Having children made us look differently at all these things that we take for granted, like taking your child to get a vaccine against measles or polio.

Everyone agrees that the failure of our high schools is tragic. It's bad business, and it's bad policy. But we act as if it can't be helped. It can be helped. We designed these high schools; we can redesign them.

In the developing world, it's about time that women are on the agenda. For instance, 80 percent of small-subsistence farmers in sub-Saharan Africa are women, and yet all the programs in the past were predominantly focused on men.

Women are the centre of the family. It's the woman who decides what's eaten in the house, when to have the kids vaccinated; everything that has to do with the children's health revolves around her.

It's really one of my all-time favorite things to do. To go out and really see the kids and visit the moms who are in these programs because I think I really get to see what happens on the ground and connect with them about what changes are that happen in their lives because of some of the giving that we're able to do.

I learn in a different way. I learn experientially.

When we better understand the realities of these women's lives, we are able to design and deliver solutions that are more useful to them.