WELCOMING SPEECH BY YBHG. PROFESSOR DATUK DR. ASMA ISMAIL, FASc., VICE-CHANCELLOR, UNIVERSITI SAINS MALAYSIA

NOBEL LAUREATE TALK by PROFESSOR MUHAMMAD YUNUS

Title: “A WORLD OF THREE ZEROS: ZERO POVERTY, ZERO UNEMPLOYMENT, ZERO CARBON EMISSION - The Role of Academic, Corporate and Public.”

Date: 11 August 2018 (Saturday), Time: 3.00 p.m. – 5.00 p.m., Venue: Dewan Budaya, Universiti Sains Malaysia

Bismillahirahmanirahim Assalamualaikum wrt, Salam Sejahtera and A Very Good Afternoon.

Salutation

The Honourable Professor Muhammad Yunus, Nobel Laureate and our distinguished speaker for this afternoon

YBhg. Dato' Ar. Yew Tung Seang, Mayor of Penang Island

YBrs. Professor Dr. Azlan Amran, Dean, Graduate School of Business, Universiti Sains Malaysia

YBhg. Dato' Sukor Kasim, Microcredit expert and one of the pioneers of the USM Ikhtiar Project in 1986 and wife Datin Sharifah Munirah

YBhg. Dato’ Yew Tian Tek, or better known as Dato’ T.T. Yew, Corporate Advisor of BCM Electronics Corporations, and wife Datin Vivian Law

Principal Officers of the University, Representatives of the Malaysian Social Business Network, All the Generous Sponsors, Distinguished Guests, Members of the Media, Ladies and Gentlemen.

It gives me great pleasure to welcome the Nobel Peace Prize winner, Professor Muhammad Yunus to our programme today. We are deeply honoured by his presence, finding time amidst his many commitments, to deliver and share his knowledge and expertise with the academic, corporate leaders, students, and the public.

Professor Yunus, I believe this is the second time you are addressing a large audience in USM; the first time was when you delivered your acceptance speech as our honorary graduand during the University’s 36th Convocation ceremony, back in August 2007. In this room, we also have your friends and students from yesteryears while you were in the Centre for Policy Research (CPR) now known as CenPRIS. So to our friend and alumni, Professor Muhammad Yunus –Welcome back to USM and to Penang!

I would also like to take this opportunity to specially thank the Dean of Graduate School of Business, Professor Dr. Azlan Amran and his team for putting in a tremendous effort in organizing this Nobel Laureate Talk, together with the support from the other departments of the University.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Professor Yunus is the founder of Grameen Bank and microcredit, an economic movement that has helped to lift millions of families around the world out of poverty by putting their trust in women who are the recipients of the loans. Among many other awards, Professor Yunus and Grameen Bank have jointly received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006, the recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 2013.

Looking back, Professor Yunus began to touch base with the University in 1986 in particularly during the initiation of the ‘Ikhtiar’ Project, which is a research project under the purview of USM Centre for Policy Research, passionately led by Professor David S. Gibbons and Professor Dato' Sukor Kasim, in the fight against poverty. The programme, at that time, was heavily carried out in Selangor that offered microcredit loan schemes to the poor and marginalized to help improve their livelihoods. The project was a huge success within a short period of time, and many lives have been touched.

Both Professor David S. Gibbons and Professor Dato’ Sukor Kasim were instrumental on the set up of microcredit from USM to the society of Malaysia in helping the poor in particular at the states with hardcore poor. USM at that time, was under the leadership of Tan Sri Musa Mohammad who saw the importance of such a project and gave clearance to the both of them to learn from Professor Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank as to how their microcredit programme was done in Bangladesh.

USM acknowledged the contribution of Professor Muhammad Yunus, who acted as the steering committee for this project at that time, and relentlessly spent time with the team from USM at the Centre for Policy Research (today known as Centre for Policy Research and International Studies or CenPRIS) are familiar grounds to him and the rural folks of Malaysia. The combined passion from him and USM, in particular the two research investigators, was the secret recipe of success.

Due to the success of the ‘Ikhtiar’ Project, the Government of Malaysia has decided to level it up giving birth to Amanah Ikhtiar Malaysia (AIM) in September 1987, modeled after the ‘Ikhtiar’ Project. I was made to understand that in the initial stage of the project, there were 448 borrowers and this has now impacted more than 300,000 lives as per this year. This is truly a remarkable impact from what that started as a small trial project to change the life of the poor. Later, USM also played an important role to the set-up of TEKUN Nasional, which continued to carry the spirit of enabling the poor through microcredit.

On behalf of USM, I’m proud to say that both Amanah Ikhtiar Malaysia and TEKUN Nasional are not only the product of USM, but also a significant evidence as to how applied research can really be of impact to the society at large. In honour to the contribution, USM has also taken the initiative to compile the journey of USM & Microcredit into a book which was produced by the Centre for Research on Women and Gender (KANITA) launched in 2012. I would like to personally thank Yang Berbahagia Professor Tan Sri Dato’ Dzulkifli Abdul Razak, the former Vice-Chancellor and Professor Dato’ Dr. Rashidah Shuib (the then Director of KANITA) for their passion and vision towards enabling the publication of this important piece of history.

In short, USM has started its very early version of APEX agenda much earlier than the year it was conferred with the APEX status. The University has been applying all the APEX thrusts namely Knowledge, The Future, Uniqueness, Sustainability, Universality, Humanity, Sacrifice, Chance and Wellness even during those early days. We aspire to carry on with that mission and we look forward in having Professor Muhammad Yunus to spend more time with us here in USM. In acknowledging his calibre, wisdom and contribution to USM, in August 2007, Universiti Sains Malaysia has honoured Professor Yunus with the conferment of the Honorary Doctorate in Economics. This is also in recognition of his excellent and outstanding services and contributions for the benefit and well-being of mankind.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Professor Yunus also founded the Yunus Centre in July 2008 to promote and disseminate his work and philosophy through the concept and practice of social business. To date, 57 universities around the world have set up a Yunus Social Business Centre (YSBC) with the Yunus Centre.

As USM aims to be a distinct sustainability-led university, it has actively advocated the social business movement by signing the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Yunus Centre in Dhaka in 2016, and eventually to jointly established the Malaysian Yunus Social Business Network, managed by USM Graduate School of Business, in 2017. USM is in fact, one of the pioneering members in the smart partnership network of the Malaysian Yunus Social Business, inked in February 2017. This, I hope will then spur into projects of high impact, similarly or even bigger than our contribution to the birth of AIM and TEKUN Nasional.

Ladies and gentlemen, the topic of Professor Yunus’ talk today would be “A World of Three Zeros: Zero Poverty, Zero Unemployment, Zero Carbon Emission,” is a timely response to the contemporary social issues discussed by many on various exchange platforms. As Professor Yunus has declared is his latest book, “the capitalist engine is broken, and having a new economic system that unleashes altruism as a creative force is essential.” In the process, all of us, including academics, business and political leaders, and ordinary citizens are invited to join in the movement and help create a better world we all dream of.

I always believe that when we see a problem and we are able to rectify or solve the problem for the benefits of others, and we do it diligently with sincerity of heart and pure motives, The Almighty will bless and prosper the work of our hands. And I believe that is what in Professor Yunus's heart, and that is what that motivates and drives him in his vision and mission to help the poor and needy.

Lastly, I would like to acknowledge the corporate sponsors and working committees which have contributed to the success of the event. In addition, I thank everyone in the audience for your willingness to take some time off to join this invaluable programme, more so on a Saturday afternoon.

Again, it’s truly a pleasure and an honour to have you with us today, Professor Muhammad Yunus, Nobel Laureate for Peace.

Wabillahitaufik walhidayah, wassalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh. Thank you.