bdnews24.com :Bangladesh’s Selima Ahmad has received this year’s Oslo Business for Peace Award along with five global entrepreneurs.Governing Mayor of Oslo Stian Berger Rosland handed the awards to her and other recipients around 8pm Thursday local time at a function held at Oslo City Hall in Norway.Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi introduced the awards ceremony while Business for Peace Foundation Founder and Executive Chairman Per L Saxegaard gave the citation.Ebadi said profit should not be the end line of business. Business leaders should act as ambassadors to establish world peace, she added.Businesspersons should remember that they have responsibilities to the society, she said.The five others who received the award with Selima are Ouided Bouchamaoui of Tunisia, Sir Richard Branson of the United Kingdom, Kesha Kumari Damini of Nepal, Adnan Kassar of Lebanon and Marilyn Carlson Nelson of the United States of America.Nobel Prize winners also received the prestigious award at this hall. Bangladesh’s Muhammad Yunus too received his Nobel Peace Prize here.This is Norway-based Business for Peace Foundation’s sixth awards ceremony which has been endorsed by former UN chief Kofi Annan.Another Bangladeshi businessman, Transcom Group Chairman Latifur Rahman was conferred the prestigious award, in 2012.Selima Ahmad, vice chairperson of the Nitol-Niloy Group, is the third Bangladeshi to have received a coveted award at Oslo City Hall.Before the awards were handed over, senior BBC news presenter Nik Gowing moderated a five-minute tête-à-tête with all 2014 Business for Peace Honourees.Ahmad, draped in a pale blue-green silk sari, was the first to go on stage and share her feelings.Responding to one of Gowing’s questions, she said people of Bangladesh were enthusiastic and brave and they used every opportunity they got to contribute to development.There are, however, discrimination between men and women in Bangladesh, she said, adding that she was working to create more women entrepreneurs.She has focused on helping women in Bangladesh to overcome obstacles in expanding from the micro-entrepreneurship to the next level.Answering another question, a cheerful Ahmad said, “I am the first Bangladeshi woman to receive an award for business at this Oslo City Hall.”She joked: “I want to come back here to receive the Nobel Prize. I will continue my work with that goal in mind.”The two-and-half-hour-long ceremony also included cultural performances. The Business for Peace Foundation, since 2007, has awarded 37 business leaders.In her immediate reaction to bdnews24.com, Selima Ahmad said, “Right now, I’m thinking of all those women entrepreneurs in Bangladesh. Working with them has gotten me this award.””My honour is the honour of all Bangladeshi women entrepreneurs. I’m very happy that I brought this honour to my country.””It’s also reminding me that my responsibility has now increased.”I will continue my work with renewed vigour to ensure that woman entrepreneurs play more significant role in Bangladesh’s economy,” she added.
