Iqbal Quadir
Encyclopedia
Iqbal Z. Quadir (born August 13, 1958 in Jessore, Bangladesh
), founder of Gonofone and Grameenphone
. He is currently the Founder and Director of the Legatum
Center for Development and Entrepreneurship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
and member of Advisory Board at Shahjalal University of Science and Technology
. Quadir is also the founding co-editor of Innovations: Technology, Governance, Globalization, a journal published by MIT Press
.
. He received a B.S. with honors from Swarthmore College
(1981), an M.A. (1983) and an M.B.A. (1987) from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania
.
in Washington, D.C., (1983–1985), an associate at Coopers & Lybrand (1987–1989), an associate of Security Pacific Merchant Bank (1989–1991), vice president of Atrium Capital Corporation (1991–1993), and founded Grameenphone
in Bangladesh during 1993-1999. He served in the management and on the Board of Grameenphone during 1996-1999.
Quadir’s vision, which was deemed radical at the time, was to create universal access to telephone service in Bangladesh and to increase self-employment opportunities for its rural poor. In 1993, Quadir started a New York-based company named Gonofone (Bengali for “phones for the masses”), which later became the launch-pad for Grameenphone. Currently the largest telephone company in Bangladesh with nearly sixteen million subscribers, Grameenphone provides telephone access to more than 100 million rural people living in 60,000 villages and generates revenues close to $1 billion annually. With infrastructure investments of more than $1 billion, Grameenphone is providing cellular coverage throughout Bangladesh.
Quadir's vision of a large-scale commercial project led him to organize a global consortium involving Telenor
, Norway’s leading telecommunications company; an affiliate of micro-credit pioneer Grameen Bank
in Bangladesh (winner of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize
); Marubeni Corp. in Japan; Asian Development Bank in the Philippines; Commonwealth Development Corp. in the United Kingdom; and International Finance Corp. and Gonofone in the United States. He attracted these investors by complementing his vision of connecting all of Bangladesh with a practical distribution scheme whereby village entrepreneurs, backed by micro-loans, could retail telephone services to their surrounding communities. In fact, Quadir coined the phrase ‘connectivity is productivity’ to explain the unique impact of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs), particularly mobile telephones, in improving economic efficiency.
Grameenphone’s success has been lauded as a model for a novel approach to improving economic opportunity and connectivity and empowering citizens in poor countries, through profitable investments in technology. According to Economist Jeffrey Sachs
Grameenphone ‘opened the world’s eyes to expanding the use of modern telecommunications technologies in the world’s poorest places.’
From 2001-2005, Quadir served as a fellow at the Harvard's Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government, and at the Center for Business Innovation at Cap Gemini Ernst & Young (now Capgemini
). As a lecturer, he taught graduate-level courses on the effects of technology in developing countries at the John F. Kennedy School at Harvard University. Quadir subsequently moved to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where in 2007 he founded the Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship.
Quadir coined the phrase invisible leg to describe how technological innovations change economies in terms of the distribution of economic and political influence.
. In October 2007, the foundation made its first award to two recipients. In April 2009, Stephen Honan was the winner of the second award. Mr. Honan developed an innovative way to extract arsenic from drinking water and soil http://www.cid.harvard.edu/quadir_prize/docs/quadir_prize_winner_press_release_2008.pdf.
Quadir founded Emergence BioEnergy
, Inc., as an effort to apply his development approach to electricity production in Bangladesh, where 70 percent of the population does not have access to the national electricity grid. This and other current projects (including removing arsenic from water) were featured in an article entitled ‘Power to the people’ in the March 9, 2006 issue of The Economist
. In 2007, Emergence BioEnergy won a Wall Street Journal Asian Innovation Award.
In September 2007, Legatum
, a Dubai-based private investment firm, committed $50 million to the creation of a new Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
led by Quadir. The goal of the Legatum Center is the promotion of bottom-up entrepreneurship in developing countries.
, United Nations
, World Economic Forum
, and Aspen Institute
. In 1999, Quadir was selected Global Leader for Tomorrow by the World Economic Forum based in Geneva, Switzerland. In 2006, he became the 12th recipient of the prestigious Science, Education and Economic Development (SEED) Award from the Rotary Club of Metropolitan Dhaka, for initiating universal telephone coverage to Bangladesh. He appeared on CNN and PBS and was profiled in feature articles in the Harvard Business Review (Bottom-Up Economics, Aug 2003, & Breakthrough Ideas for 2004, Feb 2004), Financial Times, The Economist, and The New York Times, and in several books. In Spring 2007, Wharton Alumni Magazine selected Quadir for its list of 125 Influential People and Ideas. In 2011, he received the honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters from Swarthmore College http://www.swarthmore.edu/x32806.xml and the honorary degree of Doctor of Science from Case Western Reserve University.
The 2007 book You Can Hear Me Now: How Microloans and Cell Phones are Connecting the Worlds Poor To the Global Economy by Nicholas P. Sullivan showcases Quadir’s innovative work in Bangladesh.
Bangladesh
Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...
), founder of Gonofone and Grameenphone
Grameenphone
Grameenphone , widely known as GP, is the leading telecommunications service provider in Bangladesh. With more than 32 million subscribers , Grameenphone is the largest cellular operator in the country...
. He is currently the Founder and Director of the Legatum
Legatum
LEGATUM is a privately owned, international investment organisation, headquartered in Dubai, part of the United Arab Emirates. Legatum's mission is to find ways to generate and allocate the capital and ideas that help people live more prosperous lives....
Center for Development and Entrepreneurship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
and member of Advisory Board at Shahjalal University of Science and Technology
Shahjalal University of Science and Technology
Shahjalal University of Science and Technology, commonly known by its initials SUST, is a state supported public research university located in Sylhet, Bangladesh. It is the first specialized Science & technology University of the country. The medium of instructions is English...
. Quadir is also the founding co-editor of Innovations: Technology, Governance, Globalization, a journal published by MIT Press
MIT Press
The MIT Press is a university press affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts .-History:...
.
Early years
Quadir was born in Jessore, Bangladesh and moved to the United States in 1976 and later became a naturalized U.S. citizen. He passed his Secondary School Certificate from Jhenidah Cadet College, BangladeshBangladesh
Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...
. He received a B.S. with honors from Swarthmore College
Swarthmore College
Swarthmore College is a private, independent, liberal arts college in the United States with an enrollment of about 1,500 students. The college is located in the borough of Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, 11 miles southwest of Philadelphia....
(1981), an M.A. (1983) and an M.B.A. (1987) from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania
Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania
The Wharton School is the business school of the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Wharton was the world’s first collegiate business school and the first business school in the United States...
.
Finance, development, and entrepreneurial success
Quadir served as a consultant to the World BankWorld Bank
The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans to developing countries for capital programmes.The World Bank's official goal is the reduction of poverty...
in Washington, D.C., (1983–1985), an associate at Coopers & Lybrand (1987–1989), an associate of Security Pacific Merchant Bank (1989–1991), vice president of Atrium Capital Corporation (1991–1993), and founded Grameenphone
Grameenphone
Grameenphone , widely known as GP, is the leading telecommunications service provider in Bangladesh. With more than 32 million subscribers , Grameenphone is the largest cellular operator in the country...
in Bangladesh during 1993-1999. He served in the management and on the Board of Grameenphone during 1996-1999.
Quadir’s vision, which was deemed radical at the time, was to create universal access to telephone service in Bangladesh and to increase self-employment opportunities for its rural poor. In 1993, Quadir started a New York-based company named Gonofone (Bengali for “phones for the masses”), which later became the launch-pad for Grameenphone. Currently the largest telephone company in Bangladesh with nearly sixteen million subscribers, Grameenphone provides telephone access to more than 100 million rural people living in 60,000 villages and generates revenues close to $1 billion annually. With infrastructure investments of more than $1 billion, Grameenphone is providing cellular coverage throughout Bangladesh.
Quadir's vision of a large-scale commercial project led him to organize a global consortium involving Telenor
Telenor
Telenor Group is the incumbent telecommunications company in Norway, with headquarters located at Fornebu, close to Oslo. Today, Telenor Group is mostly an international wireless carrier with operations in Scandinavia, Eastern Europe and Asia, working predominantly under the Telenor brand...
, Norway’s leading telecommunications company; an affiliate of micro-credit pioneer Grameen Bank
Grameen Bank
The Grameen Bank is a microfinance organization and community development bank started in Bangladesh that makes small loans to the impoverished without requiring collateral...
in Bangladesh (winner of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize
Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes bequeathed by the Swedish industrialist and inventor Alfred Nobel.-Background:According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize shall be awarded to the person who...
); Marubeni Corp. in Japan; Asian Development Bank in the Philippines; Commonwealth Development Corp. in the United Kingdom; and International Finance Corp. and Gonofone in the United States. He attracted these investors by complementing his vision of connecting all of Bangladesh with a practical distribution scheme whereby village entrepreneurs, backed by micro-loans, could retail telephone services to their surrounding communities. In fact, Quadir coined the phrase ‘connectivity is productivity’ to explain the unique impact of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs), particularly mobile telephones, in improving economic efficiency.
Grameenphone’s success has been lauded as a model for a novel approach to improving economic opportunity and connectivity and empowering citizens in poor countries, through profitable investments in technology. According to Economist Jeffrey Sachs
Jeffrey Sachs
Jeffrey David Sachs is an American economist and Director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University. One of the youngest economics professors in the history of Harvard University, Sachs became known for his role as an adviser to Eastern European and developing country governments in the...
Grameenphone ‘opened the world’s eyes to expanding the use of modern telecommunications technologies in the world’s poorest places.’
From 2001-2005, Quadir served as a fellow at the Harvard's Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government, and at the Center for Business Innovation at Cap Gemini Ernst & Young (now Capgemini
Capgemini
Capgemini is a French global IT services company, one of the world's largest management consulting, outsourcing and professional services companies with a staff of 114,274 operating in 40 countries. It is headquartered in Paris and was founded in 1967 by Serge Kampf, the current chairman, in...
). As a lecturer, he taught graduate-level courses on the effects of technology in developing countries at the John F. Kennedy School at Harvard University. Quadir subsequently moved to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where in 2007 he founded the Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship.
Quadir coined the phrase invisible leg to describe how technological innovations change economies in terms of the distribution of economic and political influence.
Current Projects
In 2004, he founded, with his siblings, the Anwarul Quadir Foundation to promote innovations for Bangladesh. In 2006, the foundation established a $25,000 global essay competition, the Quadir Prize, through the Center for International Development at Harvard UniversityHarvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
. In October 2007, the foundation made its first award to two recipients. In April 2009, Stephen Honan was the winner of the second award. Mr. Honan developed an innovative way to extract arsenic from drinking water and soil http://www.cid.harvard.edu/quadir_prize/docs/quadir_prize_winner_press_release_2008.pdf.
Quadir founded Emergence BioEnergy
Emergence BioEnergy
Emergence Bio-Energy Inc. is a Lexington, Massachusetts based startup company focused on providing power generation capabilities to rural farmers and villagers, specifically in Bangladesh...
, Inc., as an effort to apply his development approach to electricity production in Bangladesh, where 70 percent of the population does not have access to the national electricity grid. This and other current projects (including removing arsenic from water) were featured in an article entitled ‘Power to the people’ in the March 9, 2006 issue of The Economist
The Economist
The Economist is an English-language weekly news and international affairs publication owned by The Economist Newspaper Ltd. and edited in offices in the City of Westminster, London, England. Continuous publication began under founder James Wilson in September 1843...
. In 2007, Emergence BioEnergy won a Wall Street Journal Asian Innovation Award.
In September 2007, Legatum
Legatum
LEGATUM is a privately owned, international investment organisation, headquartered in Dubai, part of the United Arab Emirates. Legatum's mission is to find ways to generate and allocate the capital and ideas that help people live more prosperous lives....
, a Dubai-based private investment firm, committed $50 million to the creation of a new Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
led by Quadir. The goal of the Legatum Center is the promotion of bottom-up entrepreneurship in developing countries.
Recognition
Quadir's work has been recognized by leaders and organizations worldwide, with invitations to speak at many forums, including the World BankWorld Bank
The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans to developing countries for capital programmes.The World Bank's official goal is the reduction of poverty...
, United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
, World Economic Forum
World Economic Forum
The World Economic Forum is a Swiss non-profit foundation, based in Cologny, Geneva, best known for its annual meeting in Davos, a mountain resort in Graubünden, in the eastern Alps region of Switzerland....
, and Aspen Institute
Aspen Institute
The Aspen Institute is an international nonprofit organization founded in 1950 as the Aspen Institute of Humanistic Studies. The organization is dedicated to "fostering enlightened leadership, the appreciation of timeless ideas and values, and open-minded dialogue on contemporary issues." The...
. In 1999, Quadir was selected Global Leader for Tomorrow by the World Economic Forum based in Geneva, Switzerland. In 2006, he became the 12th recipient of the prestigious Science, Education and Economic Development (SEED) Award from the Rotary Club of Metropolitan Dhaka, for initiating universal telephone coverage to Bangladesh. He appeared on CNN and PBS and was profiled in feature articles in the Harvard Business Review (Bottom-Up Economics, Aug 2003, & Breakthrough Ideas for 2004, Feb 2004), Financial Times, The Economist, and The New York Times, and in several books. In Spring 2007, Wharton Alumni Magazine selected Quadir for its list of 125 Influential People and Ideas. In 2011, he received the honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters from Swarthmore College http://www.swarthmore.edu/x32806.xml and the honorary degree of Doctor of Science from Case Western Reserve University.
The 2007 book You Can Hear Me Now: How Microloans and Cell Phones are Connecting the Worlds Poor To the Global Economy by Nicholas P. Sullivan showcases Quadir’s innovative work in Bangladesh.
External links
- Iqbal Z. Quadir’s MIT Page
- MIT Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship
- Iqbal Quadir Connects His Classroom to the Lessons of Village Entrepreneurs
- “Strengthening the Hands of Citizens”: Iqbal Quadir talks about the GrameenPhone Story
- You Can Hear Me Now Official Book Website
- “How one new company brought hope to one of the world’s poorest countries.” Ode Magazine
- Iqbal Z. Quadir. The Bottleneck Is At the Top of the Bottle. Fletcher Forum of World Affairs Vol. 26(2) Summer/Fall 2002
- Video of Iqbal Quadir discussing the impact of bringing cell phone service to rural areas. Recorded July 2005 in Oxford, UK. (Duration 16:37)
- Anwarul Quadir Foundation
- Official Quadir Prize: Global Essay Competition Webpage at Harvard University
- Differing Visions" Boston Globe, November 18, 2007
- Canadian Broadcast Corporation Sunday - Bangladesh Calling - March 2008
- “A bottom-up plan to turn Bangladesh's economy upside-down Iqbal Quadir wants to help the rural poor” Boston Globe, March 24, 2008
- BBC Radio Panel Discussion on Mobile Banking - May 2008