Malala Yousafzai

This woman got shot in the head because she wanted to go to school.

Born in Pakistan, Malala was raised in a household where education was everything.

Her father, Ziauddin, was an activist who ran the Khushal School, one of the few that welcomed girls.

Her hero? Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan’s first female Prime Minister.

Her dream? To become a doctor.

That changed when the Taliban came.

By 2007, militants took control of her town.

They banned music, TV, and most of all girls’ education.

Schools were bombed and public beatings became common.

At just 11, Malala began blogging for BBC Urdu under the pseudonym Gul Makai.

She documented what it felt like to lose her right to learn and smuggled her pages to a journalist.

Her blog detailed dreams filled with helicopters and fear, school friends disappearing, and classrooms emptying out.

In 2009, she was filmed for a New York Times documentary as the military launched an offensive against the Taliban.

In 2011, she interned at Swat Relief Initiative, trained with Aware Girls, a local feminist group, and got nominated by Desmond Tutu for the International Children’s Peace Prize.

She won Pakistan’s first-ever National Youth Peace Prize that year too.

She became a national voice for education.

And a target.

On October 9, 2012, while riding home from school, a masked gunman boarded her bus and shot her in the head.

She was 15.

She was rushed to the ICU in Pakistan, then airlifted to Birmingham, UK.

Doctors removed the bullet, part of her skull, and reconstructed her face.

She woke up 10 days later.

She couldn’t speak and had partial facial paralysis.

The world rallied.

50 Pakistani clerics issued a fatwa against the Taliban.

Pakistan passed its first Right to Education Bill.

And Malala got back to work.

In 2013, she co-authored “I Am Malala.”

It became an international bestseller.

She addressed the UN on her 16th birthday.

The UN declared it Malala Day.

That same year, she launched the Malala Fund with her father and Shiza Shahid, a fellow Pakistani activist.

Its mission: ensure 12 years of safe, free, quality education for every girl on earth.

Malala Fund began investing directly in local education advocates across Nigeria, Brazil, India, Afghanistan, and Lebanon.

She traveled to refugee camps.

Met displaced girls.

Pressured governments.

Donated $50,000 of her Nobel prize money to rebuild schools in Gaza.

And even confronted Barack Obama in the Oval Office about drone strikes fueling extremism.

In 2014, she became the youngest-ever recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, at just 17.

She got into Oxford, graduated with a degree in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics in 2020, and started producing media.

In 2021, she signed a multi-year deal with Apple TV+.

And she’s now executive producer of documentaries, animations, and dramas... including a Broadway musical she co-produced with Hillary Clinton.