There's always something brewing in the PopTech community. From the world-changing people, projects and ideas in our network, a handful of this week's highlights follows.

• The Harvard Business Review profiles 2010 Science Fellow Sinan Aral's latest research on "Viral Product Design." Sinan's work proves that you can engineer digital (and even physical) products to increase peer-to-peer promotion.

• Dr. Raj Panjabi (2010 Social Innovation Fellow) shares a glimpse of the challenges facing Liberian refugees on the Huffington Post. Additionally, Panjabi has recently spoken about the current crises with Need to Know on PBS and appeared on PRI's The World.  

• 2009 PopTech Fellows Aviva Presser Aiden and Hugo Van Vuuren co-founded Lebônê Solutions in 2007 to help meet the need for off-grid energy and lighting in the developing world. Today, Presser Aiden is leading a team from the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) that's working on a microbial fuel cell-based charger – a mobile phone charging system that gets its power from microbes in the soil. The project received a $100,000 grant from The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's Grand Challenges program last month.

• Congratulations to wildlife conservationist Paula Kahumbu (2009 Social Innovation Fellow) and tech entrepreneur Hayat Sindi (2009 Social Innovation Fellow) on being named 2011 National Geographic Emerging Explorers!

• Rose Goslinga (2010 Social Innovation Fellow) of Kilimo Salama, Kenya’s largest microinsurance program was highlighted in the New York Times article Doing More Than Praying For Rain by Tina Rosenberg.

• Erik Hersman (2008 Social Innocation Fellow) is featured on the Guardian's Poverty Matters Blog, and talks about Huduma, Ushahidi's latest project which aims to crowdsource – via text, email or Twitter – reports on the performance of health and education services throughout Kenya.

If you'd like to receive a stream of these updates (and more) throughout the week in real time, follow us on Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, sign up for our newsletter, and subscribe to the PopTech blog.

Image: Sinan Aral/Harvard Business Review