Nobel Prize winner Yunus to speak on microfinance and health care

Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus will talk about economics and health care during his visit to Stanford on Friday.

Yunus, who founded the Grameen Bank in 1976, will deliver a speech on "Microfinance and Sustainable Health Care" and answer questions from noon to 1 p.m. in Cubberley Auditorium. He will discuss Grameen America, which is bringing microfinance to Queens, New York, and Grameen Health, which intends to make high quality and affordable health care available to people of all income levels.

The presentation is being sponsored by the ASSU Speakers Bureau and the Stanford Office of Public Affairs. The event is free and open to the public.

Yunus established the Grameen Bank 32 years ago in Bangladesh on the theory that giving loans and extending credit to poor people would help them out of poverty. Grameen now operates in 38 counties and provides collateral-free loans to more than 7.5 million borrowers in Bangladesh alone.

Yunus and the bank were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006.

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