TIME magazine 100 most influential people, the ones i like

Wael Ghonim embodies the youth who constitute the majority of Egyptian society — a young man who excelled and became a Google executive but, as with many of his generation, remained apolitical due to loss of hope that things could change in a society permeated for decades with a culture of fear.
Over the past few years, Wael, 30, began working outside the box to make his peers understand that only their unstoppable people power could effect real change. He quickly grasped that social media, notably Facebook, were emerging as the most powerful communication tools to mobilize and develop ideas.
By emphasizing that the regime would listen only when citizens exercised their right of peaceful demonstration and civil disobedience, Wael helped initiate a call for a peaceful revolution.
The response was miraculous: a movement that started with thousands on Jan. 25 ended with 12 million Egyptians removing Hosni Mubarak and his regime. What Wael and the young Egyptians did spread like wildfire across the Arab world.
Thank you, Wael. Thank you to the Egyptian youth.
ElBaradei, an Egyptian politician, is a former director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency

Thomas Carlyle Ford. Even his given name reflects the elegance with which it would become synonymous. The world knows him as the designer who brought sexy back in the '90s and has kept it there. I know him as the other Tom (after my husband Mr. Hanks) whose shoulder I can also cry on, who makes me laugh as hard as my main Tom. Tom Ford, 48, the closet comedian, who can keenly copy an expression, person or walk. He Skypes from his bed, on the opposite end of the planet, to check in with me in mine. But this sexy guy is kind and deeply loyal. Friendships are his other art. No flip-flopping. No fly by night. Tom has manners that are rare these days. Handwritten notes are common for the man who wore a three-piece suit every day while directing his visionary first film, A Single Man. Tom might be one of the TIME 100, but to me he is one in a million.

Wilson is an actress and a producer

Courtesy TIME magazine