Annelies “Anne” Marie Frank was a writer and one of the most discussed Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Born in Frankfurt, her family moved to Amsterdam when she was 4 years old due to wide-spread anti-Semitism in Germany. In 1940, when the Nazis occupied the Netherlands, the freedom Anne and her family had enjoyed for seven years ended abruptly. They spent two years hiding in an annex, during which time Anne wrote extensively as a means of self-expression and self-preservation. Her family was ultimately discovered and sent to concentration camps.

In 1945, mere weeks before the war ended, Anne died at the Bergen-Belsen camp in Germany. Her posthumously published wartime diary, The Diary of a Young Girl, was an intimate and remarkable account of both adolescence and the Holocaust, quickly becoming a war literature classic.

Wangari Maathai was a Kenyan scientist, professor, and environmental and political activist. She founded the Green Belt Movement, a community initiative that seeks to empower women through civic education and environmental stewardship. She was also the first woman in East or Central Africa to earn a doctorate degree. In 2004, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her work on sustainable development, democracy and peace, becoming the first African woman and first environmentalist to receive the prize. 

Dr. Mae Jemison, an American physician, is the first African American female astronaut. She was accepted to NASA’s astronaut training program in 1987. Five years later, she became the first African American woman in space as a science mission specialist aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour. Before her career at NASA, she worked in a Cambodian refugee camp in Thailand and served in the Peace Corps in Sierra Leone and Liberia.

The importance of Wangari's work goes beyond scientific development, reaching mainly female empowerment.