There is a hunger for knowledge, an insistence on excellence, a reverence for science and math and technology and learning.

WHITEHOUSE: President Obama Kicks Off "Educate to Innovate"

Today, YES serves students from the third grade through graduate school, though Eisner focuses on the pivotal upper-middle-school years: The kids are old enough for him to reliably evaluate their work ethic and their hunger for knowledge, but young enough that their minds are still growing rapidly.

WSJ: The Unlikely Reformer | Innovator of the Year 2012 Education

That alone produces an extraordinary economic distortion: between 1992 and 2000 the number of colleges in Russia increased by 75%, but many of them, education experts say, are of poor quality, there to satisfy their students' hunger for staying alive as much as their thirst for knowledge.

ECONOMIST: Who needs democracy?

The ongoing explosion in knowledge in the life sciences continues to offer vast opportunities for meeting the challenges of hunger, food security, disease, environmental degradation and climate change.

UNESCO: Basic Sciences