Muhammad Yunus (born in 1940)  He is the founder and the President of the Grameen Bank which provides microcredits (small loans with no collateral) to the poor in Bangladesh. The Bank was opened in 1983 and has since become the biggest microcrediting institution in the world. It now provides services to over 8 million people, 97% of whom are women.
The model developed in Grameen Bank is successfully implemented in other countries.  According to the data provided by the World Bank, in 2008, about 1.4 billion people (which stands for about 280 millions of families), survived beneath the poverty line.  It is estimated that over half of the poorest people in the world have profited from microcrediting used to support their starting businesses. These loans are ostly taken by women. In 2006, Muhammad Yunus and his Grameen Band received the Nobel Peace Prize; it was meant to support the belief of Mr. Yunus and the Bank that poverty is a major threat for the world's peace. The Commitee expressed the view that 

"Every single individual on earth has both the potential and the right to live a decent life". Across cultures and civilizations, Yunus and Grameen Bank have shown that even the poorest of the poor can work to bring about their own development".