Stay Informed!

By Sean Luechtefeld on 03/10/2010 @ 10:03 AM

Tags: Innovation, Events

On Monday, CFED President Andrea Levere and innovation@cfed Program Director Anne Li had the pleasure of attending ICRW’s Champions for Change event, Innovation Empowers Women. Andrea was especially pleased to congratulate her close friend and CFED partner Geeta Rao Gupta, President of the International Center for Research on Women.

I was unfortunately unable to attend, but I spoke with Anne about her experience and she had nothing but wonderful things to say about it. It included an insightful panel discussion at the House of Sweden, a beautiful venue that made for an incredible backdrop for the event.

Anne was especially impressed by the esteemed group of speakers who really embodied the importance of the intersection between innovation and women’s empowerment. Here are just a few of the highlights from what each speaker had to say:

• Anju Malhorta, Vice President of Research, Innovation and Impact at ICRW, is the principal author of the report, Innovation: For Women's Empowerment and Gender Equality.
• Susan Berresford, former President of the Ford Foundation, noted that we don’t often hear “women’s empowerment” and “innovation” together in the same sentence, but they absolutely should be together. Ms. Berresford was excited to note that ICRW really understood the importance of these two themes and loved how they coalesced both in the ICRW report on innovation, as well as at the event itself.
• Diana Wells, President of Ashoka, loved the ICRW report and shared some interesting statistics with the audience. She said that of all of Ashoka’s fellows, 40% are women and of that large number of women, a compelling 98% of them are still championing the issues they worked on while they were with Ashoka.
• Walter Bender, Executive Director of Sugar Labs, pointed out that changes is never purely technological, but also always cultural. He said that looking for agents of culture change is critical to the innovation process.
• Matthew Bishop, American Business Editor and New York Bureau Chief for The Economist, insightfully pointed out that the second generation effects of innovation always increase dramatically when compared with first generation effects. He said that this was especially true for innovations that impact women as women are most likely to pass along innovative approaches to others.

In addition to the in-depth conversation started by the panelists, Anne and Andrea also noted that in addition to the ICRW report on innovation referenced above, the Champions for Change event also unveiled ICRW’s latest publication, Bridging the Gender Divide: How Technology can Advance Women Economically. I have heard many great things about this publication, and I look forward to reading it myself as it speaks directly to some of the issues important to innovation@cfed.

Did you have the chance to attend ICRW’s Champions for Change event, Innovation Empowers Women? If so, share your highlights with us and with our readers by clicking on the “comments” feature below!

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