Map the Vote app finds unregistered voters in cities and helps get them to the polls

In Oakland, a company created an online crowdfunding platform that allows users to earn interest by financing clean energy projects and gives people with good social intentions a direct line of action. Across the world, there is a growing movement toward people-powered clean energy.

Americans often want to connect to a cause beyond writing a check. Crowdsourcing is creating new forms of philanthropy globally, giving donors more choice and a stronger connection to the projects they fund.

Concerned with colony collapse syndrome in honey bees worldwide, scientists, farmers and tech companies teamed up in Australia to create a micro-sensor that collects data on the bee's environment.

Very few people go to city council meetings. MindMixer, a tech startup company, increased civic participation in states across the U.S. with online platforms for city officials and the community to discuss ideas.

Big money has big lobbyists - but small lobbyists can also bring about big changes. Groups like Results and the Citizens Climate Lobby train ordinary people to approach and make arguments to politicians and journalists.

New York City suffered from fires that erupted in overcrowded, run-down apartments. Then the city sleuthed through residential records and found that landlords who foreclosed let their properties fall apart and ignored safety-code violations. Greater Toronto wants to expand upon New York City’s method by using transportation surveys, census data and computer data to build transit lines.

In war zones, people have a difficult time finding clean water and safe areas to inhabit. Social media, smart phones, and technology applications are aiding in people’s survival. In Aleppo, Syria, the International Committee of the Red Cross posted a map on Facebook to show alternative sources of clean drinking water that reached approximately 140,000 people.

Arab governments have expended a lot of energy keeping politics of any stripe out of the public sphere. With a few hundred volunteers and hardly any money, an upstart campaign called Beirut Madinati — “Beirut Is My City” — is challenging the status quo, displaying the kind of savvy civic politics promised by the Arab Spring.

The amount of plastic debris in our oceans and water sources - especially nanoplastics that are increasingly prevalent in our food chain - is so enormous it's often beyond comprehension, and immensely difficult to address. As countries continue to industrialize and single-use products become more commonplace, the flow of harmful plastics into the environment seems insurmountable. But a number of clever inventions and dedicated individuals are working to help get plastics out of our water - and more importantly - encourage practices to reduce, reuse, and recycle.

In the Mumbai slum of Dharavi, an NGO called Society for Nutrition, Education & Health Action (SNEHA) is working to make life safer by teaching men the importance of not being violent towards women. Through an app called Eyewatch, community members are able to document acts of domestic violence, which helps SNEHA team members locate victims and their abusers.