Greg Mortenson is the co-founder of nonprofit Central Asia Institute, Pennies For Peace, and co-author of #1 New York Times bestseller Three Cups of Tea.

In 1993, to honor his sister’s memory, Mortenson climbed Pakistan’s K2, the world’s second highest mountain in the Karakoram range. While recovering from his climb in a local village called Korphe, he met a group of children sitting in the dirt writing with sticks in the sand, and made a promise to help them build a school. From that promise, Mortenson has dedicated his life to promote education and literacy, especially for girls, in remote, volatile regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Through his work with the Central Asia Institute, he has established over 64 schools in rural and often volatile regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan, which provide education to over 25,000 children, including 14,000 girls, where few educational opportunities existed before. Mortenson is a living hero to rural communities of Afghanistan and Pakistan, where he has gained the trust of Islamic leaders, military commanders, government officials and tribal chiefs from his tireless effort to champion education, especially for girls.

While not overseas half the year, Mortenson, lives in Bozeman, Montana with his wife, Dr. Tara Bishop, a clinical psychologist, and two children.

For more information about Mortenson, please visit his website at http://www.threecupsoftea.com/.

David Oliver Relin is co-author of Three Cups of Tea. For two decades, Relin has focused on reporting about social issues and their effect on children, both in the United States, and around the world. He is a Contributing Editor for Parade and for Skiing Magazine. For his work as both an editor and investigative reporter, he has won dozens of national awards.

Relin is currently living in Portland, Oregon and working on a documentary film about Sherpa mountain climbers. He is also at work on a secret book about food, a children's book with the artist Amy Ruppel, and a novel about Vietnam.

For more information about Relin, please visit his website at http://www.davidoliverrelin.com/.