Staff Correspondent:

Chief Adviser Professor Muhammad Yunus on Thursday said the young people of the current generation are “super human beings” and they are the most powerful generation in the entire human history.

“I (would) also be very zealous to see the young people. I repeat you are the most powerful generation in the entire human history,” he said while delivering an inspirational speech at Qatar University, focusing on his “Three Zero” theory.

“You look like a human being, like everybody else, but literally you are a superhuman being. You see the movie ‘Superman’…. but you are the supermen and superwomen,” Prof Yunus said.

He said the young people are supermen and superwomen just because they were born at this time.

Claiming that the young people of this generation are exceptional, the Chief Adviser said they inherited all the knowledge and technology and they are in control of them.

“Sometimes I feel like telling you that you are a genie. You look like a human being, but you are the genie,” he said.

The lecture session titled “Building A World of Three Zeros: Zero Net Carbon Emission, Zero Wealth Concentration and Zero Unemployment” was held at the B239 auditorium, Qatar University, this morning.

In his speech, Prof Yunus encouraged the young people to imagine and dream big and turn themselves into ‘three-zero persons’, saying the youth of this generation can do anything faster than any other generation ever.

“This power is there. Question is what…you should be discussing, debating and wondering what should be asked myself, the genie,” he said, adding “If you do not ask, it will never happen.”

He also encouraged the students not to do anything that contributes to wealth concentration, but to dream and imagine creating a new world by leaving self-destructive approaches.

Remembering the similarity between the planet and a spaceship, he asked students not to think of themselves as passengers of this spaceship but to come forward towards protecting the planet from destruction.

“My point is, try to remind you again and again, we are not passengers. We are pilots of this ship. Pilots have a different role and they have responsibilities.”

Prof Yunus, a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, offered his vision of an emerging new economic system that can save humankind and the planet.

“Keep trying to reach the destination. But you must dream and imagine. You have to have a dream,” the Chief Adviser told the Qatar University students. “I say imagination has a huge power.”

“If you imagine, it will happen. If you do not imagine, it will never happen,” he added.

He also encouraged the students to write social fiction apart from science fiction, saying social fiction is what kind of world human beings would like to have together. “If you imagine that social system will emerge.”

Prof Yunus shared his vision of a world of Three Zeros – Zero Poverty, Zero Unemployment, and Zero Net Carbon Emissions.

He described how this generation can become the protector of the environment, getting out of this self-destructive civilisation.

“The civilisation we are going through is a self-destructive civilisation,” the Chief Adviser said, stressing the need for creating a new civilisation by protecting the environment and checking waste generation and carbon emissions.

He urged all to change their lifestyle to protect the planet as the ongoing civilisation will bring environmental disasters.

At the beginning, Prof Yunus was given an honorary award for his outstanding contributions to global humanity.

Foreign Affairs Adviser Md Touhid Hossain, Energy Adviser Fouzul Kabir Khan, High Representative to Chief Adviser and National Security Adviser Khalilur Rahman, SDGs Affairs Principal Coordinator Lamiya Morshed and Chief Adviser’s Press Secretary Shafiqul Alam were, among others, present.