5 People Who Are Changing the World & How to Support Them Today

Boyan Slat has been an inventor since birth, and he started The Ocean Cleanup at the insanely young age of 17.  As an inventor and entrepreneur, he’s created technology to solve societal problems. The Ocean Cleanup develops advanced technologies to rid world’s oceans of plastic.  He came up with a system that acts like an artificial coastline, which catches plastic in the ocean with 100% natural powered ocean currents.

Slat is the youngest-ever recipient of UN’s highest environment award and has been recognized as one of the 20 Most Promising Young Entrepreneurs Worldwide (Intel EYE50). Forbes also included him in their 30 under 30 edition in 2016.

You can join the team or donate to The Ocean Cleanup’s efforts HERE. 

Malala Yousafzai, a student and education activist, has done amazing things for girls’ rights and education.  She actually started speaking out publicly about girls’ before she reached her teenage years in Pakistan, after she survived an assassination attempt by the Taliban when she was just 15. Malala then co-founded the Malala Fund, which invests in developing country education leaders and organizations in regions where most girls aren’t able to complete secondary education.  She was the youngest person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014. 

Malala Fund strives to help girls complete 12 years of safe, quality education, without the fear of violence.  Their work also supports girls’ decisions to delay early marriage, while building up their academic and life skills through mentoring programs. 

You can donate HERE to help 130 million girls who are out of school complete the quality education they deserve.  And if you have some time, you must read Malala’s entire story HERE; it’s incredible. 

“For me, charity is practical. It’s sometimes easy, more often inconvenient, but always necessary. It’s the ability to use one’s position of influence, relative wealth and power to affect lives for the better. charity is singular and achievable.” Scott Harrison, the founder and current CEO of charity: water used to be a club promoter in NYC.  After realizing he was faced with “spiritual bankruptcy”, he rediscovered his faith and sought to spend his life helping others.  He hopped aboard a floating hospital service called Mercy Ships, where he put a face to the worlds’ 1.2 billion people living in poverty.  He was changed; he saw the lack of clean water as the common thread to so many of the devastating issues around him, and vowed to help people access clean water around the world. 

Currently, charity: water funds water programs in 24 countries around the world.  With hand-dug wells, rainwater catchments, piped systems and more solutions, it’s able to focus on providing rural communities with clean water.

Anna Stork and Andrea Sreshta co-founded the company,  LuminAID after brainstorming up a solution after the Haiti Earthquake.  You may have seen these LuminAID lights on Amazon; they’re awesome for camping. The girls majorly impressed all of the judges on Shark Tank with them, landing a deal with Mark Cuban after all sharks offered deals. 

But the best part about these lights is that they’re amazing in a time of need, offering long-term lighting solutions for areas without power during an emergency.  LuminAID solar lights pack flat for easy distribution, which makes it exponentially easier on the aid workers during an emergency.

LuminAID lights have been used in more than 70 countries (!) after huge disasters like Hurricane Sandy and the earthquakes in Nepal. 

Check out their Give Life Get Light program HERE.

Peter Diamandis has a passion for space, longevity, and innovation.  He founded the XPRIZE Foundation, which is committed to funding competitions that encourage major technological development that could benefit mankind.  Diamandis is incredible at developing an idea, building leadership teams, developing a vision, and letting them run things.  He’s known for bringing together world class talent around his ideas, and his impact around the world is beyond impressive. Forbes’ article published this week dubbed him ‘the author of technology’s future.’

So what’s this about XPRIZE?  XPRIZE designs and operates large-scale incentive competitions, meaning: million-dollar contests that try to solve a serious problem that plagues the world. An XPRIZE must be a bold and audacious goal, one that seems to be unsolvable. It also must be be “winnable” by a small team, and that could be anyone from industry experts to high school students. Lastly, it must provide vision and hope for a better future. 

Diamandis’ motto is, “The best way to predict the future is to create it yourself” and he sure found a way to incentivize playing our part in the bigger picture. 

Check out the active prizes HERE, and donate HERE to help fund more crazy ideas that could lead to world-size solutions.