chicago ideas

Zubaida Bai, mechanical engineer–turned–social entrepreneur with a deep passion for improving the lives of underprivileged women. Founded in 2010, AYZH provides clean birth kits to impoverished women worldwide and aims to reduce the nearly 800 preventable childbirth deaths that occur each day.

Ted Gonder is the co-founding CEO of Moneythink, a movement of young people restoring the economic health of the U.S. through preventative, transformative and evidence-driven youth financial education. Since 2009, Moneythink has trained more than 1,000 college leaders to serve as financial mentors and college role models to over 9,000 teenagers across 10 states.

What were you doing when you were 15? Micaela Connery was launching the first Unified Theater production at her school, and what began as a small social project in her parent’s living room has grown to impact 4,000 students from coast to coast. Hear how she made that magic happen, and what inspired her to start it all.

Adam Lowy’s family has owned a moving company for over 90 years. In 2009, Lowy launched Move For Hunger to mobilize relocation companies to rescue food during the move. To date, Move For Hunger has delivered over 3.5 million lbs of food to food banks.