Chief Adviser Professor Muhammad Yunus attended the '9th Social Business Youth Summit' today and delivered the keynote speech at a city hotel in Dhaka. Photo: CA Press Wing

DHAKA, Feb 1, 2025 (BSS) - Chief Adviser Professor Muhammad Yunus today said the young people can change the world as they have immense potential.

"We can change the whole world just for years...with the people who are sitting here in this room. This is very easy task," he said while speaking at the 9th Social Business Youth Summit at Hotel Intercontinental Dhaka. Representatives from 25 countries are taking part in the 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 historical 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. 

He welcomed the representatives of 25 countries, who were participating in the 9th Social Business Youth Summit, to the new Bangladesh achieved with the sacrifice of the young people.

Urging the young generation to imagine for doing something good, Prof Yunus said: "You are here in the 9th Social Business Youth Summit. You have taken the first step; that step has been taken. Question is how to improve ourselves in second step; how to make it more confident in third step."

By taking these steps, he said, thousands-mile journey will be done and "we believe in it".
 
"If you imagine, it will happen. If you do not imagine, it will not happen," the chief adviser said.
 
Recalling the journey of microcredit, he said they prepared a formula of preparing oral saline as diarrhea spread across the country at that time and let people know how to prepare the saline to address diarrhea 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 added.

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.

Observing that healthcare has become a very big area of social business, he said pharmaceutical industry should be a social business as it is related to human life.

He urged all to put the social business idea in their thinking process, saying that people would do it because they get supper happiness by solving others' problems.

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

"Charity has only one life but the social business has the endless life. You can address the same problems but money keeps recalculating again and again," he said.

"...as we create a new Bangladesh and we also pledge to create a new world," the chief adviser said.