In the early 1990s, Melinda Gates recalls when she and her husband Bill were moved by child mortality figures. In the 1960s, some 20 million children died each year. The number has significantly reduced since then.
But most people aren't really moved by statistics, Gates acknowledges. She admits she didn't understand the full picture of child mortality and extreme poverty until she took her first trip to India and Thailand in 2001, and met the families behind the figures.
See also: How to Follow Social Good Summit Online
"I realized that their hopes and aspirations and dreams aren't that different than ours," Gates said on stage Monday at the Social Good Summit. "They dream about the same thing, but they often don't have the same set of tools or the things aren't in place in their country for them to lift up their lives and realize those dreams."
But Gates doesn't think everyone needs to travel around the globe to understand the plight of global health epidemics, as she did.
"I think we have the power today with the technology in our hands that not everyone will have to take a flight to Africa or India or Thailand ," she says. "We can connect people to those stories, and get people to move to action. That's my hope."
She recommends finding these stories with the help of non-profit organizations, such as charity: water, that show you the village you are helping and informs you of the village's unique needs online. Making these connections is just as easy for people in the west as it now is for many in the east.
"It's almost become a cliché today that people are connected on their cellphones," Gates says. "You bump into people when you walk outside in New York because they're texting on their cellphones. The same thing happens in Johannesburg, Nairobi and Dhaka, Bangladesh."
Next year, 95% of the global population will have access to cell phone reception and 3 billion people will have Internet access, Gates says.
While actions are still needed to further connect, advocate and tell stories, Gates points to the connected generation to mobilize and connect to create change.
"As I travel around the world, what I see is that the real action that happens, the concrete steps that happen on the ground, are from people like you in this room — the innovators, people who are young and thinking about how we can take what's being discussed on these global agendas and make that happen on the ground."

The Social Good Summit is where big ideas meet new media to create innovative solutions and is brought to you by Mashable, The 92nd Street Y, The United Nations Foundation, The United Nations Development Programme, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Ericsson. Held during U.N. Week, the Social Good Summit unites a dynamic community of global leaders to discuss a big idea: the power of innovative thinking and technology to solve our greatest challenges.
Date: Sept. 22 through Sept. 24 Time: 12 to 6 p.m. each day Location: 92nd Street Y, 1395 Lexington Ave., New York, N.Y. Tickets are sold-out, but tune into the Livestream.
BONUS: 10 Empowering Apps for Social Good
Gone are the days of daring your friends without consequences. When you challenge your friends to Budge, the person who loses the challenge needs to donate an agreed upon amount to a charity of the winner's choosing.
Available on iOS.
Charity Miles lets you raise money for your favorite causes while walking, running or biking. The app's corporate sponsors donate 25 cents for each mile you walk or run, and 10 cents for each mile you bike.
Charity Miles is available for iOS and Android.
With every photo you share, Johnson & Johnson donates $1 to a cause of your choosing. The Donate a Photo app, available on iOS and Android, also lets you follow your friends' photos, so you can keep up with your social life.
Great for foodies, photographers and humanitarians, this iOS app adds a great cause to your foodstagrams. When you dine and snap a food shot at one of the participating restaurants -- which, for now, are only in New York -- a meal is donated to a non-profit feeding schoolchildren in South Africa.
In this free iOS game, you'll travel with Maya, an Indian girl, as she navigates the slums in search of clean water. The longer it takes her to find water, the more school she misses.
The game was created in partnership with charity: water, which lends in-game missions and video scenes to the app.
Did you know that with the money you save cooking three of your own meals, you could fund someone's HIV medicine for three months? Instead is an iOS app that shows you how much you can save with simple tweaks in your lifestyle. Once you make those cheaper decisions, Instead encourages you to donate to a non-profit out of your savings.
My Life as a Refugee is an app for iOS and Android created by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). It lets anyone around the world experience life fleeing from conflict or persecution. Through beautiful illustrations, you'll read the stories of the app's many characters, who have been separated from their loved ones and have experienced hardships.
The Recyclebank app, available for iOS and Android, rewards you for recycling. The gamification of recycling awards points that you can redeem in stores and in the app.
Forget daily deal apps -- there are apps that give back while giving you a great deal. TangoTab, available for iOS and Android, donates meals to food banks every time a diner purchases one of its restaurant deals.
Eager for a new volunteer program? This iOS app brings the online volunteer network onto your smartphone. It has a sleek interface that will help you find great opportunities to give back near you.
VolunteerMatch lets you select which skill you're looking to use to volunteer, so you can lend your expert web design or managerial skills, for example.
Image: Mashable, Casey Kelbaugh