Muhammad Yunus was born in 1940 in Bangladesh and received his PhD in economics from Vanderbilt University. During a field trip, he learned that a woman who made bamboo stools struggled to make a profit after taking loans. Inspired, Yunus lent money to 42 people, pioneering microloans. He went on to found Grameen Bank to provide microloans to the poor and in 2006 he and the bank won the Nobel Peace Prize. However, the government later criticized microloans and fired Yunus from his position at Grameen Bank in 2011.