Alliance MBS academics meet Nobel Laureate

19 Jan 2016

Dr Ilma Chowdhury and Dr Fahian Huq interviewed Nobel Peace laureate and social business pioneer Professor Muhammad Yunus in December 2015

The encounter took place during the 154th Yunus Centre Social Business Design Lab in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on 21 December 2015. Ilma and Fahian, who are Lecturers in the Management Science and Marketing Division of AMBS, took part in this one-day programme, presided over by Professor Yunus, at which participants evaluate proposed social business projects, train, brainstorm and develop new ideas.

Professor Yunus was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for founding the Grameen Bank and pioneering the concepts of microcredit and microfinance. He was recently awarded the Forbes Lifetime Achievement Award for Social Entrepreneurship.

Ilma and Fahian interviewed Professor Yunus for their research project which is funded by the Alliance Manchester Business School. They discussed with him the challenges and opportunities that social businesses face as they try to take on the most complicated problems facing societies, eg poverty, access to health, education and unemployment.

This study falls under one of the priority research areas for The University of Manchester, ie reducing global inequalities. It is an inter-disciplinary research project, requiring expertise from both marketing and operations research areas and will contribute to the research conducted in Operations and Supply Chain Management research group and Research in Marketing group.

Ilma said: "We had read his books but it was inspiring to meet Dr Yunus in person, hear about his personal experiences and see first hand how social business partners are selected."