Asia's Online Heroes
Here's who you picked in our online readers' poll

Earlier this year, we asked our online readers to let us know who they would pick for our annual Asian Heroes special. It could be anybody, we said: A pop idol, a great humanitarian, a world leader or even just someone who made their own small corner of the world a better place. The results were overwhelming. Over the course of the survey more than 2,000 people wrote in to nominate their own personal heroes.

From this list, TIME's editors whittled down the nominees to 20 people who best represented the courage, charisma and genius that inspires us. In alphabetical order, they were:

Anwar Ibrahim (Malaysia): Former Deputy PM, finally free
Corazon Aquino (Philippines): Post-Marcos savior
Shaukat Aziz (Pakistan): Banker, finance minister and now PM
Chen Chih Hsin & Chu Mu Yen (Taiwan): First Olympic Gold Medallists
Dalai Lama (Tibet): Global spiritual leader
Kim Dae Jung (Korea): Political prisoner turned President
Anuradha Koirala (Nepal): Saving those sold into prostitution and slavery
Liang Congjie (China): Environmentalist and founder, Friends of Nature
Liu Xiang (China): Track star and Olympic medalist
Lee Hsien Loong (Singapore): Taking up the reins
Martin Lee (Hong Kong): Longtime campaigner for democracy
Narayana Murthy (India): Infosys founder, IT entrepreneur
Dat Nguyen (United States): The first Vietnamese-American in the NFL
Medha Patkar (India): Fighting to save the Narmada river valley
Manmohan Singh (India): The unexpected Prime Minister
Aung San Suu Kyi (Burma): Imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize laureate
Tarun Tejpal (India): Editor of Tehelka.com, investigative journalist
Wang Shuo (China): "Punk Lit" pioneer
Sakie Yokota (Japan): Working to bring North Korean abductees home
Yang Liwei (China): China's first man in space

Over the past two weeks, we asked readers to choose from among these finalists. And now the results are in. Click here to see who this year's Asian Online Hero is...