13A – Reading Reflection No. 1

1)     You read about an entrepreneur: Twenty seven dollars and a dream

The book that I read was a biography on Muhammad Yunus who developed his own banking system called Grameen Bank that lent out small loans to the villagers and women of Bangladesh. When Katherine Esty went to interview him at Grameen Bank, she noticed that his office had no air conditioning, and was simply set up with basic tables and chair. A man who had won numerous international awards and a Nobel prize, instead of living a lavish lifestyle, he chose a life of simplicity. The thing that I admire the most about him are his efforts in trying to eliminate poverty in the rural areas. As Esty describes in the book women in Bangladesh at the time had an inferior position in society who were told never to speak up or go out. Most of the women had never even held money in their hands and were actually afraid just by the thought of it. However Yunus wanted to empower the women and elevate their status and position in society so he focused most of his time and efforts on convincing women to take loans because he knew that they would be able to bring more benefits to the family compared to the husband. At a time when male domination was prevalent, he worked on breaking the stereotype and convinced women to take the loan and start up their own small business. His banks had been successful “in lending money to nearly seven million poor people, 97% of whom were woman.” Banks at the time weren’t willing to invest and work with poor people because they no collateral to offer and didn’t have any credit history. Even if they did give out loans the interest rate was always high, and they would just make the women worse off because they weren’t really able to get any profit out of their business. After discovering the problem, he went on to find out how many people were stuck in this slavery and discovered that in Jobra (village), 47 people together had a debt of $27. So, he decided to lend them the money without any interest and worked on a system for them to easily pay him back easily and surprisingly they did make small payments every single day. His blind faith in them in them is inspirational. In 2006 when he won the Nobel Prize, he wrote his speech in one day despite being told from everyone  that he should have started a month early and instead of asking executives to represent his bank, he got the women was the rural areas to represent his bank. While I couldn’t find anything in the book, I found out that him joining politics wasn’t liked by a  lot of people and hence he lost a lot of support from the people. Like most successful entrepreneurs who owe their success to their past experiences and hardships Muhammad Yunus was one of them. After developing his idea, he decided to go and pitch it to the bank and see if they would be willing to help him in his cause and lend ton the poor. However, they straight up refused to help him. So, he approached another bank who were willing to help him out but had concerns about the collateral. So, he decided to be the guarantor for all the villagers and cosign their loans and if anyone defaulted in their payments, he simply wouldn’t pay them. But they all were regular on their payments.

2)     What competencies did you notice entrepreneur exhibited?

His persistent efforts and dedication in trying to alleviate poverty is inspiring. He always found a solution to any setbacks he faced and had blind faith in the villagers. He saw the financial problem the villagers were facing especially the mistreatment of women in society and after interviewing a few women, he conducted a needs assessment test to see how many people were affected by the problem. He then decided to interview people outside the boundary of the problem like banks and figure out why they were willing to lend out to him and not poor people. As a child he had exhibited signs of entrepreneurial skills. In school he started his own stamp business and then later started a packaging company. He had great leadership skills and was well versed in every field from art to photography to drama. His travel to the United States exposed him to different people and cultures which shaped his personality. 

3) If i had to ask him any two questions, is what was he getting in return and how was he generating revenue. Second question was how did he develop that blind faith in the villagers because he knew that they had no collateral or credit history and yet he decided to be  a consignor for them. So what was his thought process at that time. 

4) I believe his definition of handwork is being persistent and if faced with a setback then its okay because there will always be another way. you just need to keep at it and not give up.