Israa Abd El Fattah was one of the first Egyptian activists to use social media to help organise anti-government demonstrations. In April 2008 she tried to organise a general strike in protest at low wages, and rising prices. She was given the nickname "Facebook Girl". She says the experience of using Facebook to spread the word helped activists learn how to mobilise people before the Egyptian Uprising in the spring of 2011.

Photo: Israa Abd El Fattah in her office in Cairo in 2011. Credit: Khaled Desouki/AFP/Getty Images