Engaging in social business is beneficial to a company because it leverages on business competencies to address social issues, involves one-time investment with sustainable results, and produces other positive effects such as employee motivation and improved organizational culture.

A university should not be an island where academics attain higher and higher levels of knowledge without sharing any of this knowledge with its neighbours.

What I learned in school, what I learned in the educational part of my life. Trying to acquire a kind of a bird's eye view. You drive hard and see everything. And that's called education because now you can see everything.

To me, the poor are like Bonsai trees. When you plant the best seed of the tallest tree in a six-inch deep flower pot, you get a perfect replica of the tallest tree, but it is only inches tall. There is nothing wrong with the seed you planted; only the soil-base you provided was inadequate. Poor people are bonsai people. There is nothing wrong with their seeds. Only society never gave them a base to grow on.

When you get a mobile phone it is almost like having a card to get you out of poverty in a couple of years.

I avoid grandiose plans. I start with a small piece that I can do. I go to the root of the problem and then work around it. It's building brick by brick.

We believe that poverty does not belong in a civilized human society. It belongs in museums [...] A poverty-free world might not be perfect, but it would be the best approximation of the ideal.