Iqbal Quadir

Iqbal Quadir
BornAugust 13, 1958 (1958-08-13) (age 67)
Jessore, Bangladesh
EducationSwarthmore College (BS)University of Pennsylvania (MA, MBA)
Known forFounder of Grameenphone
RelativesKamal Quadir (Brother)

Iqbal Quadir (born 13 August 1958) (Bengali: ইকবাল জেড. কাদীর) is a Bangladeshi-American entrepreneur and academic, known for founding the telecommunications company Grameenphone and for his work on development-oriented technology initiatives.[1][2]

In the 1990s, Quadir initiated and helped establish Grameenphone, a mobile telecommunications company in Bangladesh that expanded telephone access beyond urban centers.[3] According to The Economist, Quadir is described as an early participant in the global mobile telecommunications expansion, noting his focus on mobile device usage in low-income regions.[4]

He served as a Research Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government for four years, where he conducted research on how emerging technologies influence governance and economic development in low- and middle-income countries.[5] In 2007, he established the Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship at MIT and serves as its director.[6] In 2006, he co-founded the journal Innovations (published by MIT Press) and remains an editor.

Early life and education

Quadir was born in Jessore, Bangladesh. He moved to the United States in 1976 and later became a naturalized U.S. citizen. He completed his Secondary School Certificate from Jhenidah Cadet College, Bangladesh.

Quadir received a Bachelor of Science with honors from Swarthmore College (1981), followed by a Master of Arts (1983), and a Master of Business Administration (1987), from the final two from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.[7]

His brother, Kamal Quadir, is also a Bangladeshi-American entrepreneur and artist.

Career

Five Nobel Laureates in Economics graced the inauguration of the Legatum Center in 2008. There was a panel discussion moderated by Quadir that involved four laureates. From left to right, Eric Maskin, Lawrence Klein, moderator Quadir, Robert Merton and Edmund Phelps.[8]
Quadir after a dinner meeting with Nelson Mandela in 2000 in the Carter Center in Atlanta.

Quadir served as a consultant to the World Bank in Washington, D.C. (1983–1985), an associate at Coopers & Lybrand (1987–1989), an associate at Security Pacific Merchant Bank (1989–1991), and vice president of Atrium Capital Corporation (1991–1993).

In 1993, Quadir began efforts to broaden mobile telephone access in rural Bangladesh by integrating telecommunications deployment with microfinance and local enterprise partnerships. As part of this effort, he founded a New York-based company called Gonofone.[9] (Bengali for "phones for the masses"). Then, he organized a global consortium including Norway's Telenor telecommunications; an affiliate of micro-credit pioneer Grameen Bank in Bangladesh; Marubeni Corp. in Japan; Asian Development Bank in the Philippines; Commonwealth Development Corporation in the United Kingdom; and International Finance Corporation and Gonofone in the United States. The initiative aimed to provide telecommunications access through a model in which village entrepreneurs, supported by micro-loans, offered phone services in their local areas.[10][11][12] Economist Jeffrey Sachs praised the Grameenphone initiative for demonstrating the potential of telecom expansion in low-income regions.[13]

From 2001 to 2005, Quadir served as a Fellow at Harvard's Kennedy School and taught graduate-level courses on technology in developing countries. At the same time, he was also a Fellow at the Center for Business Innovation at Cap Gemini Ernst & Young (now Capgemini).

In 2005, Quadir went to MIT. In 2007, he started the Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship, which offers resources and programming to MIT students focused on entrepreneurship in developing countries. Quadir is no longer associated with the Legatum Center.

Quadir coined the phrase 'invisible leg' to describe how technological innovations change economies in terms of the distribution of economic and political influence.[14][15]

To apply his development approach to electricity production in Bangladesh—where 70% of the population does not have access to the national electricity grid—Quadir founded Emergence BioEnergy, Inc., in 2006. This project and another one (namely, removing arsenic from water) were featured in an article titled "Power to the people[16]" in the 9 March 2006 issue of The Economist. In 2007, Emergence BioEnergy won a Wall Street Journal Asian Innovation Award.[17] After a decade of working on developing these projects, he became dissatisfied and shut them down.

Current projects

In 2009, Quadir and his brother Kamal were among the cofounders of bKash, a mobile financial services provider in Bangladesh with more than 70 million subscribers.

In 2004, he and his siblings founded the Anwarul Quadir Foundation to promote innovations in Bangladesh. In 2006, the foundation established a $25,000 global essay competition, the Quadir Prize, through the Center for International Development at Harvard University.[18] In October 2007, the foundation made its first award to two recipients.[19] In April 2009, Stephen Honan developed a method to extract arsenic from water and soil, which won the Quadir Prize in 2009.[20]

Recognition

In 1999, Quadir was selected for the World Economic Forum's Global Leader for Tomorrow program. In 2006, he received the Science, Education and Economic Development (SEED) Award from the Rotary Club of Metropolitan Dhaka for his work in telecommunications development in Bangladesh. He appeared on CNN and PBS and was profiled in feature articles in the Harvard Business Review (Bottom-Up Economics, Aug 2003, & Breakthrough Ideas for 2004, Feb 2004), Financial Times, The Economist, and The New York Times, and in several books. In the Spring of 2007, The Wharton Alumni Magazine included Quadir in its list of 125 Influential People and Ideas.[21] In 2011, he received the honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters from Swarthmore College[22] and the honorary degree of Doctor of Science from Case Western Reserve University.

He serves as the chairman of the judging panel for the Legatum FORTUNE Technology Prize, which awards $1 million to individuals or organizations recognizing initiatives that contribute to technological or economic development in low-income countries.

See also

References

  1. ^See Quadir, Iqbal Z. ‘Entrepreneurship Training for the Developing World.’ Science. March 23, 2012. Page 1445; and Quadir, Iqbal Z. ‘The Entrepreneurial Gardeners.’ Science. June 12, 2015. Page 1179.
  2. ^"Iqbal Z. Quadir". www.carnegiecouncil.org. Retrieved 6 March 2025.
  3. ^"How GrameenPhone Was Created - Future Startup". 24 October 2019. Retrieved 20 March 2025.
  4. ^"An industry pioneer on the under-appreciated benefits of the global mobile revolution". The Economist. ISSN 0013-0613. Retrieved 9 November 2025.
  5. ^"Iqbal Z. Quadir". www.carnegiecouncil.org. Retrieved 20 March 2025.
  6. ^Clark, Andrew (21 May 2008). "School aims to seed the world with business sense". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 10 October 2023.
  7. ^"Quadir, Iqbal | SAGE Publications Inc".
  8. ^Anderson, Scott (8 October 2008). "Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship Launches". NextBillion. Retrieved 25 March 2025.
  9. ^Isenberg, Daniel J., et al. 'Iqbal Quadir, Gonofone, and the Creation of GrameenPhone (Bangladesh).' Harvard Business School. March 12, 2007.
  10. ^Quadir, Iqbal Z. 'For the poor, connectivity means economic opportunity' in The Wireless Internet Opportunity for Developing Countries by Wireless Internet Institute, United Nations. 2003. Page 27.
  11. ^He's Got Connections. Wharton Entrepreneurial Programs. GetItStarted. Fall 2004.
  12. ^Department, ADB Independent Evaluation (4 March 2013). "Bangladesh: Grameenphone Telecommunications Project and Grameenphone Telecommunications Expansion Project". www.adb.org. Retrieved 13 June 2025.
  13. ^Sachs, Jeffrey. The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time. New York: Penguin. 2005. Page 264.
  14. ^Quadir, Iqbal Z. ‘The Bottleneck Is At the Top of the Bottle.’ The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs Vol. 26(2) Summer/Fall 2002. Page 10.
  15. ^"Power to the people". The Economist. 9 March 2006. p. 37.
  16. ^"Power to the people". The Economist. ISSN 0013-0613. Retrieved 16 July 2025.
  17. ^Wagstaff, Jeremey (14 November 2007). "Creating Empowerment". The Wall Street Journal.
  18. ^"The Anwarul Quadir Prize of 2008 - Global Essay Contest for Bangladesh". Center for International Development at Harvard University. Archived from the original on 15 December 2012.
  19. ^KSG, Quadir award prize for innovations in BangladeshArchived 2 May 2008 at the Wayback Machine, Harvard University Gazette website.
  20. ^"Prize for Innovations in Bangladesh Awarded by Harvard University's Center for International Development and the Anwarul Quadir Foundation"(PDF). Center for International Development at Harvard University (Press release). Archived from the original(PDF) on 22 December 2009.
  21. ^"125 Influential People and Ideas". Wharton Alumni Magazine. Archived from the original on 5 February 2008.
  22. ^"David Bradley '75, David Kennedy '80, and Iqbal Quadir '81 to Receive Honorary Degrees at Swarthmore's 139th Commencement". Swarthmore College. Archived from the original on 13 April 2011.
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