I believe that we can create a poverty-free world because poverty is not created by poor people. It has been created and sustained by the economic and social systems that we have designed for ourselves; the institutions and concepts that make up that system; the policies that we pursue.

If we want to help poor people out, one way to do that is to help them explore and use their own capability. Human being is full of capacity, full of capability, it's a wonderful creation, but many people never get a chance to explore that, never know that she or he has that.

The developing world is full of entrepreneurs and visionaries, who with access to education, equity and credit would play a key role in developing the economic situations in their countries.

My greatest challenge has been to change the mindset of people. Mindsets play strange tricks on us. We see things the way our minds have instructed our eyes to see.

Today, if you look at financial systems around the globe, more than half the population of the world - out of six billion people, more than three billion - do not qualify to take out a loan from a bank. This is a shame.

If I could be useful to another human being, even for a day, that would be a great thing. It would be greater than all the big thoughts I could have at the university.

Hunger is the worst form of deprivation of a human being. Although inability to access food is the immediate cause of hunger, the real cause in most of the incidents of hunger is lack of ability to pay for food. If we are looking for ways to end hunger then we should be looking at ways to ensure a reasonable level of income for all