Nadia Lopez is the founding principal of Mott Hall Bridges Academy, where she is showing the world how underprivileged communities can beat the odds and create positive institutions that have a global impact.

Through blended courses Anant Agarwal is pairing online education with face-to-face student-faculty interactions, reshaping the university campus experience.

Diane Wolk-Rogers has been a Florida public school teacher for more than three decades.

As a high school chemistry teacher, Ramsey Musallam expands curiosity in the classroom through multimedia and new technology.

Inspired by Mister Rogers, Sara DeWitt strives to make every child feel special by charting the forefront of new digital mediums where kids spend their time.

Rita F. Pierson spent her entire life in or around the classroom, having followed both her parents and grandparents into a career as an educator.

Stuart Firestein teaches students and “citizen scientists” that ignorance is far more important to discovery than knowledge.

Kandice Sumner thinks we've been looking at the "achievement gap" in education all wrong.

Despite an attack on his daughter Malala in 2012, Ziauddin Yousafzai continues his fight to educate children in the developing world.

Pearl Arredondo helped establish a pilot middle school that teaches students to be good communicators in the 21st century.

Shabana Basij-Rasikh helps girls and young women in Afghanistan get an education.

Through education and technology-focused community centers, Aleph Molinari empowers the 5 billion people who cannot access or use the Internet and other technologies.

With Coursera, Daphne Koller and co-founder Andrew Ng are bringing courses from top colleges online, free, for anyone who wants to take them.

Shai Reshef wants to democratize higher education.

Dr. Kakenya Ntaiya is the founder and president of Kakenya's Dream, an international nonprofit organization leveraging education to empower girls, end harmful traditional practices and transform communities in rural Kenya.

Ramona Pierson develops tools to revolutionize learning management and assessment systems -- her fourth career after aviation, neuropsychology and software development.

As the co-founder of Reverb Technologies, the maker of the online dictionary Wordnik, Erin McKean is reshaping how we interact with language itself.

Taylor Mali is one of the most well-known poets to have emerged from the poetry slam movement and one of the few people in the world to have no job other than that of poet.

Ayah Bdeir is an engineer and artist, and is the founder of littleBits and karaj, an experimental art, architecture and technology lab in Beirut.

Tyler DeWitt recognizes that textbooks are not the way to get young people interested in science. Instead, he teaches science by making it fun and fantastical.

At the University of Pennsylvania, Angela Lee Duckworth studies intangible concepts such as self-control and grit to determine how they might predict both academic and professional success.

Ben Ambridge is the author of "Psy-Q," a sparkling book debunking what we think we know about psychology.

Peter Doolittle is striving to understand the processes of human learning.

ShaoLan want to help people understand China's culture and language, and to bridge the gap between East and West.

Jewelry designer John Hardy co-founded the extraordinary Green School in Bali, where kids get a holistic and green education.

In 2004, Sal Khan, a hedge fund analyst, began making math tutorials for his cousins. Twelve years later, Khan Academy has more than 42 million registered users from 190 countries, with tutorials on subjects from basic math through economics, art history, computer science, health, medicine and more.

After a much-awarded career as a film producer, Lord David Puttnam now works at the intersection of education, media and policy.

In his 12th-grade Sexuality and Society class, Al Vernacchio speaks honestly and positively about human sexuality.

At the Afghan Institute of Learning, Sakena Yacoobi provides teacher training to Afghan women, supporting education for girls and boys throughout the country.

With his philanthropic work, John Legend is leveraging his stardom to raise social consciousness and make a positive impact on a global scale.