Malala Yousafzai

She hails from a close-knit family consisting of herself, her parents and two younger brothers. She joked while receiving the Nobel Prize that she was probably the only Nobel laureate who still fought with her younger brothers.

She was born on July 12, 1997 as the eldest child of Ziauddin Yousafzai and his wife Toorpekai Yousafzai; she has two younger brothers. Her family ran a chain of schools.

Her father, an educational activist, taught her Pashto, English and Urdu. Her father sensed early on that there was something special about Malala and encouraged her to think and express herself freely.

She started speaking about education rights in 2008 when she was just 11 years old. She addressed an audience at a local press club in Peshawar and questioned the audacity of the Taliban to snatch away her basic right to education.

At the behest of her father, she began writing an anonymous blog for the BBC Urdu website under the pseudonym “Gul Makai”. The idea of a schoolgirl blogging about the Taliban’s growing influence in Swat was originated by Aamer Ahmed Khan of BBC Urdu.

To blog about the Taliban was a very risky decision, but Ziauddin Yousafzai himself insisted that 11 year old Malala do it. Her first blog entry was posted on 3 January 2009. She wrote about how fewer girls dared to attend school because of the Taliban, and how the Taliban had forced the school shut.

She continued writing when the school later reopened and she along with her friends could again attend classes as they did before. Then she gave her school exams and ended the blog in March 2009.

Even though she wrote the blog anonymously, her identity was later revealed and she became a popular teenage activist who was often called to give speeches.

She was bestowed with Sitara-e-Shujaat, Pakistan's third-highest civilian bravery award in October 2012. In November the same year she was presented with Mother Teresa Awards for Social Justice.

The Clinton Foundation presented her with the Clinton Global Citizen Award in 2013.

The European Parliament honored her with the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in 2013.

She was awarded the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize along with Indian activist Kailash Satyarthi “for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education".