Professor Muhammad Yunus, Nobel Peace Prize winner 2006, founder of Grameen Bank in Bangladesh and also HEC Honoris Causa Professor since 2005, will co-hold the Chair with Martin Hirsch, High Commissioner for Active Solidarities against Poverty in the French government and former chairman of charity Emmaüs France. Alongside the creation of this Chair, a seminar will take place in partnership with the High Commissioner for Active Solidarities against Poverty on the HEC Campus in autumn 2008. This conference will aim to bring together French business leaders to help them reflect and act on how to fight against poverty in their work..

The day after the UK book launch of Dr Yunus' Creating a World Without Poverty, 475 World Entrepreneurs (WE) were given a copy of the book and this letter from Dhaka. Here is a running log of initiatives which WE are pledging to conceive - please tell us at editor@futurecapitalism.tv of any ways you would like to join in Co-Brand Leadership Verify 1000 Collaborative Alumni of Book Ask those inspired by book's systemic maps: what lifelong difference they wish to connect because of book and for any advice on linking people in Dhaka with community www & win-win-win Prepare e-grameen.com so www is ready for debate with 10000 rural telecentres on 6 life critical open knowhow compasses of community-rising ; e-health, e-agriculture, e-edu, e-gov, e-finance, e-consumer Future Capitalism Help conceptualise stock market presentation of Social Businesses Maintain public records of which of top 100 global market sectors have at least 1 Social Business benchmark of how to use sector's knowhow to sustain humanity Breakthrough top 10 conventional wisdom mindsets - what The Economist's 1976 Entrepreneurial Revolution survey called 10 green bottles Social Business Open Catalogues of Social Business at any popular space Co-create an open (peer to peer) SMBA curriculum with goal of mapping Yunus Cities with as many SMBA as MBA Develop Youtube libraries so people of all ages, genders and races can celebrate humanity debates with YUnUS Social Action Help with chapter 11 diary registers of youth and other social action teams Link virtual and real citizen action spaces and hubs to Dhaka www (win-win-win) Portals such as http://yunussocialactiongroup.org/   Help unite the large worldwide demographic groups - eg women 1 2 , youth 1 2 - who have least decision power but most impact on sustaining community

One always sees things in joy. It seems to me that there is a very fundamental

kind of existential decision we make: do we believe our joy or do we believe

our neutral states? In the latter case, the move is always one of prudence -

not to make decisions in a time of enthusiasm when one is carried away,

but rather to wait until everything cools down. I think one of the most

important things there is - I would almost say one could make this a kind of

maxim for life - is to always make decisions in a state of joy. One should

believe one's joy more than one's prudence, or any cautious or fearful state

Obstacles to Dialogue Today, by Alfonso Lingis

 1.  Cultures in Dialogue

            Today the great centers of wealth and power that derive from the production and control of information--Houston, Silicon Valley, the Ruhr, Lyon, Milan, Tokyo-Osaka, Shanghai, Taipei, Seoul, Mexico City, São Paulo--drain off the brain power of the outer zones--the scientists but also writers, architects, artists, and musicians.  The planet has also never before seen such immense migrations of poor peoples--so much of it forced or illegal.  These  people may bring only low-tech work skills, but they bring their cultural identity.  The great cultural capitals of proud nation states--Paris, London, New York, Sydney, Bangkok, Singapore--have become multiethnic and multicultural.

            But that has always been the case.  Mohendo-daro, Memphis and Thebes, Mahabalipuram, Angkor, Djenné Djeno in the Sahel, Teotihuac·n, Qosqo--all the centers of great cultures had been cosmopolitan cities, with markets full of foreign merchants but also with whole quarters of settled foreigners.  What we have come to know as distinctive and dominant civilizations--Egyptian, Persian, Chinese, Roman, and Mongolian--were the result of drawing toward themselves resources, artefacts, inventions, and concepts from the most diverse ethnic areas and cultures.  Anyone visiting Angkor Wat is struck to see altars on which Hindu deities dance around altars with seated Buddhas, friezes depicting everyday life so obviously carved by sculptors who had come from or gone to Borobudur, Chinese guard lions..

              "Different cultures within a region appear to be commenting on one another," anthropologist Shirley Lindenbaum wrote ... continued