learning with immense student participation, and in part on visiting professionals, many of them volunteers, explaining directly to the students. I don’t think Harvard or anyplace in the world offers such a good 20-hour course on microfinance. Indeed, two years ago, the Government of India invited me to teach this course in exactly the same way to professors, researchers and microfinance professionals in India. You, Sir,have heard about the JamiaMilliaIslamia University in Delhi, and can imagine the impact of this course on that community. But, most important, the course starts with a reading of your book.

Yes, for many years, your book ‘Banker to the Poor’ was the only obligatory reading. Now, I have added one more, my own. Let me tell you that in the semester in which this course is offered, your book is the most highly demanded book. The librarians informed me that the students used to hide the books on the shelves so that only they could find it and continue reading after class. It is one of the few books that is so frequently read that the library has to rebind the books when the pages start falling out. It reminds me of India when I used to go to college and perhaps it was the same in Bangladesh. The pleasure of reading an old much-used book cannot be imagined. The Banker to the Poor is one of those few books in a private business school in France.

Till recently, the students had to review the book. Here are some excerpts that went beyond my review question:

We have to develop Yunus’ magic concept all over the world taking into account the benefit not only for poor people but also for the whole of the economy in such a crisis period (student from 2011)

With a strong vision coming from a strong person in the form of Muhammad Yunus, Grameen….(student from 2011)

The biggest learning that a business minded person can get is that business is not always about generating the best bottom line (which proves the modern economics as wrong).

Even if you earn millions you may not be happy with your work unless you see the impact it has on the people around you ….(student from 2011)

After reading “Banker to the poor”, i am inspired and moved by Dr. Yunus, not only by his creative ideas but also his passion and insistence on helping the poor get rid of poverty. ….(student from 2011)

This book describes perfectly how a vision of one man together with hard work of a lot of motivated people can change people’s lives. Moreover, this book shows that even when you face a lot of challenges, great things can happen (student from 2014)

Many times, I have thought of replacing the book with a more recent one. But no one can capture the emotions or humility or courage of that book.

Since then, you have written other books and I have read them all:

Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism (2007)

Building social business: The new kind of capitalism that serves humanity's most pressing needs (2010)

A world of three zeros: the new economics of zero poverty, zero unemployment, and zero net carbon emissions (2017).

I have seen the gradual evolution of your interests from microfinance to all social initiatives to the planet. At the same time, I have seen the evolution of the writing style and certainly the last book is a masterpiece in weaving together case studies with theories and ideology, all the while focusing on the positive. At many times, I could sense the underlying spirituality of interconnectedness of beings, big and small, rich and poor, human and other.

I just want to mention a few things to our students in the hall. Professor Yunus was firstly an outstanding student, evidenced by getting the Fulbright Scholarship.

Professor Yunus was not an ordinary economics professor who taught in the classroom: he took his students to the field and used theory to solve societal problems.

Professor Yunus got the Nobel peace prize because he tried to solve the problem of poverty and this then leads to less violence and more peace.

Professor Yunus is probably the most famous social innovator living today. He is also the most famous social entrepreneur living today. What makes him the most famous is that he created a model, tested it in one place, replicated it in others and then managed to sell this dream to thousands of others who replicated this model.

Professor Yunus is an institutional entrepreneur who changes social norms, beliefs and values on what is acceptable and what is just not acceptable any more.

What he did for microfinance for thirty years from the 1976 to 2006, he is now doing for the concept of social business from 2007 onwards (a short period of twelve years).

Behind all this success is positive energy and a self-confidence that is admirable. He doesn’t stop. He has finally come to Dijon.

Welcome, Sir.

Arvind Ashta