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ROOTED & RISING

Iqbal Quadir

Founder, Grameenphone · Telecoms and development

ROOTSJessore RISINGUSA

He came up with the idea behind Grameenphone and later founded MIT's Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship.

Iqbal Quadir was born in Jessore in 1958. In the 1990s he initiated Grameenphone, which brought mobile phones to millions of Bangladeshis, including village phone ladies who rented calls to their neighbors.

At MIT he founded the Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship in 2007. With his brother Kamal he co-founded Money in Motion, which provided early risk capital to bKash.

He was named a World Economic Forum Global Leader for Tomorrow in 1999 and received an honorary doctorate from Swarthmore College in 2011.

Sources: Wikipedia

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