Grameen Trust has been using some of these methods at the international dialogue programs, where participants from around the world can meet and interact with the poor and have first hand experience of microcredit operations on the ground. Since 1989, Grameen Trust has successfully organised 47 international dialogue programs. These in turn have produced numerous pilot and action research based microfinance projects that follow the Grameen model.

Vinod Khosla, co-founder of Sun Microsystems and a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers, a venture capital business, attended the 2004 Microcredit Summit held in Dhaka, last February. Leading microcredit practitioners, advocates, educational institutions, donor agencies, international financial institutions, non governmental institutions and others involved with microcredit, gathered at the Summit to promote the best practices in the field and to learn from each other. On 18th of February, Mr. Khosla, along with his wife Neeru Khosla, visited Grameen Bank’s field operations in Bashon, Gazipur, where they attended a center meeting. They met Bank members to learn first hand from their experiences. Mr. Khosla was particularly impressed by Nasima, who started her own poultry farm with a loan from Grameen Bank and now runs the successful business entirely by herself. The diligence and ambitions of these women intrigued the prominent venture financier and he spoke at length with them before taking part in a friendly discussion at the local branch office.

According to a recent article in the New York Times, Mr. Khosla said he intended to invest some of his own wealth as well as time in microfinance projects, though he declined to give specifics about how he will allocate his time and money. In his view, the microfinance initiatives he visited in Bangladesh ran more efficiently than most Silicon Valley organizations. “They have sophisticated algorithms,” he said. “Does the woman own a buffalo? Some chickens? Does she have a toilet in her home? What kind of roofing materials does her home have? Does she bring a shawl to the village meeting?” It was heartening, Mr. Khosla said, to see that the entrepreneurial principles of Silicon Valley applied just as well in rural Bangladesh. “Granted they are not as profitable as Google, but they have the same level of social impact.”

In 2003 Grameen bank initiated the Grameen Bank Gold Cup to be given to the best performing zone of Grameen Bank. The zone is judged on a number of criteria including the profitability of the zone, the amount of savings generated, the volume of micro-enterprise loans, the number of struggling members under their zone, the number of education loans disbursed, among others. The 2004 Gold Cup was won by Grameen Bank's Dhaka Zone. Chittagong and Noakhali Zones were runners up.
Congratulations, Dhaka Zone!

Sixteen-year-old Sharmin Akhtar, daughter of Monwara Begum, a Grameen Bank member from Bogra, won Bangladesh a gold medal in the 10m air rifle event, at the SAF Games which took place in Pakistan in March, 2004. Grameen Bank honored Sharmin and her family at a grand reception held at the Grameen Bank head office recently. At the reception, Professor Yunus announced a two year scholarship for Sharmin. She was also presented with a mobile phone by Grameen Telecom.