Moringa is nothing short of a miracle plant. Drought-resistant and capable of growing quickly in a wide variety of poor soils, much of the plant is edible by both humans and livestock.

The leaves have more betacarotene than carrots, more protein than peas, more vitamin C than oranges, more calcium than milk, more iron than spinach, and as much potassium as bananas. The seeds can be eaten like a peanut, or used to create oil. With all of its valuable properties, moringa is being touted as a means to combat malnutrition and poverty in the developing world.

Marissa Mayer joined Google in 1999 as Google's first female engineer and led the user interface and web server teams at that time.She is now Google's Vice President of Search Products & User Experience, having become the youngest woman, at age 33 in 2008, ever to be included on Fortune's Most Powerful Women list (#50).

Listen to this podcast, where Mayer answers questions from the Changemakers community about innovation, women, and the future of technology. "I don't feel like a woman at Google," she says. "I feel like a geek at Google. And that is something that is really wonderful."

As a social studies teacher at a Bronx public high school, Charles Best discovered that teachers who needed learning materials for their students were having to dig into their own pockets to buy them for their classrooms. So he founded DonorsChoose.org, a website that for online, citizen philanthropy where teachers can list what the materials they need, and anyone can chose to donate the requested materials.

What if a child could significantly reduce his chance of developing mental retardation by putting salt on his food? Or if the simple act of eating bread could do more to prevent blindness than any other single intervention?

Imagine a world where every time a pregnant woman eats a tortilla or sprinkles seasoning on her food, she reduces the chances of her unborn child developing a debilitating or fatal birth defect by more than 50 percent. David Dodson founded Project Healthy Children in 2000 to create food fortification programs that improve the health of women and children around the world, every time they eat a meal.