Press Release: Progress Through Innovation Conference 2008
Oct 07, 2008 
Tags: Conference 2008
MIT Legatum Center hosts inaugural conference, Progress Through Innovation
CAMBRIDGE, MA – October 7, 2008 – Today the Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology will host its inaugural conference in the Walker Memorial Building on the campus of MIT. Its line-up of speakers includes an unprecedented gathering of five Nobel Laureates in Economics; award-winning entrepreneurs from Afghanistan, Kenya, and India; Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream; academics and innovators. In total, the day-long event will feature over 20 speakers and panelists and focus on how innovation and bottom-up entrepreneurship can improve the lives of ordinary citizens in low-income countries.
Attendees will celebrate the opening of the Legatum Center and welcome its inaugural class of twelve Legatum Fellows, MIT graduate students who are working on innovative enterprise solutions in low-income countries.
Founded in 2007 with a generous $50 million structured gift from the global investment firm Legatum, the MIT Legatum Center is dedicated to the promotion of prosperity through the empowerment of entrepreneurs. To this end, it runs a competitive fellowship program for MIT graduate students with innovative for-profit enterprise solutions to development challenges in low-income countries. In addition, the Center runs the Legatum Lecture Series, and sponsors Seed Grants for entrepreneurial teams of MIT students who intend to launch enterprises in emerging markets. The Center was founded by serial entrepreneur Iqbal Quadir, whose success with GrameenPhone in Bangladesh has been chronicled by the Economist, New York Times and in the 2007 book "You Can Hear Me Now" by Nicholas Sullivan. According to Quadir, “The Legatum Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is based on the belief that economic development and good governance in low-income countries emerge from entrepreneurship and innovations that empower ordinary citizens.”
Speakers at the 2008 Legatum inaugural conference include:
Nisha Pillai, News Presenter, BBC World
Eric S. Maskin, Professor, Institute of Advanced Study and 2007 Nobel Laureate in Economics
Ben Cohen, Co-founder, Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream
Paul A. Samuelson, Institute Professor Emeritus, MIT, and 1970 Nobel Laureate in Economics
Iqbal Z. Quadir, Founder and Director, Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship, MIT
Phillip L. Clay, Chancellor and Professor of City Planning, MIT
Bengt Holmstrom, Paul A. Samuelson Professor of Economics and Head of the Economics Departments (2003-2006), MIT
Michael F. Maltese, Managing Director, Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship, MIT
Panelists:
International Entrepreneurs
M. Udaia Kumar, Chairman & Managing Director, SHARE Microfinance (India)
Ariff Shamji, Managing Director, AAA Growers (Kenya), and Legatum Pioneers of Prosperity Winner
Eva Wanjiku Muraya, CEO, Color Creations (Kenya)
Karim Khoja, CEO, Roshan (Afghanistan)
Nobel Laureates:
Eric S. Maskin, Professor, Institute of Advanced Study and 2007 Nobel Laureate in Economics
Edmund S. Phelps, Professor, Columbia University and 2006 Nobel Laureate in Economics
Robert C. Merton, Professor, Harvard Business School and 1997 Nobel Laureate in Economics
Lawrence R. Klein, Professor, University of Pennsylvania and 1980 Nobel Laureate in Economics
Bottom-Up Progress
Jean-Pierre Lehmann, Professor and Founding Director, Evian Group, IMD
Ira Jackson, Professor and Dean, Drucker School of Management, Claremont Graduate University
Ed Roberts, Professor of Management Technology and Founder and Chair, Entrepreneurship Center, MIT
The Innovations Frontier:
Antoinette Schoar, Associate Professor, MIT
Charles Cooney, Professor, MIT
William Mitchell, Professor, MIT
Rebecca Henderson, Professor, MIT
For more information about the conference, please visit: http://legatum.mit.edu/conference2008
