Today she travels more than 300 days per year, talking to audiences about their power to help other people, animals and the environment. The Jane Goodall Institute, which she founded in 1977, has programs designed to benefit people who are living in poverty in Africa, and to spread the word about the importance of conserving the forests and animal populations.

Dr. Goodall's scores of honors include the Medal of Tanzania, the National Geographic Society's Hubbard Medal, Japan's prestigious Kyoto Prize, Spain's Prince of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research, the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Life Science and the Gandhi/King Award for Nonviolence. In April 2002, Secretary-General Kofi Annan named Dr. Goodall a United Nations Messenger of Peace, and she was reappointed in June 2007 by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. In 2004, in a ceremony at Buckingham Palace, Dr. Goodall was invested as a Dame of the British Empire, the female equivalent of knighthood. In 2006, Dr. Goodall received the French Legion of Honor, presented by the Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, as well as the UNESCO Gold Medal Award.

Chase Pickering
At the age of 15, Chase started a Roots & Shoots group at his high school in Asheville, North Carolina and began to follow his dream of making the world a better place for people, animals and the environment. He will share his story about how Roots & Shoots provided him with the skills, experiences and connections to actively lead and implement community-based projects. His inspiring message, accompanied by engaging photographs, embodies Jane Goodall's most cherished ideal: that each of us, every day, can choose to make a difference.

As the 2006-2007 Roots & Shoots Youth Leadership Fellow, Chase initiated and led a R&S fundraising campaign, which collected more than $50,000 (USD) for a new chimpanzee dormitory at the Jane Goodall Institute's Tchimpounga Sanctuary in the Republic of Congo. The sanctuary - Africa's largest ape sanctuary - cares for young chimpanzees orphaned as a result of the illegal commercial bushmeat trade.

Exceptionally focused, Chase has been involved in wildlife rehabilitation and conservation efforts in his community since he was 12 years old. He holds state and federal wildlife rehabilitation permits. He is also a talented wildlife photographer and hopes that his photographs will serve as a "visual voice" to support wildlife and habitat conservation efforts locally, as well as globally.

Chase was the recipient of the first Jane Goodall Global Youth Leadership Award in 2007. Now 20 years old, Chase is a freshman at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Dan Goodman
Dan Goodman has been a serial entrepreneur since 1970 and in that time has founded and run eleven companies including a manufacturer of assistive devices for people with disabilities, a public-private invention commercialization firm, and the U.S. arm of a Dutch venture capital and science park management firm. He currently sits on the board of directors of companies in diverse industries including specialty toys, energy services, and automotive media, and on the board of advisors of organizations including a brewing company, a videogame trading company and a venture capital firm.

Dan is the Senior felow for renewable Energy at the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business, and an Entrepreneur in Residence at the renowned Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship, where he focuses on social venturing and assisting startups. He is the faculty advisor for the Smith School's Net Impact Board Fellows program, which arranges mutually beneficial consulting relationships between MBA students and the boards of non-profit organizations.

Dan's latest venture is Biodiesel University , a non-profit focused on educating middle-school through college audiences on renewable energy and enviornmental stewardship, and inspiring students to choose careers in science and technology.

Nick Anderson
In the summer of 2007, Nick Anderson traveled to Darfur, Sudan as a youth ambassador for Oxfam America. His mission was to help the international aid agency link youth activists in the United States with teens living in crowded camps for displaced people.

A senior at Northfield Mount Hermon School in Mount Hermon, Massachusetts, Nick co-founded a highly successful fundraising initiative called Dollars for Darfur. The campaign used the social networking sites Facebook and MySpace to raise more than $300,000 (USD) for aid groups working to address the Darfur conflict and its consequences. The project caught the attention of a string of media outlets, including The New York Times, CNN and The Boston Globe. ABC named Nick its Person of the Week.

At his high school, Nick participates in Model United Nations and plays lacrosse.

Henri Landwirth
In faded blue ink, on the inside of Henri Landwirth's left forearm is the tattooed number B4343. This number was his identity when it no longer mattered that he was someone's son, someone's brother and a human being. For Landwirth, this is a permanent reminder of the cruelty of Germany's former Nazi regime.

"It's only a miracle that I am alive today," says Landwirth. He arrived in the United States with just $20 (USD) in his pocket. After serving as an Army draft soldier, he started a career in the hotel industry and continues to be successful in this business today.

A generous philanthropist, Landwirth, along with the original Mercury Seven astronauts, founded the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation. He is also the founder of the Fanny Landwirth Foundation, Give Kids the World, Dignity U Wear and Building for Life.

Landwirth has been asked to carry the Olympic torch twice. He is a former board member for the Jane Goodall Institute and a long-time friend of Dr. Jane Goodall. His life is chronicled in his book, Gift of Life.

"I never had any control over my life as a child," he says. "I think that is what inspired me to do what I'm doing - to thank you for this life I have."

Dr. Chris Kuhar
The Research Manager in Education and Science at Disney's Animal Kingdom, Dr. Chris Kuhar has spent over 10 years conducting animal behavior and animal welfare research in zoos.

Over the past several years, Kuhar has been involved in the design, implementation and evaluation of several conservation education programs, including several programs in Africa. This work has focused on theory-based evaluation and has resulted in several publications focusing on the impact of conservation education on habitat and wildlife.

Kuhar received a master's degree in zoology from Oklahoma State University and a doctorate in psychology from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He currently serves on multiple scientific advisory groups (SAGs) of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA). He has helped evaluate conservation education programs throughout Africa and conservation messaging programs at zoos throughout the United States.

Dr. Tammie Bettinger
Dr. Tammie Bettinger is currently the Senior Research Biologist at Disney's Animal Kingdom, where she leads the Animal Research and Technology Team. She has 20 years of experience working in the field of zoo research and conservation. Bettinger serves on the Cast Conservation Program Committee for Disney's Animal Programs and chairs the Africa subcommittee for the Disney Wildlife Conservation Fund.

Bettinger has a doctorate in zoology from Oklahoma State University, where her research focused on the connection between chimpanzee behavior and their reproductive physiology. She currently serves on the Board of Directors for Chimp Haven, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing lifetime care for chimpanzees retired from the biomedical industry.

Bettinger has been involved with conservation work in Uganda since 1997, primarily in forested areas. Her current in-situ conservation projects focus on establishing and evaluating the impact of school- and community-based conservation education programs on forest reserves in Uganda. Bettinger is also involved in a rhino repatriation program in Uganda, overseeing the behavioral, hormonal and GPS monitoring of free-ranging rhinos at the Ziwa Sanctuary.

Leonard Little Finger
A respected elder, Leonard Little Finger is well known for his Lakota expertise and promotion of Native American rights. He currently serves as a Cultural Resource Specialist at Loneman School in Oglala, South Dakota. Under his leadership, the Lakota Studies program has developed into one of the most progressive Indian Studies program in Indian country. Prior to this position, Little Finger was the CEO of the Pine Ridge Indian Health Service Hospital, retiring after 28 years of service to the people of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

He founded a multi-year organic gardening student exchange program between Oglala Lakota College and University of Bonn, Germany. He was selected as Teacher of the Year 2000 by the South Dakota Bilingual Association and served as President of the Red Cloud Indian School Board.

Little Finger is a recognized public speaker. He has twice been a representative and presenter to the United Nations Draft Declaration for the Rights of Indigenous People in Geneva, Switzerland. He has also spoken at the Bundestag (German parliament) in Bonn, Germany.

In addition to appearing in several film documentaries and national radio shows, Little Finger authored the book Lightning and Thunder Spoke to Me, an account of the Wounded Knee Creek Massacre of 1890. Little Finger is the great-great grandson of Chief Big Foot, leader of the Mniconjou Lakota Band massacred at Wounded Knee. In August 2008, Little Finger plans to launch the Lakota Language School and Institute, which will seek to produce the next generation of fluent Lakota speakers.

Mikkel Vestergaard Frandsen
Mikkel Vestergaard Frandsen is the CEO of Vestergaard Frandsen, an innovative company founded in 1957 that reinvests profits into technologies that help curb the spread of infectious diseases and generate employment in local markets.

At 19, Frandsen moved to Nigeria and lived there until a military coup forced him to return to his home country of Denmark. In 1992, Frandsen joined his family's company, then a traditional textile company. Inspired by his experiences witnessing the devastating effects of poor public health in Africa and India, Mikkel convinced his father to focus solely on the humanitarian textiles business.

Vestergaard Frandsen's innovative breakthrough product, PermaNet®, a mosquito net laced with insecticide, is widely used in malaria-endemic countries. Honored for its revolutionary design, PermaNet was displayed at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York. The company's newest product, LifeStraw®, a personal, mobile water filter, was voted one of the best inventions of 2005 by numerous publications, including Time and Popular Science.

Vestergaard Frandsen is a member of the private sector delegation to The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. A distinguished public speaker, he has addressed the Belgian and British Parliaments and is regularly invited to speak at major public health and corporate social responsibility conferences around the world.