Youth can change world, Yunus tells Social Business Youth Summit

The young people can change the world as they have immense potential, Chief Adviser Professor Muhammad Yunus said today (1 February).

"We can change the whole world just for years...with the people who are sitting here in this room. This is a very easy task," he said while speaking at the 9th Social Business Youth Summit at Hotel Intercontinental Dhaka in the capital. 

Representatives from 25 countries are taking part in the two-day summit.

The chief adviser said a journey of thousands miles begins with the first step and the question is how to improve in the second step.

Highlighting the sacrifice of students and commoners in the July revolution to topple a fascist regime, he said over 1,000 young people sacrificed their lives and many of those who were injured lost their limbs in the movement with an aim to build a new Bangladesh.  

Terming the July revolution a historic movement, Prof Yunus said the whole country has now become a museum and the nation is committed to making the dream of young people come true.

Recalling the journey of microcredit, he said they prepared a formula of preparing oral saline as diarrhoea spread across the country at that time and let people know how to prepare the saline to address the diarrhoea outbreak.

Focusing on social business introduced earlier by him, Prof Yunus said it is a very simple idea.

"Business does not mean only profit maximisation; there could be another kind of business - business to solve social problems," he said.

The chief adviser said making money may be happiness but making other people happy is supper happiness and that is why the social business came.

Putting emphasis on the youths' power of imagination, Prof Yunus asked them to come up with social business ventures.