First Woman to Argue in Front of the Supreme Court
(October 24, 1830 – May 19, 1917) Belva Anne Bennett
Lockwood was an American attorney, politician, educator, and author. She was
active in working for women's rights. The press of her day referred to her as a
"suffragist," someone who believed in women's suffrage or voting
rights. Lockwood overcame many social and personal obstacles related to gender
restrictions. After college, she became a teacher and principal, working to
equalize pay for women in education. She supported the movement for world peace,
and was a proponent of temperance.
Lockwood graduated from law school in Washington, D.C. and
became one of the first female lawyers in the United States. In 1879, she
successfully petitioned Congress to be allowed to practice before the United
States Supreme Court, becoming the first woman attorney given this privilege.
Lockwood ran for president in 1884 and 1888 on the ticket of the National Equal
Rights Party and was the first woman to appear on official ballots, doing so
before she herself could vote.
Side note:
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote the forward for a
biography about Lockwood published in 2007. (http://legalhistoryblog.blogspot.com/2007/04/ruth-bader-ginsburg-on-lockwood-and.html)
Tom Szaky is an eco-entrepreneur, known for starting
TerraCycle, a company that makes eco-friendly, affordable consumer products
from waste.
Tom's first successful business was a Web design company
named "Flyte Design," which Tom started at age 14. In 2001, Tom
matriculated to Princeton University, and in his second year, took a leave to
work full time on TerraCycle, which had started as a two man project in a dorm
room. Today, the company has over 100 employees worldwide, operates in fifteen
different countries, collects over 40 different waste streams, and has created
hundreds of upcycled and recycled products.
Tom has written a book about TerraCycle and its development
titled "Revolution in a Bottle," and TerraCycle has been featured on
the National Geographic mini-series "Garbage Moguls."
As a Princeton freshman, Tom and a friend fed leftovers from
the university cafeteria to an army of worms and harvested the worm compost, or
Worm Poop as it is fondly known, and liquefied it into a completely organic,
ultra-effective fertilizer. When it came time to package and sell the
fertilizer, the two boys could not afford to buy packaging, so they turned to
used soda bottles they collected from recycling bins, unwittingly creating the
world's first product made from and packaged entirely in waste.
In 2002, Tom took a leave of absence from Princeton to
dedicate himself full-time to TerraCycle. One year in, on the verge of
bankruptcy, Tom turned down a million dollar grand prize from the Carrot
Capital Business Plan because the investors wanted TerraCycle to become less
focused on being environmentally responsible.
Even without the investor’s money, TerraCycle had its
breakthrough in 2004, selling its little-known fertilizer to The Home Depot and
Walmart - two of the world’s biggest retailers. Today, after doubling in size
for four straight years, TerraCycle occupies a 20,000 sq. ft. factory in an
Urban Enterprise Zone in Trenton, NJ, where it employs over 20 workers in its
labor force and is a second chance employer as part of its pledge to being
socially beneficial.
A decade later, TerraCycle has grown from a two-man, dorm
room operation to an international leader in the field of eco-capitalism and
upcycling and TerraCycle continues to make an effort to prove to the world that
you can make a difference and a profit at the same time. However, after years
of being in business, Tom realized it would take more than an army of worms to
change the world. Tom realized the revolutionary idea they discovered was not
Worm Poop, but using waste materials to make products that are both sustainable
and affordable.
The collection program, known as the Brigade program, was
launched in 2007 with TerraCycle's first partner, organic beverage manufacturer
Honest Tea. For every piece of trash that TerraCycle receives, the collection
Brigade is rewarded with two points, which can be put towards charity gifts
such as a donation to charity:water or Feeding America, or converted to cash
and donated to a charity of the participant's choice.
In 2009, TerraCycle began to take its successful Brigade
programs overseas, launching with Kraft Foods in the United Kingdom, Canada and
Mexico and with PepsiCo and Kraft Foods in Brazil. During 2010, the company
expanded to France, Germany, Argentina, and Sweden. In 2011, TerraCycle has
launched in Switzerland, Israel, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Holland,
Luxembourg, and Italy.
Inc. Magazine’s annual ranking of the fastest growing
private companies in America listed TerraCycle in the top 200 in 2010, moving
from the 288th spot, and was also listed in the top 10 consumer goods
companies. In 2011, TerraCycle ranked in the top 50 consumer goods companies
and at #928 on the Inc 5000 list.
Today, TerraCycle partners with major consumer goods
manufacturers such as Kraft Foods, Frito-Lay, Mars, Kashi, Kimberly-Clark, SC
Johnson, Nestle, L’Oreal and many more to run a comprehensive network of
individuals, schools and organizations who get paid to help collect
non-recyclable packaging. TerraCycle and its partners pay two cents per unit of
returned packaging and the collected material is combined with other waste
streams and recycled into a wide range of consumer products such as flowerpots.
Some of the packaging is upcycled into tote bags, notebooks, backpacks, and
lunchboxes.
TerraCycle products have been sold at retailers including
The Home Depot, Walmart, RadioShack, Best Buy, Toys 'R Us, Whole Foods Market,
OfficeMax, Petco, Urban Outfitters, and Target.
Over 70,000 locations and 22 million participants help
TerraCycle to collect their trash and save it from the landfill. Over 2 billion
pieces of pre- and post- consumer packaging have been collected, over 2 million
dollars have been donated to schools and non-profits.
Jessica Jackley is an American businesswoman and
entrepreneur.
Jackley was the co-founder and CEO of ProFounder, a platform
that provided tools for small business entrepreneurs in the United States to
access start-up capital through crowdfunding and community involvement.
Prior to ProFounder, Jackley was co-founder and Chief
Marketing Officer of Kiva, the world's first p2p microlending website. Jackley
and Matt Flannery founded Kiva Microfunds in October 2005. Kiva is an
organization that allows people to lend money to small local businesses in
developing countries and in the United States. Named as one of the top ideas in
2006 by the New York Times Magazine, Kiva lets internet users lend as little as
$25 to individual entrepreneurs, providing affordable capital to help them
start or expand a small business. Kiva has been one of the fastest-growing social
benefit websites in history, and since its founding in October 2005, Kiva has
facilitated hundreds of millions in loans among individuals across 209
countries.
Jackley is a Visiting Scholar at Stanford University’s
Center for Philanthropy and Civil Society, and has taught Global
Entrepreneurship at the Marshall School of Business at USC. She is a member of
the Council on Foreign Relations, a 2011 World Economic Forum’s Young Global
Leader, and serves as an active board member on several organizations championing
women, microfinance, tech, and the arts, including Opportunity International,
the International Museum of Women, and Allowance for Good.
Jackley has worked in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda with
Village Enterprise Fund and Project Baobab. Jackley also spent three years in
the Stanford GSB's Center for Social Innovation and Public Management Program,
where she helped launch the inaugural Global Philanthropy Forum.
Jackley holds an M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of
Business, with certificates in Public and Global Management, as well as a B.A.
in philosophy and political science from Bucknell University.
Jackley is a trained yoga instructor and avid surfer. She
lives in Los Angeles with her husband, author Reza Aslan, and their twin sons.
(21 May 1799 – 9 March 1847) Forgotten by history while
Darwin is now a household name, Mary Anning was a British fossil collector,
dealer, and paleontologist who became known around the world for a number of
important finds she made in the Jurassic marine fossil beds at Lyme Regis in
Dorset, where she lived. Her work contributed to fundamental changes that
occurred during her lifetime in scientific thinking about prehistoric life and
the history of the Earth.
Anning searched for fossils in the area's Blue Lias cliffs,
particularly during the winter months when landslides exposed new fossils that
had to be collected quickly before they were lost to the sea. It was dangerous
work, and she nearly lost her life in 1833 during a landslide that killed her
dog, Tray. Her discoveries included the first ichthyosaur skeleton to be
correctly identified, which she and her brother Joseph found when she was just
twelve years old; the first two plesiosaur skeletons ever found; the first
pterosaur skeleton located outside Germany; and some important fish fossils.
Her observations played a key role in the discovery that coprolites, known as
bezoar stones at the time, were fossilised faeces. She also discovered that
belemnite fossils contained fossilised ink sacs like those of modern
cephalopods. When geologist Henry De la Beche painted Duria Antiquior, the
first widely circulated pictorial representation of a scene from prehistoric
life derived from fossil reconstructions, he based it largely on fossils Anning
had found, and sold prints of it for her benefit.
Anning's gender and social class prevented her from fully
participating in the scientific community of 19th-century Britain, dominated as
it was by wealthy Anglican gentlemen. She struggled financially for much of her
life. Her family was poor, and as religious dissenters, was subject to legal
discrimination. Her father, a cabinetmaker, died when she was only eleven years
old.
She became well known in geological circles in Britain,
Europe, and America, and was consulted on issues of anatomy as well as about
collecting fossils, Nonetheless, as a woman, she was not eligible to join the
Geological Society of London and she did not always receive full credit for her
scientific contributions. Indeed, she wrote in a letter: "The world has
used me so unkindly, I fear it has made me suspicious of everyone.” The only
scientific writing of hers published in her lifetime appeared in the Magazine
of Natural History in 1839, an extract from a letter that Anning had written to
the magazine's editor questioning one of its claims.
After her death in 1847, her unusual life story attracted
increasing interest. Charles Dickens wrote of her in 1865 that "[t]he
carpenter's daughter has won a name for herself, and has deserved to win
it."In 2010, one hundred and sixty-three years after her death, the Royal
Society included Anning in a list of the ten British women who have most
influenced the history of science.
(4 June 1985 – 5 June 2011) was a South African
hip hop artist and DJ, as well as one of the world's oldest survivors of
progeria, an extremely rare genetic disease wherein symptoms resembling aspects
of aging are manifested at an early age.
Botha was born in Cape Town, South Africa and lived there
until his death. He was diagnosed with progeria around the age of 4 years. He
had no formal training in art beyond high school courses, but became a
full-time painter after graduation, doing commissioned works.
In 2005, Botha successfully underwent heart bypass surgery
to prevent a heart attack due to progeria-related atherosclerosis. In January
2007, Botha had his first solo art exhibition, entitled "Liquid Sword; I
am HipHop", revolving around hip-hop culture as a way of life. It took
place at the Rust-en-Vrede (which translates to Rest and Peace) gallery in
Durbanville and was opened by Mr Fat of the South African Hip Hop group Brasse
Vannie Kaap. His second solo exhibition opened in March 2009 and featured
pieces of the artist's life. Botha was asked if the title "Liquid Swords;
Slices of Lemon" referred to the adage "If life gives you lemons,
make lemonade." Botha said no, adding, "Lemons? I slice 'em and serve
'em back!"
In January 2010 he hosted the first exhibit of "Who Am
I? ...Transgressions", a photo collaboration with Gordon Clark, at the
João Ferreira Gallery in Cape Town. Botha said of the exhibition, "I am
a spiritual being, the same as you, primarily. Then I'm a human being and this
part of the human being is the body, which has a condition."
Botha was also engaged in deejaying and turntablism under
the name DJ Solarize. He was featured alongside Watkin Tudor Jones, aka
Ninja, in the music video "Enter the Ninja" from Die Antwoord.
In November 2010, Botha suffered a stroke. Botha died from
complications of progeria in Cape Town one day after his 26th birthday.
