We started our foundation because we believe we have a real opportunity to help advance equity around the world, to help make sure that, no matter where a person is born, he or she has the chance to live a healthy, productive life.

Contraceptives unlock one of the most dormant, but potentially powerful assets in development: women as decision-makers. When women have the power to make choices about their families, they tend to decide precisely what demographers, economists, and development experts recommend. They invest in the long-term human capital of their families.

I realized that the only way to get into a good college was to be valedictorian or salutatorian. So that was my goal.

When girls are educated and free to pursue their passions, they contribute more to a thriving society. When women have a voice, they raise it to demand a life that is greater than what they've been told they have a right to expect. And these demands change the future for everyone.

If you don't have an effective teacher in front of the classroom, you won't change the trajectory for students.

If you can't go to secondary school, the boys get to go and the girls don't, you're locked into a cycle of poverty, because you don't have a chance.

What great changes have not been ambitious?