The values that led humanity forward this year

Ingenuity

Much of 2022’s progress was propelled by inventive efforts to find solutions or make discoveries. Sometimes these inventions began with one small idea.

An entrepreneur from Ivory Coast noticed that his parents, who don’t read, couldn’t use smartphones – so he designed one himself. In Rwanda, “smart canes” expanded mobility for those with visual impairments, just as all-terrain wheelchairs gained ground in U.S. parks. One resident of a Kenyan refugee settlement helps provide internet access to hundreds of others using solar panels. And an engineer in Canada began building furniture from recycled chopsticks.