Girls In Tech

It has been found that adolescent girls are uniquely capable of raising the standard of living in developing countries. Girls are the most likely agents of change, as they have so much potential, but are too often invisible to the world & the media. That’s why the Nike Foundation, along with intellectual and financial contributions from the NoVo Foundation created The Girl Effect.
With partners like the United Nations Foundation and the International Center for Research on Women, they are working to bring these girls’ stories to light and raise money and awareness to help change their futures through education.

Why girls? Because when adolescent girls in the developing world have a chance, they can be a strong, powerful force of change for themselves, their families, their communities, their countries, and even the world.

Now here are some statistics that may surprise you:
For example: Did you know that an extra year of primary school raises a girl’s lifetime wages by 10-20% & an extra year of secondary school, by 15-25%?
And that one-fourth of the population in Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, and Sub-Saharan Africa are girls?
If you’d like to help give these girls a chance by joining the Girl Effect movement, you can do so:
Either on their Facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/girleffect#/girleffect?v=info
or their website:
http://www.girleffect.org/.

For more statistics, see their factsheet at: http://www.girleffect.org/downloads/TheGirlEffect_FactSheet.pdf

Tags: change, commuity, developing world, Girls, Global, women
Posted in All Chapters, San Francisco | No Comments »

In the last few weeks I have posted about what is innovative in many fields. Or it’s been about keeping up with what is making news in the fields of tech and innovation. It may be a simple thought, but how about change being innovative and leading to innovation?

Last week in Long Beach, CA was the Women’s Conference event. 14’000 women from all over California and of all ages attended this conference. I, unfortunately, was not able to attend, but watched their live webcast! The mission is to empower women to be ‘Architects of Change’. This is a very powerful message and mission and very powerful people, both men and women, from many different industries spoke at this event. The Women’s Conference was actually established in 1985, however since 2004 with the leadership of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady Maria Shriver, the event has now become the largest conference in the nation.  Over the years high-profile people like Oprah Winfrey, Queen Rania, Thomas Friedman, and many more have spoken at the conference. 

The mere idea of women being ‘Architects of Change’ is innovative in of itself. I am not saying women over the centuries have not been architects of change, but in this country, that has not always been the case. With that, the more women that understand they can be architects of change empowers them to want to be innovative and make change possible. 

Speaking about change, I cannot help to mention our up-coming election. We all know one of the candidates is all about change. Obama not only wants to make and inspire change, but he embodies change because of his background. Having him as President would be very innovative for this country in many ways. (One week left until we all have to get out and vote!)

One last thing I want to mention about change is the internet. Born out of the idea of being a world wide information management system, has now become an industry where some of the most exciting advances in innovation are created. Something that was once, and still is with some groups of people, not embraced because it virtually (no pun intended) changed the way we communicate and do business. Now it’s thriving as one of the most exciting areas of innovation.

I think change is a good thing and very innovative .

Tags: architects, business, change, election, innovation, Internet, Obama, Oprah, tech, women, women's conference
Posted in Los Angeles, San Francisco | No Comments »