Yunus Meets Business Leaders in Japan and South Korea
Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus visited Osaka, Japan from July 26-27. Prior to that he visited Seoul, S. Korea on July 25-26.
Among many other meetings in Osaka, top wealthy business people of Osaka met Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus in two separate meetings to explore the possibilities of investing in Social Businesses in Japan and elsewhere. The meeting was organized by an international bank. A giant shopping-mall chain expressed its interest to initiate a discussion to create a joint venture social business with Yunus Centre.
In a separate event, Professor Muhammad Yunus addressed nearly a thousand students coming from universities in Osaka and from far away universities. He also addressed a daylong meeting of top women entrepreneurs in Osaka and discussed their participation in social business.
In addition, Governor of Nagano Prefecture Mr. Shuichi Abe came from Nagano to meet Professor Yunus at his hotel to discuss about the academic content of a new university he is creating in his prefecture, and he invited Professor Yunus to help him design the academic and extra-curricular content by joining the concept development committee with the governor and accept the position of its Chancellor when the university starts functioning. He is inspired by professor Yunus's book and wants to place social business at the core of the business school. Governor requested professor Yunus to help him make this university unique in Japan in terms of its social orientation.
Professor Yunus also visited by Mr. Kunihiko Ukifune, founder and CEO of the renowned Jikei group of companies, which is known for its network of vocational training colleges in 600 disciplines through 52 colleges. The director of Jikei's Manga company Mr. Kaku met with Professor Yunus to show him the manuscript of the first book of a series of Manga books on Professor Muhammad Yunus to popularize his concepts of “Microcredit” and “Social Business”. He informed Professor Yunus the first book will be launched this year. Manga is a popular form of comic books in Japan which bring various subjects to everyday Japanese readers, particularly to young people. Jikei and their team of artists already visited Bangladesh at the beginning of this year for making all the drawings to reflect realities of Bangladesh for the manga comics on Professor Yunus' life and works.
Mr. Nobuyori Kodaira, Executive Vice President of Toyota Motor Company accompanied by a team of five senior officials met Professor Yunus to discuss Toyota's participation in Social Business. Mr Vincent Valdmann, Deputy General Manager, Corporate Planning, of Nissan Motor company also visited Professor Yunus to discuss ways and means to develop Social Business as a part of their Corporate Social Responsibility(CSR) program.
Earlier in the week Professor Muhammad Yunus was in Seoul on invitation of the owner and Chairman SK group to present Social Business concept to his executives. SK Group is South Korea’s third-biggest conglomerate with annual revenue of 150 billion dollars. Before his arrival in Korea, SK group executives received week long training on Social Business. Professor Muhammad Yunus rounded up the discussions and explained how the leading group can undertake Social Business initiative in Korea and other countries. SK Group of Company elaborated their activities through "Happiness Foundation" created by the company, and is very enthusiastic about Social Business in the program of the Foundation in collaboration with Yunus Centre. Earlier in the year, at the request of Chairman of SK Group, Professor Muhammad Yunus had a series of meetings with him in Davos on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum. He has remained interested in social business ever since.
