SWEDISH SOUTH ASIAN STUDIES NETWORK

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An evening on June 18, 2011 with the Nobel laureate,
Dr. Muhammad Yunus in Stockholm

– Programme for the seminar

On Saturday, June 18, 2011, a seminar followed by Bangla dances and songs was arranged at KTH auditorium at Kista, Stockholm, by KTH and Bangladesh Cultural Organisation in Stockholm, Sweden. The main attraction of the programme was the presence of the Nobel Peace Prize winner, Dr. Muhammad Yunus from Bangladesh. Professors, researchers and students from KTH Royal Institute of Technology and Stockholm University, and many guests mainly, Swedish citizens of Bangladesh origin attended the programme with much enthusiasm.

Dr. Björn Erik Erlandsson welcomed the Nobel laureate Dr. Yunus and all the guests on behalf of the School of Technology and Health, KTH. Later, Dr. Mannan Mridha presented an example of the application of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools for improving the rural health care facilities and enhancing the quality of rural education system that has been completed at a village, Nohata, in Magura, in collaboration with KTH, Grameen Communications, Grameen Phone and BSMM University in Bangladesh.
Modern ICT labs have been developed to promote e-Learning and e-Health activities using broadband connectivity. The rural teachers are being exposed to e-Learning activities to provide interactive, creative and quality education.
The rural health workers are being empowered through e-Health activities such as, Telemedicine consultations through videoconferencing with medical experts. The female health workers are being trained to develop awareness on nutrition and preventive health care issues. The pregnant women and mothers of the infants are being provided with relevant health information in their local language. Easy to access communication platform for connecting the farmers for consultation with the agricultural experts are also being developed.

Dr. Björn Pehrson from KTH presented examples from his work in Africa, and Dr. Rustam Nabiev from Karolinska Institute discussed how the hospitals can be brought to rural patients following the examples of Grameen bank, that brought banks to the poor people in the rural areas.

On behalf of the Bangladesh community in Stockholm, Julie Chowdhury warmly welcomed Dr. Yunus and requested him to explain his latest book about Social Business. According to Prof. Muhammad Yunus, social business is a non-loss, Non-dividend Company designed to address social objectives and the output is to be measured in terms of social benefits and impacts achieved, rather than the traditional way of measuring the economic output.

Later, Bangla dances were performed by school girls of Bangladeshi origin. Monie Khan started to perform singing a Tagore song, and she and Babu Hossen performed modern songs. The cultural function ended with a Bangla folk song again by Monie Khan. We truly appreciate the artists for spontaneously and voluntarily agreeing to perform!

The summer evening ended with a dinner in a friendly atmosphere that was hosted in honour of Dr. Yunus. Representatives from KTH, Karolinska Institute and a large number from Bangladesh community attended the dinner. KTH and all the participants are very thankful to Mr. Fakruddin, Mr. Sawkat, Mr. Moallaim, Mr. Badal Ahmed, Mr Leo Ahmed, Dr. Jahangir Khan and many others for kindly cooperating to organize this beautiful programme in a very peaceful and enjoyable manner.