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."

Former journalist turned online media powerhouse, Sue Gardner is the Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit organization behind Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia.

Before joining the Wikimedia Foundation, she ran CBC.CA, the website for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, one of Canada’s most prominent and best-loved cultural institutions (and one of my personal favorites).

I was especially interested in Gardner's talk as I am a HUGE fan and regular supporter of Wikipedia, without which Amazing Women Rock would not be the site it is today.

In this informal interview, Gardner explains how Wikipedia depends on the generosity of "strangers" to stay afloat:

Architect Kate Orff sees the oyster as an agent of urban change. Bundled into beds and sunk into city rivers, oysters slurp up pollution and make legendarily dirty waters clean -- thus driving even more innovation in "oyster-tecture."

Orff shares her vision for an urban landscape that links nature and humanity for mutual benefit.

Kate Orff asks us to rethink “landscape”—to use urban greenspaces and blue spaces in fresh ways to mediate between humankind and nature.

Kate Orff is a landscape architect who thinks deeply about sustainable development, biodiversity and community-based change—and suggests some surprising and wonderful ways to make change through landscape.

Guest blog by executive coach Lynn Harris, author of Unwritten Rules: What Women Need To Know About Leading In Today's Organisations, is one I wished I had written myself. On the other hand, it's also one I wish didn't have to be written at all...

In our privileged world “Feminism” has become a dirty word. For most western young women, to be called a Feminist is an insult.

The future of green is local -- and entrepreneurial. At TEDxMidwest, Majora Carter brings us the stories of three people who are saving their own communities while saving the planet. Call it "hometown security."

Majora Carter redefined the field of environmental equality, starting in the South Bronx at the turn of the century. Now she is leading the local economic development movement across the USA.

Majora Carter is a visionary voice in city planning who views urban renewal through an environmental lens. The South Bronx native draws a direct connection between ecological, economic and social degradation. Hence her motto: "Green the ghetto!"

With her inspired ideas and fierce persistence, Carter managed to bring the South Bronx its first open-waterfront park in 60 years, Hunts Point Riverside Park. Here she is on EcoActivism, more about her after the talk: