大象传媒

Dr Christiana Thorpe grew up in Sierra Leone. She became a nun and devoted herself to teaching but eventually gave up her vocation and ended up as the country's Education Minister during the civil war of the 1990s. She's just about to step down from her latest job as head of the National Electoral Commission.

Qigang Chen is one of China's best known living composers and was the musical director of the Beijing Olympics. He describes how he started his studies in a re-education camp during the Cultural Revolution.

The British cave explorer Andrew Eavis is said to have discovered more territory on earth than anyone else alive - all of it underground. Now in his sixties, he's just spent a month in Borneo exploring one of the world's biggest underground chambers - it's all part of his continuing efforts to map caves around the globe.

Photo: Dr Christiana Thorpe, president of the Sierra Leone's National Electoral Commission (NEC).
Photo credit ISSOUF SANOGO/AFP/Getty Images