An impactful journey with Yunus Social Business and Open Value Foundation.
El pasado jueves 6 de octubre, durante la jornada «10 Years Harnessing the Power of Business to end Poverty.» conmemorando los 10 años de Yunus Social Business y que se llevó a cabo en las instalaciones de Open Value Foundation en Madrid, nuestra directora, Ana Fernández Laviada, fue invitada a presentar el vídeo del profesor Muhammad Yunus.
Representando a Yunus Social Business estuvo David Berners, Director Product Strategy & Investor Relations (Funds, HQ – Germany), quien desempeña un papel activo en el desarrollo de la oferta de productos y servicios de YSB y trabaja en estrecha colaboración con los inversores para encontrar una coincidencia cercana con sus objetivos de inversión. También se encarga de construir y administrar las relaciones que YSB tiene con los Inversores y Socios en todo el mundo, asegurándose de que realmente se alcance el impacto buscado por ellos.
Como ejemplo de colaboración de Open Value Foundation con Yunus Social Business, Peter Scott presentó el caso de éxito de BURN Manufacturing, empresa fundada por él y ubicada en Kenia, cuyas estufas han ayudado a más de 8 millones de personas en el África Sub sahariana a reducir sus gastos de combustible, al mismo tiempo que reducen la deforestación y las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero. Como empresa social, reinvierte todas sus ganancias para lograr la sostenibilidad, aumentar su alcance y asegurar el cumplimiento de su misión.
Palabras de Ana Fernández Laviada:
«Thank You, this was not prepared, I was just arriving when the organizers asked me “Would you like to introduce professor Yunus?” and I could not say no.
My name is Ana Fernández, I’m based in Santander, a small city on the north of Spain, even though I’m an accounting professor and I teach some other courses, I started working in entrepreneurship and I’ve being encouraging my students to make a difference in the world since 2008.
In 2015 I was very lucky to meet professor Muhammad Yunus in an academic forum. After that moment my head changed completely and I started to work in Social Business, Social innovation, the New Economy, the New World, and all the movement around Impact Economy.
I am very glad to introduce professor Yunus; I will give a small Bio (his complete Bio would be longer than his speech). Professor Yunus cofounded Yunus Social Business, he is the Chairman of the Board; he is the founder of Grameen Bank, in Spanish we call it “El banco de los pobres”; is the father of Micro-credits, the economic movement that has helped millions of families around the world to move out of poverty, today Grameen Bank has 8.4 million members, 90% of them are women, which is one of the peculiarities of this movement, this bank has lent 12.5 billion US dollars; in 2006 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, that’s why he is world famous, but, maybe, he should have been awarded the Nobel Economy Prize; he is the force to create social development from below. Professor Yunus is the creator of Social Business, since 2006 he is focused in spreading and implementing this concept, that is why he is helping academic and research centers to focus on this; also that is the reason I created in 2019 the Cantabria Yunus Social Business Centre.
He has written four books, and many academic articles, his most recent book is “The World of Three Zeros”, probably he will speak more about this in the video; professor Yunus has received lots of awards and he is one of the only seven people who has received the three most prestigious awards in the world, so he is among Martin Luther King, Mother Theresa and Nelson Mandela. We are talking about a person who is very peculiar, I must say he is a lovely person, once you meet him you start to think “I need to do something more than teaching accounting, I need to do something with my life to help change the world or at least in my region, in my neighborhood… even in my family”.