Visionary social entrepreneur and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate 2006 Professor Muhammad Yunus has joined the world's first global public awareness campaign for solar, SolarFUTURE.today.!
"Muhammad Yunus is a giant who has bent the arc of history to democratize access to finance and energy," commented Author, Entrepreneur and Stanford Lecturer Tony Seba, who serves as Co-chair of the SolarFUTURE.today campaign.
"His invention of microfinance disrupted finance and gave hundreds of millions of people access to credit to help lift themselves out of poverty. Dr Yunus's insights and experience will be invaluable in helping the solar community democratize energy and give billions of people access to power."
Professor Yunus will be a Co-patron of the Honorary Visionary Board of the campaign, joining Professor Alan Heeger, Nobel Prize Laureate in Chemistry 2000, whose work led the development of new solar PV technologies.
As part of his work bringing millions out of poverty with microcredit and microfinance, Professor Yunus has been a pioneer in the deployment of PV. His work shows that solar is not only a solution for rich nations who must reduce carbon emissions, but is a practical way to bring electricity to parts of the developing world where limited access to power inhibits economic and social development.
Working with his Grameen Shakti team, Yunus is responsible for?assisting with the installation of more than one million solar?home systems in Bangladesh, a nation with a per capita income?of only US$1,190. The Grameen Shakti team is currently installing roughly 60,000 solar home systems per month, and has set a goal to reach two million solar home systems installed within the next two years.
SolarFUTURE.today is a worldwide solar awareness campaign, that unites business, scientific, technology, architecture, cinema, music, athletic, educational and philanthropic leaders with youth and society around the world, focused on the accelerated growth of solar as a mainstream energy source.?
