Yunus Centre Press Release (06 December, 2018)
Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus visited Japan from December 1 to 4 to attend various preparatory meetings of Tokyo Olympic 2020 and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Youth Summit. The Summit held on Sunday, December 2, was organized by the IOC and attended by 42 young people from 40 countries. It was part of the young leadership program of the IOC (“Young Change Makers +“ program). It was addressed by Mr Thomas Bach, President of IOC, and Professor Muhammad Yunus. In his address Professor Yunus emphasized the role that social business can play to leverage the power the athletes have in transforming them into social and community leaders.
“You can mobilise people around the world around one single thing, sport. You are messengers for change, leaders for change. You can bring changes to your communities, to society and to the whole world”, he said. His speech was followed by a workshop organized by Yunus Sports Hub on how to transform the charity-based social projects usually run by these young people into social businesses.
After the opening of the Summit Professor Yunus had a meeting with the President of the International Olympic Committee Mr Thomas Bach. They reviewed the programmes undertaken by Yunus Sports Hub and the plans for upcoming years. Mr Bach invited Professor Yunus to attend the Tokyo 2020 Olympic in July of 2020. Professor Yunus briefed President Bach on how to leverage the power of the young people through the Young Change Makers program, and on the preparations of the Paris Olympic 2024 where Professor Yunus is guiding the apex Olympic 2024 platform called Solideo. Yunus Centre Paris and Les Canaux are associated in helping Paris 2024 to deliver the most inclusive Game in the history of Olympism.
At the end of this meeting, President Bach formally introduced Professor Yunus to Mr Tsunekazu Takeda, President of the Japanese Olympic Committee and to Yasuo Saito, Vice President of the Japanese Olympic Committee. Prof Yunus explained to them how social business could be used as a tool for creating long lasting social impact in the society. All four them discussed potential areas and mechanism of collaboration among the Tokyo Olympic of 2020, Yunus Sports Hub, and Yunus Shiiki Centre at Kyushu University in Japan. Professor Masaharu Okada and Professor Ashir Ahmed represented Yunus Centres of Kyushu University.
On December 3, Professor Yunus had a meeting with the CEO of Tokyo 2020 Olympic, Mr Toshiro Muto, at their headquarters. Mr Muto and his team members presented the plans of Tokyo 2020 in term of sustainability and legacy to Professor Yunus. Professor Yunus explained that this was his learning mission to learn from the enormous creative power mobilized by Japan to make significant social impact to be created by the Olympic 2020. He invited Mr Muto to visit Paris to help the Paris team engaged in designing social business programmes around Paris Olympic of 2024. Paris is committed to deliver the most inclusive Olympic games in history. Professor Yunus highlighted that all the sustainability programmes being developed by Tokyo Olympic should be treated as the beginning of a process. Yunus Social Business Centres in Japan will work with the Tokyo 2020 to continue and expand these programmes way beyond 2020 through the vehicle of social businesses through the engagement of youth of Japan.
Yunus Social business Centres at the universities will play the key role in mobilizing the youth for transforming the society. He suggested that these social business centres need to work together from now on with Tokyo 2020. It was decided to have a strategy meeting between two sides to design a collaboration plan.
Caption for Photo 1 : From the left Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus, President of the International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach, Professor Masaharu Okada, Executive Director of the Yunus Shiike Social Business Centre at Kyushu University, and Dr. Ashir Ahmed, Director, Yunus Social Business Technology Centre at Kyushu University.
Caption for Photo 2 : Nobel Laureate Professor Yunus with Mr Tsunekazu Takeda, President of the Japanese Olympic Committee (on his right) and Mr. Yasuo Saito, Vice President of the Japanese Olympic Committee(on his left)
Caption for Photo 3: Nobel Laureate Professor Yunus with CEO of Tokyo 2020 Olympic, Mr Toshiro Muto. They discussed the potential areas of collaboration and knowledge transfer to use Tokyo 2020 as a lever for social transformation in Japan and beyond.
Caption for Photo 4: Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus with the participants of young leadership program of the IOC (“Young Change Makers +“ program) at the IOC Youth Summit on Sunday December 2
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