Ory Okolloh, is one of Africa’s most powerful online activists and legal minds. Born into a poor family who could barely afford to pay her school fee’s she graduated from Harvard Law School Kenya to found Mzalendo.com – a ‘watchblog’ that demands accountability from Kenyan MP’s by monitoring what they do, writes Geraldine Royds.

Thomas Quasthoff, standing just four feet three inches tall, was one of thousands of Thalidomide babies born severely deformed when their mothers took the anti-sickness drug during pregnancy in the 1950s and 60s, writes Vida Adamoli.

He spent his toddler years encased in a sort of plastic shell and his arms are three-fingered flippers. But there is so much more to him than this. Quasthoff’s is a German bass-baritone, a truly inspirational artist with an extraordinary ‘burnished, burgundy-coloured voice’. It is his ability, not his disability, that distinguishes him.

What do the films Syrianna, Good Night and Good Luck and Darfur Now have in common, apart from George Clooney?  They are produced by former eBay President, Jeff Skoll, says Geraldine Royds

As eBay’s first President, he was a key player in the growth of the company from a start-up into an outstanding success with millions of users. When he was 35 years old,  Skoll left the business world with a reported $2 billion in his pocket and began to devote his time and money to charitable causes.

‘…sometimes it's just a trip down the corridor between heaven and hell. It was 3.16pm when Joe's skin turned a duskier shade of pearl and a nurse stopped smiling. When she wheeled him off on a silver trolley to intensive care, and we chased her down the corridor, it was as if she'd taken our insides away.’

Joe was born in 1998 to Nia Wyn and her husband, Alex. Their joy was short-lived, shattered by the revelation that their beautiful son was severely brain damaged. They were told he would be blind and incapable of walking or talking. Even worse, he'd be so retarded he would never recognize them as his parents.

Artist Tyree Guyton has waged a personal war on urban blight, transforming a broken down neighbourhood on Detroit’s East Side street into a living art gallery.

Geraldine Royds looks at The Heidelberg Project. 

Prior to becoming an artist, Tyree Guyton worked as a firefighter, an autoworker and served in the army. Following his stint in the military, Tyree came back to his childhood neighbourhood and was astonished to see that it look like a bombsite.  The area had begun to deteriorate after the 1967 riots in Detroit and seventy five percent of the locals were now on the poverty line. Tyree began The Heidelberg Project partly as a political protest.

On 20 January 2009 Barak Hussein Obama will be inaugurated as the USA's 44th and first African-American President. It is a historical event, not just for America but for the whole world, writes Vida Adamoli

Barak Obama, who accepted the Democratic Party's nomination for President on the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King's ‘I Have a Dream' speech, represents the culmination of a centuries-long struggle. A struggle fought on the battlefields of slavery, civil rights and continuing racial inequality. Many of his supporters see him as a ‘post-racial’ candidate, a man of unity and inclusion, reaching beyond colour to deliver a message of hope and positive change for all people. Here we take a look at some of the trailblazing African-Americans whose achievments made Obama's epoch-making achievement possible.