SDG05 - Gender Equality Archives - Page 2 of 2

Clarity Comes While You Are Working, with Junita Flowers, Favorable Treats

July 10, 2017

Favorable Treats is a cookie company and social impact venture. Favorable Treats has a mission to let families across the country enjoy warm cookies in safe homes. They produce and sell pre-portioned cookie dough. A percentage of their profits goes towards dating and domestic violence awareness and prevention. The founder of Favorable Treats, Junita Flowers grew up in a large family with seven brothers and sisters. Her mother and grandmother cooked and baked together. Junita says “The majority of my best childhood memories were spent in the kitchen.” In 2006, while staying home with her two small children, she began to experiment with cookie recipes. It reconnected her to her…

Hacking the Diversity Gap, with Kristen Womack, Hack the Gap

July 10, 2017

Hack the Gap is a weekend event where women come together to build a project as a team. Kristen Womack is a bona fide techy. She worked as a product manager for some well-known tech companies. She runs Night Sky Web Co. And she has been involved in the local tech scene from Geekettes to Mpls MadWomen. And yet, as she attended hackathons, she couldn’t help but notice the lack of women. “When I went to the bathroom, there was no line,” she told me. The diversity gap in tech has been widely reported. The problem starts early in life. In a recent survey, only 0.4% of teenage girls plan…

Equipping Emerging Game Makers with Tools for Success, with Evva Kraikul, GLITCH

June 18, 2017

GLITCH promotes the exploration of digital games as a culture, career and creative practice. If I were to tell a joke about Evva Kraikul, it might go something like this “A game designer, a neuroscientist and an entrepreneur walk into a bar. She ordered herself a drink.” Evva brings her experience in game design and neuroscience to the startup world where she is the cofounder of GLITCH. Evva was an extraordinarily early adopter of technology. At the age of four, she was interested in all things digital. She used a laptop to explore online. When she was ten-years-old, she set up a website and sold Beanie Babies. Her first online…

Stories that Inspire African Women to Start and Grow Businesses, with Lisa O’Donoghue-Lindy, She Inspires Her

May 22, 2017

She Inspires Her is an online and mobile media platform that shares stories about women entrepreneurs in emerging African markets. Lisa O’Donoghue-Lindy was born in Ireland. When she was 12 years-old, she moved to the United States with her family. After college, she went back to Europe working with major corporations in communications roles. Lisa and her husband have lived in South Africa, Greece, and Finland. As we spoke, they are in the process of moving to Namibia. Because she has moved so often, she has done work that can be accomplished from anywhere in the world. In 2014, Lisa and a friend launched a side project called Career 2.0….

Amplifying the Voices of Muslim Women, with Nausheena Hussain, Reviving the Islamic Sisterhood for Empowerment (RISE)

April 24, 2017

Reviving the Islamic Sisterhood for Empowerment (RISE) is amplifying the voices and power of Muslim women. Nausheena Hussain was raised in a small town north of Chicago. She grew up believing in the American dream – work hard, go to college and you’ll succeed. But she found that there are invisible barriers. She is a woman. She is the daughter of Indian immigrants. And, as a woman of color with a piece of cloth on her head, she says “People feel threatened by me, or fear me.” So, she asked herself an important question. “What can I do to break through these barriers, especially because I have a daughter myself?”…

Changing Media to Empower Girls, with Madeline Di Nonno, Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media

April 3, 2017

The Geena Davis Institute on Gender in the Media is a research-driven organization that is changing media to empower girls. While watching television with her daughter, Geena Davis noticed that women were not well represented. She was concerned about the messages that were being sent to her daughter and to her twin boys. Geena launched a research project and was disturbed by what she found. In 2009, Geena met with Madeline Di Nonno, a 30-year veteran of the entertainment industry. Together, they launched the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in the Media. Here is what they found. Women and girls make up 51% of the population and yet, if you…

My Unconscious Bias

December 24, 2016

I had no idea that I had an unconscious bias. I thought that I was being even-handed in having an equal number of women and men as guests on the podcast, Social Entrepreneur. Then, early in 2016, I counted. I was shocked. At the time, only 40% of my guests were women. I had no idea. That’s the problem with unconscious bias. I was not conscious of it. Data helps. Until I had data, I was not aware. So, I refocused. By episode 100, counting all the way back to episode one, 46% of my guests were women. Today, at episode 143, a little more than 48% of our guests…