Muhammad Yunus made his first loan of $27 to a group of 42 Bangladeshi village women, to help free them from debt to moneylenders and allow them to build their furniture business. He established the Grameen Bank in 1983 to help millions of Bangladeshis escape from poverty. The bank now has branches in more than 36 thousand Bangladeshi villages and in other countries.

Yunus, a Fulbright Scholar, earned a Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University in 1969. Yunus has received the Ramon Magsaysay Award (1984) from Manila; the Aga Khan Award for Architecture (1989) from Geneva; the Mohamed Shabdeen Award for Science (1993) from Sri Lanka; and the World Food Prize by World Food Prize Foundation (1994) from the US. His autobiography, Banker to the Poor, was published in 1998.