Chief Adviser Professor Muhammad Yunus on Thursday urged students to avoid contributing to wealth concentration and instead dream of building a new world by abandoning self-destructive practices.
"I feel very comfortable when I visit university campuses. I feel rejuvenated. You are the most powerful generation in human history—I truly believe that. You are the supermen and superwomen," said Prof Yunus, while visiting Qatar University and delivering a speech titled "A World of Three Zeros."
"Keep striving to reach your destination. But above all, you must dream and imagine. You have to have a dream. If you imagine, it helps. Never dismiss the power of imagination," he told the students of Qatar University.
Prof Yunus emphasized his vision of a world with zero poverty, zero unemployment, and zero net carbon emissions—a future he believes this generation can achieve by becoming protectors of the environment and rejecting today’s self-destructive civilization.
Youth leadership in transforming world
On Wednesday, while speaking at an interactive session titled “In Conversation with Professor Muhammad Yunus: Strengthening Youth Leadership in a Transforming World," the chief adviser said the civilization that they have around them is a self-destructive civilization.
"We are not fixing it. We are making it worse every day. It is a self-destructive civilization," he said.
In order to survive, he said, humanity must create a counter-civilization—one that avoids the problems we currently face and enables us to endure.
Prof Yunus emphasized the need to foster an environment where we can live in harmony with nature. “Don’t destroy it; protect it. We must become guardians of the environment,” he added.
“We keep talking about the three zeros. We must stop carbon emissions, or they will lead to our destruction,” Prof Yunus said.
He also warned of new challenges that may arise with the advancement of artificial intelligence. “I won’t go into that now, but I believe that is not the path to building a new civilization.”
Prof Yunus envisioned the new civilization as one driven by entrepreneurship. “I always say that every human being is born as an entrepreneur, not as a job seeker,” he said.
He explained that nature has designed humans to be entrepreneurs—to create, to solve problems, to take initiative, and to use the incredible power of the human mind. “The human mind is an extraordinary force,” he said.
“If you are an entrepreneur, constantly seeking ways to improve things, that is what it means to be truly human,” Prof Yunus concluded.
