Whitney Pastorek

Whitney Pastorek is a writer and photographer based in Los Angeles and/or wherever the bus just dropped her off. She spent six years on staff at Entertainment Weekly, and her work has appeared in the New York Times, Sports Illustrated, ESPN the Magazine, Details, the Village Voice, and Fast Company, among many others.

Whitney Pastorek

One Man’s Quest To Donate Flights To People Visiting Their Dying Loved Ones Finally Comes True

Matt Dimmer’s organization The Extra Mile–like many well intentioned nonprofits–came close to not getting off the ground at all. But now, after a moving first donated trip to connect a son to his estranged father, he’s ready for more.

How The Team Behind Thinx Created One Of The Sexiest Ways To Give Back

Buy a pair of Thinx and you’ll be putting on underwear that looks good and is ingeniously designed. More importantly, perhaps, you’ll be helping girls in Africa to not let their periods disrupt their lives. Here’s the story behind the social innovation.

Kids Want To Make A Difference, Too–RandomKid Lets Them Do It Themselves

10-year-old Talia Leman started her career by organizing to raise money for victims of Hurricane Katrina. She’s grown up, and so has her business, which now offers a platform for kids to make their own change.

Bringing Design Thinking To Social Problems, Ideo.org Focuses On The People In Need

The nonprofit spin-off of the huge design firm takes on issues like sanitation and clean cook stoves from the unique perspective of the design world.

Africa’s First Fair-Trade Garment Manufacturer Is A Model For Women’s Empowerment

Liberty and Justice not only employs hundreds of women, but focuses on an age group that usually gets ignored in the garment industry–women who are over 30.

How One Young Car Sharing Entrepreneur Keeps Disrupting How We Get Around

Before he started pink-mustache-branded Lyft, John Zimmer had already co-founded Zimride. What’s next in his quest to figure out how to make better use of our roads?

Creating A Salesforce For Products In Africa By Turning Young People Into Salespeople

All the kids living in Kenyan slums were already selling things for a living. LivelyHoods takes that expertise and uses it to sell solutions.

Helping People Get To See Their Dying Loved Ones, One Mile At A Time

The Extra Mile lets you donate unused frequent flyer miles to help people be at the bedside of sick family members. For founder Matt Dimmer, its creation was part of the grieving process–and then became so much more.

The Inside Story Of Soma, The Gorgeous Compostable Water Filter Company

Before he was launching Kickstarter-famous design projects, Mike Del Ponte was well on his way to becoming a priest. But then he found he could impact the world through other, more tangible, means.

Meet The Inspiring Woman Breaking News About Syria As She Reinvents Digital Journalism

With her ultra-focused site, Syria Deeply, Lara Setrakian is changing how journalists cover global crisis.

Bringing Solar To Impoverished Towns, With A Model Straight From The Corporate World

Disillusioned by corporate life, Manuel Aguilar and Juan Rodriguez started Quetsol, an organization that uses business acumen to supply rural Guatemalans with solar power.

Your Instagram Followers Are Good For More Than Just Likes: Now They Get You Deals

Popular Pays lets people with large photo-sharing followings get special bargains at stores and restaurants. Are you popular enough to cash in?

A Magical Paper Prevents Your Food From Rotting

Sick of your produce going south before you get a chance to eat? Fenugreen FreshPaper–the brain child of Kavita Shukla, who patented the idea while still in high school–is an herb-infused sheet of paper that naturally keeps us from wasting food.

An Online Community Lets You Ask Your Peers For Help With Your Problems

Spill is a place where you can anonymously tell people what you’re going through–and get advice from people who’ve been through the same thing.

Creating Prototypes For Urban Space, By Combining Art And Tech

The Gray Area Foundation For The Arts is a combination gallery and hackerspace with a mission to change the way people think and interact through the power of technology and imagination.

Turning Rural Indians Into Water Entrepreneurs

Anand Shah’s Sarvajal is bringing clean water to India, but with a twist: the franchise model.

These Skateboards Save Lives

If you’re looking for more than a just a killer kickflip, Hendrick Boards help save our furry friends when you buy them.

An Online Network Supports The Growing World Of Young Female Entrepreneurs

Jennifer Donogh found that there were few resources (and fewer peers) when she tried to start her own business as a young woman. So she created YoungFemaleEntrepreneurs.com to give herself and others a chance at making new connections with other burgeoning entrepreneurs with the same concerns.

Turning The World’s Cell Phones Into A Network Of Sensors

In your pocket, you have an incredibly powerful device that can be used to collect massive amounts of data. Nexleaf Analytics wants to help, by using our phones to quantify the world around us.

Empowering Women With A Wriggly New Industry: Worms

Byoearth is replacing chemical fertilizer, cleaning up trash, and giving poor women jobs and a path out of poverty. What magic bullet can do all these things at once? Teaching women to be worm farmers.

Ideas

Rick Perry Is Fighting Historical Forces In The Energy Market–He’s Going To Lose

This New Documentary Shows The Struggle To Help People Coming Home From Prison

Google’s Quest To Develop A Plant-Based “Power Dish” More Popular Than Meat

Entertainment

Inside The Dumbest First Amendment Battle Of 2017

Julia Michaels Is Exactly What Pop Music Needs Right Now

“Stranger Things 2” and “Ready Player One” Trailers Are Peak ’80s Nostalgia

Co.Design

A Rare Look At One Of MoMA’s First Design Shows

Meet The NYC Renter Who Built A Business Exposing Bad Landlords

Can Lego Make Coding As Fun As Bricks? My 3-Year-Old Put It To The Test

Fast Company

Rick Perry Is Fighting Historical Forces In The Energy Market–He’s Going To Lose

This New Documentary Shows The Struggle To Help People Coming Home From Prison

Inside The Dumbest First Amendment Battle Of 2017