It's been said that when an elder dies, it's as if a library is burned. Anthropologist Elizabeth Lindsey, a National Geographic Fellow, collects the deep cultural knowledge passed down as stories and lore.

Elizabeth Lindsey is a fellow of the National Geographic Society. Her mission: to keep ancestral voices alive by recording indigenous wisdom and traditions.

Elizabeth Kapu'uwailani Lindsey wants the world to remember the people who came before us.

The actor-turned-anthropologist has made it her mission to find, preserve and share the knowledge and traditions of indigenous populations before they disappear.

She’s working with Google to create a geospatial Map of the Human Story, using the indigenous science of wayfinding to chart tales at risk of being lost.

The debate over foreign aid often pits those who mistrust "charity" against those who mistrust reliance on the markets. Jacqueline Novogratz proposes a middle way she calls patient capital, with promising examples of entrepreneurial innovation driving social change.

Jacqueline Novogratz founded and leads Acumen Fund, a nonprofit that takes a businesslike approach to improving the lives of the poor.

In her new book, The Blue Sweater, she tells stories from the new philanthropy, which emphasizes sustainable bottom-up solutions over traditional top-down aid.

One of the most innovative players shaping philanthropy today, Jacqueline Novogratz is redefining the way problems of poverty can be solved around the world.

Drawing on her past experience in banking, microfinance and traditional philanthropy, Novogratz has become a leading proponent for financing entrepreneurs and enterprises that can bring affordable clean water, housing and healthcare to poor people so that they no longer have to depend on the disappointing results and lack of accountability seen in traditional charity and old-fashioned aid.

Confronted with the fact that a dress she wore on a fashion shoot in India could have sustained an entire Indian family for several years, fashion model Monja Wolf decided to do something.

She founded Monyati Initiatives (monyati is an arabic word meaning "a little wish that is close to your heart"), a non-profit organization that "specialize in strategy and project development for non-government organizations.

Of her most recent venture to build homes in the slums of Sao Paulo she says:

"It was an incredible and very successful initiative. We took a trip down to Brazil, visited the beneficiary families in their old homes and constructed their new houses together with the families and 600 volunteers. Enjoy reading the presentation...and in the meantime please note that we still collect funds for our latest initiative -- a hand dug well in Ethiopia."

Media and advertising companies still use the same old demographics to understand audiences, but they're becoming increasingly harder to track online, says media researcher Johanna Blakley.

As social media outgrows traditional media, and women users outnumber men, Blakley explains what changes are in store for the future of media.

Johanna Blakley studies the impact of mass media and entertainment on our world.

As the Deputy Director of the Norman Lear Center (a media-focused think tank at the University of Southern California) Johanna Blakley spends much of her time exploring how our entertainment interacts with our political, commercial and social habits.

She is especially interested in the surprising impact of intellectual property rights on innovation, organizing conferences around the lack of creative ownership in fashion as well as technology and the ownership of creative content.

In this first-of-its-kind demo, Heather Knight introduces Data, a robotic stand-up comedian that does much more than rattle off one-liners -- it gathers audience feedback (using software co-developed with Scott Satkin and Varun Ramakrishna at CMU) and tunes its act as the crowd responds. Is this thing on?

Heather Knight runs Marilyn Monrobot, which creates socially intelligent robot performances and sensor-based electronic art. (and she helped build the amazing Rube Goldberg machine for OK Go’s “This Too Shall Pass.")

Heather Knight is conducting her doctoral research at the intersection of robotics and entertainment at Carnegie Mellon’s Robotics Institute.

She runs Marilyn Monrobot in New York, where she and her cohort create “charismatic machine performances.”