Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, founder and chairperson of Brac, received an honorary doctoral degree by Princeton University this week.
The university conferred Abed the degree for his outstanding services in tackling poverty and empowering the poor in Bangladesh and globally through Brac.
The citation from Princeton said: “His organizational and leadership skills, combined with his ceaseless commitment to uplifting the less fortunate, have led to innovative and enduring programs in economic development, education and health care. He has created a model of how to have a lasting impact on those in need; he himself is a model of what it means to live one's life in the service of humanity.”
Brac is known as a global leader in alleviating poverty by creating opportunities for the poor to take control of their lives. It has been called one of the most cost-effective nonprofit organisations in the world, using a wide variety of data-driven tools including micro-finance, health-care, education, legal rights and more.
Sir Abed also founded BRAC University, a full-fledged university in Dhaka, Bangladesh, in 2001.
Princeton President Christopher L Eisgruber awarded the degrees to Sir Fazle Hasan along with Madeleine K Albright, former US secretary of state; Herb Kelleher, co-founder of Southwest Airlines; James McPherson, the George Henry Davis 1886 Professor of History, Emeritus, at Princeton; and James West, an inventor and research professor of electrical and computer engineering at Johns Hopkins’ Whiting School of Engineering.
