Angelina Jolie pays tribute to Malala Yousafzai at Women in the World summit Film star Angelina Jolie has paid tribute to Malala Yousafzai, the girl who was shot in the head by the Taliban in Pakistan after campaigning for girls' access to education. She also committed £200,000 to the new "Malala's Fund" for girls' education in Pakistan. Malala has become a powerful symbol in the fight for universal female schooling in her home country. She resisted the Taliban takeover of the Swat valley with her diary - published in 2009 under a pseudonym by the BBC's Urdu language service. In it, she told the outside world what was happening in her home district. Early that year, with the Taliban menace still present, she spoke out on television, always sticking carefully to her demand only for schooling. In October the teenager was sitting with other pupils in a bus ready to leave the grounds of their school when gunmen approached and asked which one was Malala. They opened fire, injuring her and two other girls in the vehicle. Militant leaders said the attack was a warning to other "secular" youths. Malala fled to the UK and was discharged from hospital last month after skull reconstruction. She was shortlisted for Time Magazine's "Person of the Year" in 2012 and recently signed a deal to write her memoir. Speaking at the Women in the World summit in New York, Jolie said: "Here's what they (Malala's attackers) accomplished. They shot her point-blank range in the head - and made her stronger. The brutal attempt to silence her voice made it stronger. Jolie, a special envoy for the UN refugee agency, said Malala's father had shown his daughter in the hospital a poll that said she was the sixth most influential person in the world, and that President Barack Obama was seventh. But the teen said she didn't think people should be categorized like that. "So we can learn a lot from this girl," Jolie said with a grin. Once introduced via a video from the UK, the 15-year-old said: "Today I'm going to announce the happiest moment of my life," at one point shyly covering her face with her hands. She said a new school in Pakistan would be built for 40 girls. "Let us turn the education of 40 girls into 40 million girls," she said.