The Grameen Creative Lab

"I believe that we can create a world without poverty because it is not the poor that create poverty." - Prof. Yunus

The Grameen Creative Lab's vision is to serve society’s most pressing needs.

The difference between rich and poor is not wealth, but opportunity.

The poor are the world's greatest entrepreneurs. Each day they must innovate in order to survive. They only remain poor because they do not have the opportunities to turn their creativity into sustainable income.

The Grameen Creative Lab believes that the economic system in which we live does not create enough opportunities for the poor. This is because it lacks a vision.

Many of us have grown up in a society that believed in the "invisible hand" and the "trickle-down effect": if we all pursued our own economic interests, society as a whole would benefit, and if there is economic growth, this growth will eventually benefit the poor, too.

While this has been true for some, it has failed others. We want to make it work for everyone.

This means creating a type of business that is not just about private interest but about collective benefit: the health, happiness and security of all and especially the less privileged. This type of business is social business.

The Grameen Creative Lab's mission therefore is to accelerate social business.

We have set ourselves ambitious goals by 2015:

• Create broad awareness for social business
• Establish Grameen as a worldwide brand
• Create movement for social business worldwide
• Establish social business as mainstream university case
• Enable access to corporate knowledge
• Enable access to funding for social business
• Ensure quality control for social business