Condom King kicks of Business Week

Business Week kicked off Sept. 13, with a speech by Mr. Mechai Viravaidya. An entrepreneur from Thailand and more commonly known as "The Condom King," Viravaidya is hailed for reducing his home country's average number of children per family from seven in 1974 to 1 1/2 in 2000.  Thailand's population growth rate was simultaneously cut from 3.3 percent to 0.5 percent.

According to the World Bank, Viravaidya's HIV and AIDS awareness efforts are also responsible for saving 7.7 million lives in Thailand. Viravaidya's lofty position as one of Time magazine's "Asian Heroes" and The Condom King's earning of the Bill and Melinda Gates Award for Global Health are two examples of the outstanding recognition Viravaidya has garnered for his devotion to his cause.

The Condom King has worked incessantly to desensitize family planning issues, through recreating board games and song lyrics to center around contraceptives, and holding "Miss Condom" pageants and condom-blowing competitions in schools. When sex was a more taboo topic, Viravaidya bravely evaded school and government officials to train nurses, shopkeepers, teachers and even young students to prescribe birth control pills or hand out condoms on the streets.

While Cabbages and Condoms began as a hole-in-the-wall establishment where Viravaidya and his co-workers could "get a beer after work" while fundraising for his safe-sex campaigns, the store quickly expanded into a 14-restaurant chain. Two new locations will soon be opened in England and Japan. Viravaidya's ultimate goal was to use humor as the means to spread safe-sex practices.

After a rousing lecture to a full house of students, The Condom King offered his final words of advice for young entrepreneurs: "Never do anything alone. Think outside the box. Take ‘no' as a question, and not as an answer. And finally, it is always easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission."