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Yunus Centre Press Release (24 November, 2019)

Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus visited Taiwan to attend the 2nd Social Business East Asian Conference as chief guest from 17th to 19th November 2019. 

During this conference, he had dialogues with the business community of Taiwan including Terry Gou, Taiwanese billionaire and Founder, Chairman of Foxconn. He is the richest person in Taiwan. 

Terry Gou announced to contribute USD 3 million to create a Social Business Venture Capital Fund to support young people of Taiwan to choose the path of entrepreneurship rather than going  for jobs. This venture capital fund will follow the methodology of Nobin Programme developed in Bangladesh which has invested to support 55,000 young entrepreneurs in Bangladesh. 

During the visit, Yunus also visited Taoyuan City, the first Social Business City in Asia and the 3rd in the world. Mayor's office organised a Social Business Forum in collaboration with National Central University of Taiwan. Besides the faculty and students, business community of the city attended the Forum. Professor Yunus gave the keynote speech at the conference. 

He had a session as a dialogue with city Mayor Cheng Wen-Tsan who is going to run as Presidential candidate in the upcoming general election. The National Central University of Taiwan, located in Taiyuan City, established the first Yunus Social Business Centre (YSBC). It is providing designing and monitoring   support to the social Business City programme. Taiwan has the largest number of universities Establishing YSBCs in one country. It has ten universities which established Yunus Social Business Centres.

Second Social Business East Asian Conference held in Taipei was attended by many political leaders, government officials, university presidents from ten universities having YSBCs, and business leaders.

Presidential candidate Han Guo-Yu, and Vice Presidential candidate Zhang Shan-Zhen in the upcoming  general election attended the Forum and  took a personal interest in the visit of Professor  Yunus. They had an hour long exclusive meeting with him on how social business concept can be adopted by a government. They both attended the opening of the Conference.  

Other important  participants were former Premier of Taiwan, Mao Chi-Kuo, CEO of Taiwan Financial Holdings, National worker and business union consultant, President of Taipei University of Business,  President of Global Views Monthly,  and university  Presidents from the 10 universities with Yunus Social  Business Centres (YSBCs) in Taiwan participated. 

International guests included YSBC Director Professor Faiz Shah from Asian Institute of Technology of Thailand,   CEO of MyHarapan,  Nurfarini from Malaysia, Gao Zhan, President  of Grameen China, and YSBC Director Chin Jian-Wei from Zhengzhou University in China.

President of Foundation of Yunus Social Business Taiwan Philippa Tsai shared the progress in achieving four goals of the Foundation encouraged by Dr. Yunus. She explained the initiative to ceate a social business venture capital fund.

Professor Yunus initiated his East Asia Social Business Tour on November 13th beginning with  Shenzhen, China where he was the keynote speaker for UNLEASH 2019. UNLEASH is a global innovation lab, which gathered 1,000 young talents to collaborate on solutions to meet the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Professor Yunus and  Ms. Leymah Gbowee, founder and President of the Gbowee Peace Foundation Africa, Nobel Peace Prize laureate 2011 participated in a moderated discussion on how to attain the SDGs. Professor Yunus was welcomed at the event by Mayor of Shenzhen - Mr. Chen Rugui and young leaders from 160 countries. Professor Yunus called upon the young people to defy the existing framework of economic thinking and come up with alternative framework to save the planet from the imminent disaster. He warned that if they continue with the old ways of thinking  and doing things they will not have safe life ahead of them.

From Shenzhen, Professor Yunus travelled to Japan and was at Ryokuku University in Kyoto as Chief Guest and Keynote Speaker for the World Religious Forum held on November 16, 2019 to coincide with the 380th anniversary of the University. The Anniversary was celebrated with the Governor of the Prefecture, Mayor of Kyoto,  members of Parliament, Distinguished citizens of the city and international  guests. Professor Yunus gave the keynote speech at the celebration. Yunus officially launched the Yunus Social Business Research Center at Ryukoku University as a part of the 380th Anniversary celebration. The university is the oldest university in Japan. 

On November 20, Yunus arrived in Tokyo, Japan to give the keynote address at the Social Business Forum 2019 sponsored by Trust Corporation. Over 1600 women entrepreneurs attended the lecture and participated in the question and answer session with Professor Yunus.

Caption for Photo1: Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus with the young  participants from foreign countries in the 2nd Social Business East Asian Conference organized by Foundation for Yunus Social Business Taiwan in Taipei on 17-19 November 2019.

Caption for Photo2: Professor Muhammad Yunus officially launching the Yunus Social Business Research Center at Ryukoku University, the oldest university in Japan, as a part of its 380th Anniversary celebration.

Caption for Photo3: Professor Yunus with Terry Gou, Taiwanese billionaire and Founder, Chairman of Foxconn at the  2nd Social Business East Asian Conference in Taipei.

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