Age: 32
Occupation: Democracy activist, Nobel laureate
This courageous Yemeni woman was awarded the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize for her dogged activism back home, where the Arab Spring has struggled to take seed. After months of street violence and protests, the country's three-decade autocratic President, Ali Abdullah Saleh, stepped down. It remains to seen, though, whether Islamist democrats like Karman — a hijab-wearing mother of three — will be able to win a true democracy in one of the Arab world's most impoverished states.