Nobel laureate professor Muhammad Yunus presided over the 3rd convocation of Al Bukhary (social business) University, held in its campus at Alor Setar, Kedah state of Malaysia, recently.

Since its inception, Nobel laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus, has served as the chancellor of the university.

He was involved in designing this social business focused university from its conceptualising phase.

At that time, Prof Yunus conferred degrees in business administration, early education, mass media and communications, and computer studies, to 231 students in presence of over 1,000 people, including the vice-chancellor, graduands, faculty members, seven ambassadors, members of the board of governors and senate, parents and family members.

He also presented awards to students achieving the highest academic honors in various streams, including the Chancellor awards and the inaugural Sharifah Rokia award, named after the name of the university founder Syed Mokhtar Al Bukhary's mother.

Among the students was a young woman from Palestine, Ms Ghufran Zagmuth, who had the Palestinian flag draped around her gown as a protest against the extreme barbarity of the killing civilian population that is being perpetrated in her country, and powerful nations keeping complete silence about it. It was also a protest by the students of AIU for the killing of a fellow student, a very bright second year student named Suleiman Abu Anzar. He was killed in October by sniper fire during the Israeli attack on Palestine. He was visiting from AIU during semester break to meet his family in Gaza to show solidarity. He never got back to his friends at AIU. The whole campus burst into anger against this loss. He was a student of computer sciences.

Expressing his congratulations to the graduating class, Professor Yunus remarked that they are unique in the world and would be the ones to create a new civilisation of peace among all people by demolishing all the walls created by the present civilisation.

Al Bukhary International (Social Business) University, is a not-for-profit private international university with social business principles at its core.

The university fully finances all students, covering travel expenses to and from the campus, residential facilities, food, costs of supportive gadgets, and pocket money to cover incidental costs.

Around 1300 students coming from 60 countries are currently studying at the university.

AIU proudly boasts the largest number of Three Zero Clubs among all universities which have created Three Zero Clubs dedicated to the mission of creating a 3 Zero World: zero net carbon emission, zero wealth concentration, and zero unemployment.