Each of us can work to change a small portion of events. And it's in the total of all those acts that the history of this generation will be written.

The time for us to begin innovating and looking for new solutions is now.

Dignity is more important to the human spirit than wealth.

It's about all of us, and the kind of world that we, together, want to live in and share.

As a young woman, I dreamed of changing the world. In my twenties, I went to Africa to try and save the continent, only to learn that Africans neither wanted nor needed saving. Indeed, when I was there, I saw some of the worst that good intentions, traditional charity, and aid can produce.

When we deny the poor and the vulnerable their own human dignity and capacity for freedom and choice, it becomes self-denial. It becomes a denial of both our collective and individual dignity, at all levels of society.

I still feel that the kind of leader I want to be is one that spends time understanding our work in a way that allows me to translate it for policymakers and people who have real access to resources.