1.
Geneva
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Geneva is the second most populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland. Situated where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the capital of the Republic, the municipality has a population of 198,072, and the canton has 484,736 residents. In 2014, the compact agglomération du Grand Genève had 946,000 inhabitants in 212 communities in both Switzerland and France, within Swiss territory, the commuter area named Métropole lémanique contains a population of 1.25 million. This area is essentially spread east from Geneva towards the Riviera area and north-east towards Yverdon-les-Bains, Geneva is the city that hosts the highest number of international organizations in the world. It is also the place where the Geneva Conventions were signed, Geneva was ranked as the worlds ninth most important financial centre for competitiveness by the Global Financial Centres Index, ahead of Frankfurt, and third in Europe behind London and Zürich. A2009 survey by Mercer found that Geneva has the third-highest quality of life of any city in the world, the city has been referred to as the worlds most compact metropolis and the Peace Capital. In 2009 and 2011, Geneva was ranked as, respectively, the city was mentioned in Latin texts, by Caesar, with the spelling Genava, probably from a Celtic toponym *genawa- from the stem *genu-, in the sense of a bending river or estuary. The medieval county of Geneva in Middle Latin was known as pagus major Genevensis or Comitatus Genevensis, the name takes various forms in modern languages, Geneva /dʒᵻˈniːvə/ in English, French, Genève, German, Genf, Italian, Ginevra, and Romansh, Genevra. The city in origin shares its name, *genawa estuary, with the Italian port city of Genoa, Geneva was an Allobrogian border town, fortified against the Helvetii tribe, when the Romans took it in 121 BC. It became Christian under the Late Roman Empire, and acquired its first bishop in the 5th century, having been connected to the bishopric of Vienne in the 4th. In the Middle Ages, Geneva was ruled by a count under the Holy Roman Empire until the late 14th century, around this time the House of Savoy came to dominate the city. In the 15th century, a republican government emerged with the creation of the Grand Council. In 1541, with Protestantism in the ascendancy, John Calvin, by the 18th century, however, Geneva had come under the influence of Catholic France, which cultivated the city as its own. France also tended to be at odds with the ordinary townsfolk, in 1798, revolutionary France under the Directory annexed Geneva. At the end of the Napoleonic Wars, on 1 June 1814, in 1907, the separation of Church and State was adopted. Geneva flourished in the 19th and 20th centuries, becoming the seat of international organizations. Geneva is located at 46°12 North, 6°09 East, at the end of Lake Geneva. It is surrounded by two chains, the Alps and the Jura
2.
World Economic Forum
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The World Economic Forum is a Swiss nonprofit foundation, based in Cologny, Geneva. The Forum is best known for its meeting at the end of January in Davos. The meeting brings together some 2,500 top business leaders, international leaders, economists. Often this location alone is used to identify meetings, participation, and participants with such phrases as, a Davos panel, beside meetings, the foundation produces a series of research reports and engages its members in sector specific initiatives. The forum was founded in 1971 by Klaus Schwab, a German-born business professor at the University of Geneva and he then founded the WEF as a nonprofit organization based in Geneva and drew European business leaders to Davos for the annual meetings each January. Political leaders soon began to use the meeting as a neutral platform. The Davos Declaration was signed in 1988 by Greece and Turkey, in 1992, South African President F. W. de Klerk met with Nelson Mandela and Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi at the annual meeting, their first joint appearance outside South Africa. At the 1994 annual meeting, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and PLO chairman Yasser Arafat reached an agreement on Gaza. In late 2015, the invitation was extended to include a North Korean delegation for the 2016 forum, in view of positive signs coming out of the country, North Korea has not been attending the WEF since 1998. In 2017, the World Economic Forum in Davos attracted considerable attention when for the first time and he sharply rebuked the current populist movements that would introduce tariffs and hinder global commerce, warning that such protectionism could foster isolation and reduced economic opportunity. Headquartered in Cologny, the forum also has offices in New York, Beijing, on October 10,2016, the Forum announced the opening of its new Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution in San Francisco. The World Economic Forum strives to be impartial and is not tied to any political, partisan, the foundation is committed to improving the State of the World. Until 2012, it had observer status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council, the foundations highest governance body is the foundation board. During its annual meeting, more than 2,500 participants from slightly fewer than 100 countries gather in Davos, approximately 1,500 are business leaders, drawn from its members,1,000 of the worlds top companies. The foundation is funded by its 1,000 member companies and these enterprises rank among the top companies within their industry and/or country and play a leading role in shaping the future of their industry and/or region. Membership is stratified by the level of engagement with forum activities, with the level of membership fees increasing as participation in meetings, projects, and initiatives rises. As of 2011, an annual membership costs $52,000 for a member, $263,000 for Industry Partner. An admission fee costs $19,000 per person, in 2014, WEF raised annual fees by 20 percent, making the cost for Strategic Partner from SFr500,000 to SFr600,000
3.
Tulane University
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Tulane University is a private, nonsectarian research university in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. It is generally considered the top university and the most selective institution of education in the state of Louisiana. From a nationwide perspective, U. S. News & World Report categorizes Tulane as most selective, the school is known to attract a geographically diverse student body, with 85% of undergraduate students coming from over 300 miles away. The school was founded as a medical college in 1834. The institution was privatized under the endowments of Paul Tulane and Josephine Louise Newcomb in 1884, Tulane is the 9th oldest private university in the Association of American Universities, which consists of major research universities in the United States and Canada. The Tulane University Law School and Tulane University Medical School are considered the 12th oldest and 15th oldest law and medical schools, respectively, members of Congress, heads of Federal agencies, two Surgeon Generals of the United States, U. S. At least two Nobel laureates have been affiliated with the University, the university was founded as the Medical College of Louisiana in 1834 partly as a response to the fears of smallpox, yellow fever, and cholera in the United States. The university became only the medical school in the South. In 1847, the legislature established the school as the University of Louisiana, a public university. Subsequently, in 1851, the university established its first academic department, the first president chosen for the new university was Francis Lister Hawks, an Episcopalian priest and prominent citizen of New Orleans at the time. The university was closed from 1861 to 1865 during the American Civil War, after reopening, it went through a period of financial challenges because of an extended agricultural depression in the South which affected the nations economy. Paul Tulane, owner of a dry goods and clothing business. This donation led to the establishment of a Tulane Educational Fund and this act created the Tulane University of Louisiana. The university was privatized, and is one of only a few American universities to be converted from a public institution to a private one. In 1884, William Preston Johnston became the first president of Tulane and he had succeeded Robert E. Lee as president of Washington and Lee University after Lees death. He had moved to Louisiana and become president of Louisiana State University, in 1885, the university established its graduate division, later becoming the Graduate School. One year later, gifts from Josephine Louise Newcomb totaling over $3.6 million, Newcomb was the first coordinate college for women in the United States and became a model for such institutions as Pembroke College and Barnard College. In 1894 the College of Technology formed, which would become the School of Engineering
4.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
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John F. Kennedy School of Government
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The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University is a public policy and public administration school, of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. The school offers degrees in public policy, public administration, and international development, grants several doctoral degrees. It conducts research in subjects relating to politics, government, international affairs, the Schools primary campus is located on John F. Kennedy Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. The main buildings overlook the Charles River, southwest of Harvard Yard and Harvard Square, the School is adjacent to the public riverfront John F. Kennedy Memorial Park. In 2015, Douglas Elmendorf, the director of the U. S. Congressional Budget Office who had served as a Harvard faculty member, was named Dean of the Harvard Kennedy School. From 2004 to 2015, the Schools Dean was David Ellwood, previously, Ellwood was an assistant secretary in the Department of Health and Human Services in the Clinton Administration. A major expansion and renovation of the began in 2015. Harvard Kennedy School was originally the Harvard Graduate School of Public Administration, and was founded in 1936 with a $2 million gift from Lucius N. Littauer and its shield was designed to express the national purpose of the school and was modeled after the U. S. shield. The School drew its initial faculty from Harvards existing government and economics departments, the Schools original home was in the Littauer Center north of Harvard Yard, now the home of the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences Economics Department. In the 1960s, the School began to develop public policy degree. In 1966, the School was renamed for President John F. Kennedy, under the terms of Littauers original grant, the current HKS campus also features a building called Littauer. The IOP has been housed on the Kennedy School campus since 1978, the John F. Kennedy, Jr. Forum in the new Littauer building is both the site of IOP forum events as well as a major social gathering place between HKS courses. Ground breaking commenced on May 7,2015 and is expected to be complete in early 2018. The school has stated that the new space will be used exclusively to cater to the needs of the class sizes. Currently, Harvard Kennedy School offers four degree programs. The Master of Public Policy program focuses on analysis, economics, management in the public sector. Among the members of the mid-career MPA class are the Mason Fellows, Mason Fellows typically constitute about 50% of the incoming class of Mid Career MPA candidates
6.
Harvard University
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Although never formally affiliated with any denomination, the early College primarily trained Congregationalist and Unitarian clergy. Its curriculum and student body were gradually secularized during the 18th century, james Bryant Conant led the university through the Great Depression and World War II and began to reform the curriculum and liberalize admissions after the war. The undergraduate college became coeducational after its 1977 merger with Radcliffe College, Harvards $34.5 billion financial endowment is the largest of any academic institution. Harvard is a large, highly residential research university, the nominal cost of attendance is high, but the Universitys large endowment allows it to offer generous financial aid packages. Harvards alumni include eight U. S. presidents, several heads of state,62 living billionaires,359 Rhodes Scholars. To date, some 130 Nobel laureates,18 Fields Medalists, Harvard was formed in 1636 by vote of the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In 1638, it obtained British North Americas first known printing press, in 1639 it was named Harvard College after deceased clergyman John Harvard an alumnus of the University of Cambridge who had left the school £779 and his scholars library of some 400 volumes. The charter creating the Harvard Corporation was granted in 1650 and it offered a classic curriculum on the English university model—many leaders in the colony had attended the University of Cambridge—but conformed to the tenets of Puritanism. It was never affiliated with any denomination, but many of its earliest graduates went on to become clergymen in Congregational. The leading Boston divine Increase Mather served as president from 1685 to 1701, in 1708, John Leverett became the first president who was not also a clergyman, which marked a turning of the college toward intellectual independence from Puritanism. When the Hollis Professor of Divinity David Tappan died in 1803 and the president of Harvard Joseph Willard died a year later, in 1804, in 1846, the natural history lectures of Louis Agassiz were acclaimed both in New York and on the campus at Harvard College. Agassizs approach was distinctly idealist and posited Americans participation in the Divine Nature, agassizs perspective on science combined observation with intuition and the assumption that a person can grasp the divine plan in all phenomena. When it came to explaining life-forms, Agassiz resorted to matters of shape based on an archetype for his evidence. Charles W. Eliot, president 1869–1909, eliminated the position of Christianity from the curriculum while opening it to student self-direction. While Eliot was the most crucial figure in the secularization of American higher education, he was motivated not by a desire to secularize education, during the 20th century, Harvards international reputation grew as a burgeoning endowment and prominent professors expanded the universitys scope. Rapid enrollment growth continued as new schools were begun and the undergraduate College expanded. Radcliffe College, established in 1879 as sister school of Harvard College, Harvard became a founding member of the Association of American Universities in 1900. In the early 20th century, the student body was predominately old-stock, high-status Protestants, especially Episcopalians, Congregationalists, by the 1970s it was much more diversified
7.
South Africa
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South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa, is the southernmost country in Africa. South Africa is the 25th-largest country in the world by land area and it is the southernmost country on the mainland of the Old World or the Eastern Hemisphere. About 80 percent of South Africans are of Sub-Saharan African ancestry, divided among a variety of ethnic groups speaking different Bantu languages, the remaining population consists of Africas largest communities of European, Asian, and multiracial ancestry. South Africa is a multiethnic society encompassing a variety of cultures, languages. Its pluralistic makeup is reflected in the recognition of 11 official languages. The country is one of the few in Africa never to have had a coup détat, however, the vast majority of black South Africans were not enfranchised until 1994. During the 20th century, the black majority sought to recover its rights from the dominant white minority, with this struggle playing a role in the countrys recent history. The National Party imposed apartheid in 1948, institutionalising previous racial segregation, since 1994, all ethnic and linguistic groups have held political representation in the countrys democracy, which comprises a parliamentary republic and nine provinces. South Africa is often referred to as the Rainbow Nation to describe the multicultural diversity. The World Bank classifies South Africa as an economy. Its economy is the second-largest in Africa, and the 34th-largest in the world, in terms of purchasing power parity, South Africa has the seventh-highest per capita income in Africa. However, poverty and inequality remain widespread, with about a quarter of the population unemployed, nevertheless, South Africa has been identified as a middle power in international affairs, and maintains significant regional influence. The name South Africa is derived from the geographic location at the southern tip of Africa. Upon formation the country was named the Union of South Africa in English, since 1961 the long form name in English has been the Republic of South Africa. In Dutch the country was named Republiek van Zuid-Afrika, replaced in 1983 by the Afrikaans Republiek van Suid-Afrika, since 1994 the Republic has had an official name in each of its 11 official languages. Mzansi, derived from the Xhosa noun umzantsi meaning south, is a name for South Africa. South Africa contains some of the oldest archaeological and human fossil sites in the world, extensive fossil remains have been recovered from a series of caves in Gauteng Province. The area is a UNESCO World Heritage site and has termed the Cradle of Humankind
8.
Muhammad Yunus
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These loans are given to entrepreneurs too poor to qualify for traditional bank loans. In 2006, Yunus and the Grameen Bank were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts through microcredit to create economic, Yunus has received several other national and international honours. He received the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009, in 2008, he was rated number 2 in Foreign Policy magazines list of the Top 100 Global Thinkers. In February 2011, Yunus together with Saskia Bruysten, Sophie Eisenmann, YSB creates and empowers social businesses to address and solve social problems around the world. In 2012, he became Chancellor of Glasgow Caledonian University in Scotland and he is a member of the advisory board at Shahjalal University of Science and Technology. Previously, he was a professor of economics at Chittagong University in Bangladesh and he published several books related to his finance work. He is a board member of Grameen America and Grameen Foundation. Yunus also serves on the board of directors of the United Nations Foundation, in March 2011, the Bangladesh government fired Yunus from his position at Grameen Bank, citing legal violations and an age limit on his position. Bangladeshs High Court affirmed the removal on 8 March, Yunus and Grameen Bank are appealing the decision, claiming Yunus removal was politically motivated. In March 2017, the employees of Bangladeshs Grameen Telecom, established by Muhammad Yunus and his father was Hazi Dula Mia Shoudagar, a jeweler, and his mother was Sufia Khatun. His early childhood was spent in the village, in 1944, his family moved to the city of Chittagong, and he moved from his village school to Lamabazar Primary School. By 1949, his mother was afflicted with psychological illness, later, he passed the matriculation examination from Chittagong Collegiate School ranking 16th of 39,000 students in East Pakistan. During his school years, he was an active Boy Scout, and traveled to West Pakistan and India in 1952, later while Yunus studied at Chittagong College, he became active in cultural activities and won awards for drama. In 1957, he enrolled in the Department of Economics at Dhaka University and completed his BA in 1960, after his graduation, Yunus joined the Bureau of Economics as a research assistant to the economics researches of Professor Nurul Islam and Rehman Sobhan. Later, he was appointed lecturer in economics in Chittagong College in 1961, during that time, he also set up a profitable packaging factory on the side. In 1965, he received a Fulbright scholarship to study in the United States and he obtained his PhD in economics from the Vanderbilt University Graduate Program in Economic Development in 1971. From 1969 to 1972, Yunus was assistant professor of economics at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro and he also published the Bangladesh Newsletter from his home in Nashville. After the War, he returned to Bangladesh and was appointed to the governments Planning Commission headed by Nurul Islam, however, he found the job boring and resigned to join Chittagong University as head of the Economics department
9.
Bangladesh
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Bangladesh, officially the Peoples Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It shares land borders with India and Myanmar, Nepal, Bhutan and China are located near Bangladesh but do not share a border with it. The countrys maritime territory in the Bay of Bengal is roughly equal to the size of its land area, Bangladesh is the worlds eighth most populous country. Dhaka is its capital and largest city, followed by Chittagong which has the countrys largest port, Bangladesh forms the largest and eastern part of the Bengal region. Bangladeshis include people of different ethnic groups and religions, Bengalis, who speak the official Bengali, make up 98% of the population. The politically dominant Bengali Muslims make the nation the worlds third largest Muslim-majority country, most of Bangladesh is covered by the Bengal delta, the largest delta on Earth. The country has 700 rivers and 8,046 km of inland waterways, highlands with evergreen forests are found in the northeastern and southeastern regions of the country. Bangladesh has many islands and a coral reef and it is home to the Sundarbans, the largest mangrove forest in the world. The countrys biodiversity includes a vast array of plant and wildlife, including critically endangered Bengal tigers, the Greeks and Romans identified the region as Gangaridai, a powerful kingdom of the historical subcontinent, in the 3rd century BCE. Archaeological research has unearthed several ancient cities in Bangladesh, which had trade links for millennia. The Bengal Sultanate and Mughal Bengal transformed the region into a cosmopolitan Islamic imperial power between the 14th and 18th centuries, the region was home to many principalities which had inland naval prowess. It was also a center of the worldwide muslin and silk trade. As part of British India, the region was influenced by the Bengali renaissance, the Partition of British India made East Bengal a part of the Dominion of Pakistan, and was renamed as East Pakistan. The region witnessed the Bengali Language Movement in 1952 and the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971, after independence, a parliamentary republic was established. A presidential government was in place between 1975 and 1990, followed by a return to parliamentary democracy, the country has also been affected by poverty, natural disasters, hunger, dominant party systems and military coups. Bangladesh is a power and a major developing nation. Listed as one of the Next Eleven, it has the 46th largest economy and it is one of the largest textile exporters in the world. Its major trading partners are the European Union, the United States, China, India, Japan, Malaysia, with its strategically vital location between Southern, Eastern and Southeast Asia, Bangladesh is an important promoter of regional connectivity and cooperation
10.
Social entrepreneurship
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Social entrepreneurship is the use of the techniques by start up companies and other entrepreneurs to develop, fund and implement solutions to social, cultural, or environmental issues. This concept may be applied to a variety of organizations with different sizes, aims, at times, profit-making social enterprises may be established to support the social or cultural goals of the organization but not as an end in itself. For example, an organization aims to provide housing and employment to the homeless may operate a restaurant. In the 2010s, social entrepreneurship is facilitated by the use of the Internet, particularly social networking, in the 2000s, scholars and practitioners have debated which individuals or organizations can be considered to be social entrepreneurs. Philanthropists, social activists, environmentalists, and other socially-oriented practitioners are referred to as social entrepreneurs. Social entrepreneurs can include a range of types and professional backgrounds, ranging from social work and community development to entrepreneurship. For this reason, it is difficult to determine who is a social entrepreneur, david Bornstein has even used the term social innovator interchangeably with social entrepreneur, due to the creative, non-traditional strategies that many social entrepreneurs use. Some scholars have advocated restricting the term to founders of organizations that rely on earned income. Others have extended this to include contracted work for public authorities, while others include grants. Social entrepreneurship in modern society offers a form of entrepreneurship that focuses on the benefits that society may reap. Simply put, entrepreneurship becomes a social endeavor when it transforms social capital in a way that affects society positively and it is viewed as advantageous because the success of social entrepreneurship depends on many factors related to social impact that traditional corporate businesses do not prioritize. Social entrepreneurs recognize immediate social problems, but also seek to understand the context of an issue that crosses disciplines, fields. Gaining a larger understanding of how an issue relates to society allows social entrepreneurs to develop innovative solutions, unlike traditional corporate businesses, social entrepreneurship ventures focus on maximizing gains in social satisfaction, rather than maximizing profit gains. Both private and public agencies worldwide have had billion-dollar initiatives to empower deprived communities, such support from organizations in society, such as government-aid agencies or private firms, may catalyze innovative ideas to reach a larger audience. Prominent individuals associated with social entrepreneurship include Pakistani Akhter Hameed Khan, Yunus was the founder of Grameen Bank, which pioneered the concept of microcredit for supporting innovators in multiple developing countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. He received a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts, others, such as former Indianapolis mayor Stephen Goldsmith addressed social efforts on a local level by using the private sector to provide city services. Bill Drayton founded Ashoka in 1978, an organization which supports social entrepreneurs. Drayton tells his employees to look for four qualities, creativity, entrepreneurial quality, social impact of the idea, creativity has two parts, goal-setting and problem-solving
11.
David Gergen
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David Richmond Gergen is an American political commentator and former presidential advisor who served during the administrations of Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton. He is currently a Senior Political Analyst for CNN and a Professor of Public Service, Gergen is also the former Editor-at-Large of U. S. News and World Report and a contributor to CNN. com and Parade Magazine. He has twice been a member of election coverage teams that won Peabody awards—in 1988 with MacNeil-Lehrer, Gergen joined the Nixon White House in 1971, as a staff assistant on the speech writing team, becoming Director of Speechwriting two years later. He served as Director of Communications for both Ford and Reagan, and as an advisor to Clinton and Secretary of State Warren Christopher. As a commentator his admirers consider him a political voice because he has served in both Republican and Democratic administrations. He graduated with honors from Yale and Harvard Law School, and has been awarded 25 honorary degrees, David Gergen was born in Durham, North Carolina, to Aubigne Munger and John Jay Gergen, the chair of the mathematics department at Duke University from 1937 to 1966. He is the youngest of four children, and one of his brothers, Kenneth J. Gergen, is a psychologist, one of his other brothers was Stephen L Gergen. Gergen was educated at Durham High School, a public high school in his hometown of Durham, North Carolina. After high school graduation, he went to Yale University, from which he earned his bachelors degree in American studies in 1963, and was a member of the Manuscript Society. At Yale, he was editor-in-chief of the Yale Daily News, whose staff at the time included Senator Joe Lieberman, Stephen Bingham, Robert G. Kaiser, and Paul Steiger. Gergen received his law degree from Harvard Law School in 1967, and married Anne Elizabeth Gergen, a native of London, England, for three summers, Gergen was an intern in the office of Governor Terry Sanford, where he became deeply involved in civil rights efforts. Gergen has called this work his “most satisfying experience in public service. ”He served in the U. S. Navy for three-and-a-half years and was stationed on a ship home-ported in Japan, two years later, he rose to Director of Speechwriting. In 1974, Gergen took a hiatus from the White House to write speeches for Treasury Secretary William E. Simon. Gergen writes in his book, For me it was a great trade—the Treasury team taught me all about free markets, Gergen returned to the White House in 1975 as Director of Communications for President Gerald Ford. In 1980, Gergen was an advisor to the George H. W. Bush presidential campaign, beginning as a staff director, he eventually became Director of Communications. In 1993, Gergen returned to the White House, serving as Counselor to President Bill Clinton, currently, Gergen is a Senior Political Analyst for CNN and often appears on Anderson Cooper 360 and The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer. Following his years in service, Gergen worked as a political journalist, commentator. After leaving the White House in 1977, he worked as a writer and, in 1978, as the first managing editor of Public Opinion
12.
Grameen Bank
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The Grameen Bank is a Nobel Peace Prize-winning microfinance organisation and community development bank founded in Bangladesh. It makes small loans to the impoverished without requiring collateral, the name Grameen is derived from the word gram which means rural or village in the Bengali Language. Based on his results, in October 1983 the Grameen Bank was authorised by legislation as an independent bank. In 2006, the bank and its founder, Muhammad Yunus, were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. In 1998 the Banks Low-cost Housing Program won a World Habitat Award, in 2011, the Bangladesh Government forced Yunus to resign from Grameen Bank, saying that at age 72, he was years beyond the legal limit for the position. Muhammad Yunus earned a doctorate in economics from Vanderbilt University in the United States, Yunus believed that making such loans available to a larger population could stimulate businesses and reduce the widespread rural poverty in Bangladesh. Yunus developed the principles of the Grameen Bank from his research, in 1976, the village of Jobra and other villages near the University of Chittagong became the first areas eligible for service from Grameen Bank. Proving successful, the Bank project, with support from Bangladesh Bank, was extended in 1979 to the Tangail District, the banks success continued and its services were extended to other districts of Bangladesh. The Grameen Bank staff not only work in harsh, gruelling conditions but are an elite brigade of poverty fighters, required to have a passion for changing the lives of the poor, the Grameen staff must be willing to step out of their comfort zones on a daily basis. Potential employees receive 6 months of training while shadowing qualified and experienced individuals from various branches of Grameen. The goal of training is for the trainee to appreciate the unexplored potential of the destitute. After completing the 6-month period, trainees return to Dhaka headquarters for a time of review, ultimately these new staff are appointed to a new branch of the Grameen bank. By a Bangladeshi government ordinance on 2 October 1983, the project was authorised and established as an independent bank. Bankers Ron Grzywinski and Mary Houghton of ShoreBank, a community development bank in Chicago, the banks repayment rate suffered from the economic disruption following the 1998 flood in Bangladesh, but it recovered in the subsequent years. By the beginning of 2005, the bank had loaned over USD4.7 billion and by the end of 2008, the Bank continues to expand across the nation. By 2006, Grameen Bank branches numbered over 2,100 and its success has inspired similar projects in more than 40 countries around the world, including a World Bank initiative to finance Grameen-type schemes. The bank has gained its funding from different sources, and the main contributors have shifted over time, in the initial years, donor agencies used to provide the bulk of capital at low rates. By the mid-1990s, the bank started to get most of its funding from the bank of Bangladesh
