What sort of leader are you?

Leaders who don't listen will eventually be surrounded by people who have nothing to say.

Sadly, we've got some live examples of this playing out in the world right now. 

In the face of ineptitude, fake news and politics abject of integrity, it's easy to question what real leadership is.

Lucky for us we get to meet, chat with and learn from exceptional leaders on the girledworld trails, and have found striking similarities in the stand outs. (Meet some of these outstanding female leaders at the Girledworld Summit 🔝)

Here are our TOP 5 take-aways:

1. Leadership is less about being loud and brash and more about sitting back to listen, think and take in a diverse suite of opinions, advice and expertise.

2. Leadership is not about domination but collaboration, and working with those around you to build a whole greater than the sum of its parts.

 
3. Good leaders make you feel safe through consistency, transparency and fostering a culture of respectful collaboration.

 
4. Leadership is always about learning, not pretending to know it all - and always staying curious.

5. Leadership is a choice, not a given. You have to earn it - with integrity, not accolades.

When you're at work, school, uni, travelling, at home or wherever you find yourself this week, remember this: Leadership is at its core about knowing yourself through knowing others. Its key action is building others up not keeping them down, so you're always surrounded by people who have diverse capabilities, high team trust, clear shared values and a deep commitment to the collective vision. 
 

What sort of leader are you?

We're building the next generation of female leaders at the girledworld Summit to give girls a chance to immerse in a big weekend of education, empowerment, inspiration and transformation. 

See our big Summit speaker and workshop program for the full lineup!

LEADERSHIP CAN BE TAUGHT. 

Book your tickets now. ✖️✖️

@girledworld Building the next generation of female founders and leaders, one girl at a time.

Yassmin Abdel-Magied and Mumtaza Co-Founders ignite conversation on diversity at the girledworld Summit

Diversity can be divisive. Polarisation of opinion, religious beliefs and political rhetoric has fuelled the dissensions of the ages.

But in the new economy, there is a contemporary currency in play where companies now recognise that in order to succeed in the global marketplace and drive innovation, they must embrace diversity, and attract and retain a dynamic workforce mix of enterprise skill-sets, problem-solving mindsets and a wide cross-section of human value-sets. And that means actively cultivating a diverse mix of people in the room.

This all sounds easy done.

But unfortunately we've still got a long way to go before diversity becomes the business norm. Unconscious biases, deeply entrenched backward workplace culture and a lack of strong leadership means diversity often slips down the triage of most company agendas and they stay stuck in status quo.

Which is why powerful women like Yassmin Abdel-Magied need to continue to speak up for diversity, and challenge status quo to push for greater gender, cultural, age and religious diversity in traditional industries.

Abdel-Magied is a brilliant example of what it means to be a change-maker and strong female leader on every front and her list of accolades is long.

A mechanical engineer, author, social advocate and internationally sought-after speaker who founded Youth Without Borders at the age of 16, Abdel-Magied's @TED talk What does my headscarf mean to you which explores unconscious bias has been viewed millions of times, she published her first book, Yassmin's Story, aged just 24, and her thought-provoking commentary has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian and internationally on the BBC.

If you haven’t caught any of that, you’ve no doubt caught Abdel-Magied on TV, currently hosting ABC's weekly show, Australia Wide. and appearing as a regular guest panelist on Q&A, The Drum, The Project, and on Triple J's Hack Radio National. Tapping her self-confessed side passion as a full blown motorhead, Abdel-Magied is also host of the motorsport podcast Motor Mouth, and spearheaded the groundbreaking documentary The Truth About Racism.

The point is this.

Yassmin Abdel-Magied is a total hands-down dynamo, and whether you agree with her or not, at girledworld we think we need more women like her to stand up and call out injustice, ignite the difficult conversations we need to have, and challenge the next generation to unpack invisible biases, rethink what's normal and advocate for greater diversity, parity and representation of females across the board.

Abdel-Magied is well credentialed and her advocacy work has been recognised with multiple awards. 

Named one of Australia’s most influential engineers by Engineers Australia, and recognized for her work in diversity by the United Kingdom’s Institute of Mechanical Engineers, she was also the youngest woman named in Australia’s 100 Women of Influence by the Australian Financial Review in 2012, was named Young Muslim of the Year in 2007 and Muslim Youth of the Year in 2015.  

More recently, Abdel-Magied Co-founded Mumtaza - the world's first speakers bureau for women of colour - with M-Time, Foundation for Young Australians and G20 entrepreneurs Dr Yan-Ting Choong and Sarah Agboola, and Maeva Heim of the League of Extraordinary Women - all amazing women in their own right, who alongside Abdel-Magied, will also join us at the girledworld Summit to share their stories.

In a recent panel discussion at the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association’s annual conference on the topic of diversity and inclusion, Abdel-Magied said she didn't really consider and embrace diversity until two years ago when she began working in the male-dominated oil and gas industry working on rigs in Western Australia and Queensland.

“I hated the idea of feminism! I was like, ‘feminism is for chicks who can’t handle jokes’,” she said.

“I thought people who kept talking about diversity and inclusion were people that studied arts. They weren’t engineers. But it wasn’t until I went into the industry and I saw the reality that I ­actually started to think, maybe this is a thing I should care about.”

After gaining a job as an engineer, Abdel-Magied said she had no idea how to act because she “had no one to show me what it was like to be a successful woman on a rig”.

“So I pretended to be a ­middle-aged white bloke,” she said, adopting the swearing and swaggering of her male colleagues until she ­realised her behaviour was reinforcing, and not shifting, the existing culture.

“I was undoing myself, I was undoing my gender, I was undoing my cultural heritage,” she said.

Please join Abdel-Magied and the Mumtaza founders to unpack this story, explore diversity and push the gender agenda with hundreds of secondary school aged girls at the 2017 @girledworld APAC Summit at the University of Melbourne the weekend of June 24/25.

We've put together a TED-style interactive learning event for teenage girls, and it's exceptional women like Abdel-Magied who will empower, inspire and educate our young audience with her incredible stories of hardship and leadership as a woman paving the way in the world. 

We think the world needs more women like her in it. 👏🏽

EARLY BIRD TICKETS ON-SALE NOW!

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Girledworld Leadership Summit 2017

The girledworld Leadership Summit is the 2017 flagship event of female-founded startup girledworld.

Proudly supported by the Victorian Government and opened by Honourable Minister Philip Dalidakis, the Summit will be held at the University of Melbourne's Wade Institute of Entrepreneurship, where Co-Founders Madeleine Grummet and Edwina Kolomanski launched the business whilst completing a Master of Entrepreneurship in 2016.

The Summit is the first of its kind, and will be an exceptional opportunity for girls in Years 7 to Year 12 in Australian secondary schools to immerse in skill-building leadership workshops, hear incredible, transformative stories of startup success and STEM career advice from wildly inspiring and extraordinary female mentors, and experience first-hand the 21st century innovations and cultivation of enterprise skill-sets that will define the future workplaces they will inhabit.

On top of this there'll be powerful leadership public speaking programs (think TED for girls), collaborative and interactive Design Thinking, teamwork and prototype workshops, mentor-led expert experiential learning opportunities, deep dives into STEM, coding, virtual reality and the world of tech, keynotes from rockstar global female leaders and homegrown startup founders (Airbnb, IBM, StartupVic, Frank Body, LaunchVic, Atlassian, Girl Geek Academy, The Hacker Exchange, Adore Beauty, TOM Organic, AirWallex, Mumtaza, Melbourne Accelerator Program, Foundation for Young Australians + many more amazing women and teenage founders!), plus a chance for our audience to test their learning and Q&A with speakers so they can bring back these learnings to school every day and plug and play.

Check out the very big lineup here!

Get your Early Bird Tickets here now before they’re gone!

Cult global e-comm brand Frank Body brings digital marketing 'school' to girledworld Summit

Let's be frank.

When the marketing gurus behind Australian cult brand Frank Body said they’d love to join us for the girledworld Summit and bring their incredible homegrown success story and e-comm startup career advice to secondary school aged girls, we've gotta admit we were jumping out of our skin!

That's because we've long been fans of their ridiculous brand marketing talents, especially rockstar chief content creator Kirsty Bennett, and have watched closely as Frank Body has steadily self-funded to build a phenomenal global empire and massive online community entirely using social media as a sales funnel for their coveted coffee-based skincare products.

Story goes that the company was started when Co-Founders Jess Hatzis, 30, and Bree Johnson, 29, were told by Johnson’s fiancée, who owns several Melbourne cafes, that stacks of his female customers were casually asking for leftover coffee grounds to take home and use as a body exfoliator.

Recognising the business opportunity, riding the early wave of consumer appetite for natural skincare products and with just $5000 in the bank, Hatzis and Johnson started taking the coffee grounds home themselves and experimented with hand-making and self-packaging coffee scrubs in their Melbourne lounge room.

As a startup running lean and with no marketing budget, they relied purely on social media and word of mouth to get their Frank Body product out there, and within weeks quickly grew their phenomenal cult following (currently at 700,000 on Instagram alone!) entirely through using Insta and Facebook to drive online sales.

When they started few brands were using social media to leverage sales conversion, and Hatzis admits they “lucky” to get ahead of the pack.

Ok. Luck may have played a (very) small part, but mostly it was the startup marketing smarts (and making products people wanted to buy) which got Frank Body where it is today, dominating the natural beauty sector through its cheeky social media campaigns, leveraging influencer marketing so celebrities with huge followings plug the product on their social accounts, and expanding their product range to now include cleansers, scrubs, balms and face masks all priced under $25.00.

Their scrappy startup approach worked a treat. Since launching, Frank Body has sold 2.2 million of its signature coffee ground-based body scrubs, ships product to 149 countries across the globe and last year turned over more than $20 million in sales.

That's a pretty awesome rise, and a long way from what started as a little caffeine-fuelled idea between Melbourne best friends.

“Let’s be frank - to launch, it took blood, sweat and tears,” 30-year-old Co-Founder Jess Hatzis said.

"We launched with a very humble budget and handmade our product to start and would produce each item after orders came in, just to manage cash flow as we grew.”

“(But) we wouldn't have the business we have today had it not been for our ability to leverage platforms like Instagram and Facebook,” she said.

“We created a bold brand persona that resonated with consumers and to this day it is still the largest referrer of traffic to our website.

"We do spend a lot of time developing content that our consumers want to see, but more importantly, we had a deliberate User Generated Content strategy from day 1 - and now have over 100,000 consumer-generated images living under our hashtags #letsbefrank and #thefrankeffect.”

To date, the brand have millions of followers engaging with them across their social channels and gain tens of thousands of likes per post. (You can check out #thefrankeffect on the @Frank_Bod social feed here - pretty gorgeous stuff, super smart marketing and the tiles give face to millions of girls and women across the world who are hands-down @FrankBod devotees and amplify the brand to their friends driving further sales).

Testament to their entrepreneurial trailblazing, Hatzis and Johnson were recently announced as the 2017 winners of the Veuve Clicquot New Generation Award, named after Madame Clicquot who was just 27 when she took over the reigns of Clicquot house. The title is awarded to businesswomen under 40 years of age who show ‘audacity, innovation and fearlessness'.

So if you’ve got a daughter in secondary school who loves digital and product design, and wants to learn the skills and secrets of building a multi-million dollar e-comm company through online marketing, don’t miss this rare chance to hear and learn from the Frank Body brand gurus at our girledworld Summit at the University of Melbourne Sunday June 25.

Early Bird Tickets On-Sale Now and Selling Fast!
(girledworld jam-packed Goodie bags included!)

This is your chance to equip yourself with top-line digital and social media marketing skillsets taught by industry leaders on one very big weekend of amazing female keynote speakers, interactive leadership and business workshops and career mentorship.

You can check out the rest of our inspiring speakers and girledworld Summit lineup here. 

BOOK YOUR EARLY BIRD TICKETS NOW!

GIRLEDWORLD BIG IDEAS SUMMIT - Building the next generation of female leaders and founders, one girl at a time. ✖✖ 

The future is here. Are your girls ready?

You can stay under a rock, unplug and say that tech doesn't matter to you. But the fact is that exponential technologies will continue to play out in your everyday whether you like it or not. 

It's why it's so important we at least impart the role of tech and STEM to the next Generation in an age of digital disruption, as it will define the new economy of their working lives.

This is especially critical to teach to the next Gen of girls who are already chronically underrepresented in the technology and STEM sectors, as these industries will drive the disruptive and breakthrough innovations and jobs of the future. 

In fact, you may not even realise and we don't wanna freak you out but the future is kinda already here and coming fast!

Take #IoT for example. 

IoT is the Internet-enabled network of physical devices, vehicles and buildings embedded with electronics, software, sensors, and actuators designed to communicate with each other in data-real time. 

Think smart cities, a kind of hyper-connected urban environment where everything from cars to bridges to clothes to rubbish bins are fitted with sensors and internet connected which means everything around you is responsive and 'talks' to each other.

University of Melbourne researchers estimate that by 2020 there’ll be somewhere around 24 billion interconnected devices in the world. The current estimate is around nine billion.

This will change the way we work, live, communicate and play as our future cities shape around us in the digital age. 
 

Here's a taste of what you can expect in the galaxy you're in sometime very soon: 

1. 3D printed makeup. Just insert a person’s face and the machine will apply the exact makeup pattern requested by the user.

2. 3D printed replacement teeth, printed inside the mouth.

3. Swarmbot printing systems used to produce large buildings and physical structures, working 24/7 until they’re rapidly completed.

4. Sensor-laced, enviro-responsive clothing scanned and custom-printed instore.

5. Smart plates, bowls and cups to keep track of what we eat and drink.

6. Ingestible data collectors, filled with sensors, to give daily internal health scans and reports, plus hyper-personalized, precision-based pharmaceuticals produced by 3D pill printers.

7. Self-retrieving shoes where you call them by name, through your smartphone, and your shoes will come to you.

8. Scan and print custom-designed clothing at retail clothing stores. 

9. Physical and psychological therapy sessions done through Virtual Reality and in convo with artificial intelligence. 

10. Implanted 'mind mesh' creating AI and human cognitive interface so we can communicate data wirelessly, and store our memories in the cloud. 

For more fabulous future facts and figures see Google's Top Rated futurist Thomas Frey at futuristspeaker.com

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And if you're a Mum/Mentor/Colleague/Aunt/Teacher then please join us to future-face alongside your daughters/nieces/friends at the girledworld SUMMIT - tickets now on-sale.
And keep up with speaker updates, founder interviews and other news on our social here.

girledworld SUMMIT 2017 - STEM, Startup + Leadership for girls. Early Bird Tickets on-sale!

The girledworld Leadership Summit is the 2017 flagship event of our female-founded startup girledworld.

Proudly supported by the Victorian Government and opened by Honourable Minister Philip Dalidakis, the Summit will be held at the University of Melbourne's Wade Institute of Entrepreneurship, where Co-Founders Madeleine Grummet and Edwina Kolomanski launched the business whilst completing a Master of Entrepreneurship in 2016.

The Summit is the first of its kind, and will be an exceptional opportunity for girls in Years 7 to Year 12 in Australian secondary schools to immerse in skill-building leadership workshops, hear incredible, transformative stories of startup success and STEM career advice from wildly inspiring and extraordinary female mentors, and experience first-hand the 21st century innovations and cultivation of enterprise skill-sets that will define the future workplaces they will inhabit.

On top of this there'll be powerful leadership public speaking programs (think TED for girls), collaborative and interactive Design Thinking, teamwork and prototype workshops, mentor-led expert experiential learning opportunities, deep dives into STEM, coding, virtual reality and the world of tech, keynotes from rockstar global female leaders and homegrown startup founders (Airbnb, IBM, StartupVic, Frank Body, LaunchVic, Atlassian, Girl Geek Academy, The Hacker Exchange, Adore Beauty, TOM Organic, AirWallex, Mumtaza, Melbourne Accelerator Program, Foundation for Young Australians + many more amazing women and teenage founders!), plus a chance for our audience to test their learning and Q&A with speakers so they can bring back these learnings to school every day and plug and play. Check out the very big lineup here!

This is about better learning, better outcomes, and building girls up so they can better shape their futures. Girls can't be what they can't see. So we need more female role models in STEM, startup and leadership showing girls the way.

This needs to happen now, because at girledworld we know all too well the challenges the next generation will face in a shifting world of work.

Exponential technologies, automation, digital disruption and the erosion of traditional 'safe' jobs are moving quicker than the school system is capable of responding, and STEM continues to spearhead the future of work and life as we know it. The fact is, if girls don't keep up, they'll be left further behind.

So the girledworld Summit specifically addresses the urgent need to upskill, educate and equip secondary school aged girls with transferrable skillsets in creativity, leadership, problem-solving, digital literacy and STEM.

This will ensure they are world-ready, idea-fuelled, confident and connected to an incredible community of mentors who can help them navigate their future career pathways.

We're so fortunate to have so many extraordinary leaders, founders and STEM champions supporting our mission, and know it takes a diverse, committed community to create this change.

We can't wait to bring you this very big weekend of jam-packed education, inspiration and empowerment and invite you to get your Early Bird Tickets now for the girledworld SUMMIT!

So if you're a Mum/Mentor/Colleague/Aunt/Teacher then please join us alongside your daughters/nieces/friends for the inspiring Sunday program - tickets now on-sale. And keep up with speaker updates, founder interviews and other news on our social here.

We'd love you to please SHARE THIS with your networks or anyone you think may benefit from an experience like this.

We look forward to learning alongside you!

See you at the Summit!

Madeleine Grummet + Edwina Kolomanski

Co-founders girledworld

Why STEM Matters to Girls.

We wish we could candy coat the stats but the numbers just aren't moving - women and girls remain grossly underrepresented in #STEM fields, and according to a recent Australian Government National Innovation and Science Agenda Report only one in four IT graduates and fewer than one in 10 engineering graduates are women.

Further, women occupy fewer than one in five senior positions in Australian universities and research institutes, and represent just one quarter of the STEM workforce overall.

This is a critical problem. Why?

Because STEM matters.

It matters because to secure Australia’s future economy, we need STEM to drive innovation, so we desperately need girls to step up to STEM, to grow their tech skillsets and mindsets, and to equip themselves for the future of work.

This will take a concerted, national effort as there are multiple cultural, institutional and organisational barriers that discourage girls and women from studying STEM, and that limit their opportunities to pursue careers in this space.

We need a movement. And it will take time.

But a big part of this is actually showing girls what they can be.

STEM role models matter. 
Girls can't be what they can't see. 
And don't know what they don't know.

So we need more STEM role models inspiring girls, science teachers, educators, media, entrepreneurs, executives, manufacturers, editors and policy-makers so more girls start to select into the mix.

This is what will start to sweeten the numbers. 💓

At Girledworld we're honoured to have the support and expertise of amazing female STEM mentors talking to and teaching girls STEM, and showing them some of the great careers built on STEM.

You can learn, meet and have the chance to chat with them at the girledworld SUMMIT at the University of Melbourne's Wade Institute the weekend of June 24/25.

Be inspired by global and local leaders in tech, deep dive coding, hear from extraordinary STEM leaders about how they started, and push your career thinking to reimagine what you and your daughters can do to embrace STEM and equip yourselves for the future of work.

Join us to make the change.

GIRLEDWORLD SUMMIT
A life-changing event for girls/Mums/Teachers/Mentors ✖️✖️
EARLY BIRD TICKETS ON-SALE NOW!! 
Get in quick before they're gone!
See you there!

Georgia Beattie StartupVic - girledworld Summit

Georgia Beattie is a woman worth meeting.

Worth it, because she’s a warm, engaging, uber-talented and super switched-on human, but also because her stellar career to date is hard to keep up with. (Catch her if you can! - our heads spin trying to keep up with Beattie's StartupVic schedule which sees her on startup judging panels, keynote speaking and at entrepreneurship events all over town!)

Beattie actually began her career studying entrepreneurship at RMIT and subsequently at Babson College in the USA (Babson happens to be ranked #1 in Entrepreneurship Internationally, but hopefully the University of Melbourne's Wade Institute of Entrepreneurship is going to take up the gauntlet very soon!)

Story goes that Beattie’s lightbulb moment as an entrepreneur was attending a festival in her early 20's and asking for a glass of wine only to be told it was too hard to serve wine in a glass at large functions. Hey Presto! (not quite) but Lupé Wines/Single Serve Packaging was founded in 2010 as a business selling pre-filled wine in shatterproof exportable PET plastic wine glasses designed for places where glass is deemed dangerous or just plain inconvenient. (As with many founders, Beattie found an innovative way to solve her own problem and founded a profitable business in the process).

The business went on to supply events, airlines and hotel minibars with the world's first single serve glass of wine designed for ease of use, and the company expanded quickly across Australia, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and China.

The awards followed: Lupé was listed as one of the top 10 startups to keep in your sights by BRW and Beattie was listed as Top 50 Entrepreneurs to watch in 2015. In 2016 the company was successfully sold.

Let’s jump hoops to today, and at girledworld we have crossed paths with Beattie many times since she has taken the CEO reins at StartupVictoria - the largest, go-to independent startup body for Victoria that focuses on creating more founders, and better founders.

StartupVic's major initiatives are positioning Victoria as the Number 1 Tech destination in the Asia Pacific, monthly startup Pitch Nights where startups compete for cash and in-kind prizes to accelerate their businesses, Australia’s first startup platform which offers a single location for events, jobs and mentors, and a recent project creating Victoria’s first startup ecosystem data map. This mapping will be critical to understanding our Victorian startup ecosystem, and how we can better support entrepreneurs to grow and scale their businesses beyond our shores.

We're truly delighted to have Georgia Beattie joining us alongside an incredible lineup of female founders, leaders and STEM champions at the Girledworld APAC Leadership SUMMIT 2017. Beattie will share her story as a successful founder and entrepreneur, her day to day as CEO of StartVic and the importance of grasping opportunities to drive yourself forward in your career. We can't wait to hear and learn from her!

So if you're a secondary school aged girl, a Mum, mentor, aunt, colleague, friend, entrepreneur, teacher, student or just someone who wants to be educated, inspired and empowered across one very big weekend of exploring STEM, startup and the future of work, please join us at the University of Melbourne's Wade Institute of Entrepreneurship on Saturday June 24 and Sunday June 25 2017.

Early Bird Tickets Selling Fast!

Social Entrepreneur & Summit Speaker Laura Pintur wins Young Achiever of the Year 2017!

Who decides what's normal? 

When you're a teenager, it's hard to know, hard to keep up with who's making the rules, and mostly, hard to back yourself and work out how to build up the you on the inside when you just get judged a lot on the outside. 

We want to talk about that. Bust it wide open. And talk the truth about body image and the objectification of women and girls in our culture. 

So we're very pleased to announce Young Victorian Achiever of the Year 2017 Laura Pintur as one of our keynote speakers at the girledworld SUMMIT at the University of Melbourne's Wade Institute of Entrepreneurship on Sunday June 25 (think TED for girls - education, empowerment and enlightenment all jammed into one very big weekend!) EARLY BIRD TIX ON SALE NOW 🔝

We had an amazing conversation with Laura recently and were blown away by her courage, conviction and crusade to stop the objectification of women and damaging over-sexualisation of girls in today's world. 

Laura is strong, sassy, smart, a passionate advocate, speaker and social entrepreneur, and the Founder of www.whatsnormal.com.au which advocates to put a stop to the rise of pornography, address the negative effects of sexualised self-worth and explore the broader ramifications on society (the recent film Embrace @bodyimagemovement tackles this issue with a global lens).

In 2015 Laura found herself at the helm of a movement with a campaign run by Collective Shout to 'close down the Zoo Mag', which actively engaged thousands of public supporters across Australia to have the salacious lads mag removed from supermarket shelves. It worked. This public pressure exposed Zoo for what it was, and caused the closure of the magazine completely.

Laura is a previous Foundation For Young Australians Young Social Pioneer, and now travels Australia speaking to high school students about the increasingly problematic sexualisation of young people in mainstream and social media, appears regularly on TV, pens multiple articles on the topic, and is an incredible example of a young woman paving the way as a social entrepreneur.

We are so thrilled to bring Laura's BIG ENERGY, BOLD VISION and BRILLIANT LEADERSHIP to our stage at the Girledworld APAC Leadership SUMMIT 2017.

Please join Laura and an incredible lineup of founders, leaders, STEM champions and bold women who back themselves on Sunday June 25.
Be prepared to be changed. ✖️✖️  

You don't start successful. You make yourself along the way.

We've met a lot of extraordinary people in recent months as we've scoured the globe for our @girledworld SUMMIT speaker lineup.

We've met people who blew us away with their courage, conviction and success. People we thought we could never be like. Because they're somehow different. Better. Brighter. Bolder. Smarter. More talented than we'll ever be... 

Unreachable people reaching unreachable heights, cresting places we could never reach....

Know the feeling???

Truth be told once we sat down and heard their stories, how they started, how they still have their days of doubt, how they too, have their stumbles, we quickly got to the human underneath.

And once you get there you realise we are all just ordinary people , and that the difference between those who make it and those who don't is not innate brilliance, but a willingness to push and try and fail and back yourself, even when you're full of doubt.

Successful people aren't born like that. They make themselves along the way. They're starters. So start small. It's the discovery that matters most.

@girledworld - Building the next generation of female founders and leaders, one girl at a time. ✖️✖️

EARLY BIRD GIRLEDWORLD SUMMIT TICKETS ON-SALE NOW!
One very big unmissable weekend of inspiration, education and empowerment for secondary school aged girls! 
University of Melbourne
Saturday June 24 & Sunday June 25
Get in quick! Selling fast.

Erin Bagwell chats to Girledworld about Dream, Girl and how to SMASH IT!

Was such a pleasure on a recent girledworld US jaunt to spend the SoHo morning with New York-based filmmaker  and big talent Erin Bagwell talking role models, female storytelling and how to smash it! 🎙

Bagwell is the brains behind @dreamgirlfilm - the award-winning Oprah Winfrey-endorsed US documentary showcasing the stories of amazing and inspiring female entrepreneurs.

Made by a talented all-female crew in New York, @DreamGirlFilm celebrates trailblazing female entrepreneurs who are passionate about elevating and empowering women in business across the globe. Since screening at The White House the film has gone on to reach audiences in 81 countries and Bagwell was recently named on Oprah Winfrey's #SuperSoul100, a list featuring extraordinary individuals who live life intentionally, create transformative social impact and bring global inspiration to others (which this film does in spades!)

We support Dream, Girl in its mission to tell the stories of struggle and triumph by females at the helm of brand new startups and multi-million dollar entities, and how they are breaking through biases and leading the charge of the new business normal to carve out the future of work (females are currently launching 1200 new businesses a day in the US).

Together with them we will continue to ignite conversations about female leadership, courage and entrepreneurship, and show girls role models who are forging paths and fuelling the startup pipeline with disruptive businesses built on their own terms.

For more on Dream, Girl visit @dreamgirlfilm 🎥

www.dreamgirlfilm.com

@girledworld - Building the next generation of female leaders and founders, one girl at a time.

GIRLEDWORLD SUMMIT Early Bird Tickets on-sale NOW!
GET IN QUICK BEFORE THEY'RE GONE!

Young Musical Talent Tilly Vickers Willis to perform at girledworld SUMMIT!

We love celebrating talent, especially extraordinary up-and-coming girl talent. 🎙

So we're thrilled to confirm Tilly Vickers-Willis, a 17-year-old amazing musician from Melbourne, as part of our talent-studded lineup for the @girledworld SUMMIT at the University of Melbourne on SUNDAY JUNE 25 (Early Bird Tickets selling now here!)

Playing piano, guitar and singing for most of her life, Tilly started writing songs around the age of 5 and turned to it as a serious craft aged just 12.

Says the songwriter: "My songs form out of necessity and reflect my careful observations of the world around me, exploring ideas such as youth, societal expectations, young love, nostalgia and an exploration of political & world issues."

Her big, bold and haunting sound is acoustic and simple, inspired by strong female artists such as London Grammar’s Hannah Reid, Missy Higgins, Lorde, and Isabella Manfredi, and to date Tilly has performed at a range of events and backyard gigs including scoring her first radio gig on 3AW with Billy Pinnell, Grubby and Dee Dee last month. 

You can lose yourself in her sound on soundcloud at soundcloud.com/tillyvw

And see her power and talent in the real @girledworld @unimelb SUMMIT (link in profile 🔝)

BOOK YOUR EARLY BIRD TICKETS NOW for the GIRLEDWORLD BIG IDEAS SUMMIT
Saturday June 24 & Sunday June 25 at the University of Melbourne ✖️✖️ 

Featuring a seriously amazing lineup of speakers and experiential workshops from @unimelb @wadeinstitute @ibm @airbnb @atlassian @tomorganic @airwallex @girlgeekacademy @adorebeauty @frank_bod @startupvictoria @wiseunimelb @whatsnormal_  @fya_org @doremecreative @mumtaza @oneroofwomen @mapunimelb @theleaguewomen @coolaustralia @philipdalidakis @launchvic and stacks more!  ✖️✖️ 

@girledworld - Building the next generation of female leaders, founders and #STEM champions.

It takes a community of many to change the life of one.

And just one empowered girl to change the world of many. 🎙✖️✖️

Jess Vovers - STEM Trailblazer speaks at girledworld SUMMIT

Jess Vovers is one to watch.

She's easy to watch in any case because her bright blue hair, big energy and incredible talents shine out of her like stars.

But she's also one to watch because she has a lot going on.

Born in Thailand and raised in the US, Cameroon and Australia, Vovers completed her BSci (Chemical Systems), DipLang (Japanese) and MEng (Biochemical) at the University of Melbourne, and is now undertaking her PhD in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering with a focus on sustainable solvents. She aims to replace petrochemical solvents for bio-based ones in the extraction of natural products, specifically pharmaceutical compounds from opium.

When she's not in the lab, Vovers is busy pushing the agenda for diversity in STEM and advocates for this through her work with Science Gallery Melbourne, mentoring with Curious Minds and in her previous position as President of Women in Science and Engineering. Through these roles, Vovers hopes to help break down barriers for the next generations of women in STEM, and we're thrilled to have her bringing her STEM story, thought leadership and career advice to hundreds of secondary school aged girls at our upcoming APAC 2017 SUMMIT at the University of Melbourne this June. You can read all about that here. Early Bird Tickets on-sale now!

Today we'd love to share with you this piece penned by Vovers on Medium, which she wrote to accompany her talk for veski’s Fast Smarts event as part of Melbourne Knowledge Week. It gives you a great window into her thoughts on diversity, invisible and overt workplace biases, and her suggestions for breaking down barriers. Enjoy.

ENGINEERING A DIVERSE WORKPLACE

Of course, the lack of diversity in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) isn’t something we can fully explore in six minutes and forty seconds. So I’ve created this as a starting point. It is by no means complete — this is a complex area and I myself am constantly learning more about it — but it’s more of an introduction, with some ways we can address it, and links to more resources.

WHAT ARE THE BARRIERS?

• Harassment — creates a hostile work environment, people ‘pushed’ out
• Discrimination
• Unconscious bias (Check your bias using the Harvard Implicit Association Tests, or see Jane Elliott’s Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes Exercise)
• Stereotypes and prejudices
• Lack of accessibility — in so many senses. Ultimately we need to provide and create opportunities so that people can take them up.
• Career structure (family pressures still commonly gendered, bias against part time or parental leave ‘breaks’ in career progression)
• Deficit of diversity in senior positions — lack of role models

SO WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT IT?

At all levels, providing support, inspiration and opportunities. In everyday life, being an ally. This means listening to the experiences of others, educating yourself (and others) and helping to make spaces for voices that are diverse to raise them up.

IN THE WORKPLACE

We need a culture shift.

The majority of actions to address inequity in STEM are potentially flawed in that they assume a baseline respect for people from diverse backgrounds. There is a critical issue here: STEM has documented discrimination and sexism. Experiences of harassment and discrimination undermine all efforts you might make to address a lack of diversity — if people are not safe, they will leave.

First step: look at your harassment policies. Channels should be as clear and accessible as possible, with multiple reporting routes and enforced policy — not just empty threats allowing perpetrators of harassment to stay in the system. When an incident occurs, there should be no question of where and how to report, particularly for already immensely challenging experiences such as sexual harassment. Is your organisation doing enough?

Create spaces that encourage diversity. Be vigilant. Call out inappropriate language and actions (even if they’re “jokes”: see why denigrating jokes are harmful). Raise awareness of problematic and hostile behaviour. If you’re an engineer, think of it like safety culture: a safety incident must be defused, and you have to train yourself to see and address it. This is something we have cultivated as an industry — and we can do the same for being inclusive.

Share your failures. Like that time I destroyed a pH probe due to material incompatibility.

Observe group behaviour, and ensure everyone is able to voice their thoughts in discussions (whether due to confidence, monopolisation by others, etc). Act as a facilitator where needed, particularly if you have a position of privilege; you have a powerful opportunity to influence change. Normalise vulnerability by sharing your failures — this creates a safe space for discussion so that these issues can be addressed and not hidden.

Close the wage gaps. This article speaks on gendered wage gaps in Australia, but it’s important to know that other intersections of identity will result in wage gaps that can be even more significant (see The Simple Truth (particularly the full report) for 2017 data in the US including race/ethnicity, disability status, sexual orientation, age and others). For Australian data, the Workplace Gender Equality Agency has a brilliant tool to compare data across a wide range of industries and even within specific role types within those industries, however it doesn’t contain information about other aspects of diversity.

Support and encourage diverse people to take risks in applying for opportunities — nominate them when possible, celebrate and reinforce their successes and achievements. If you can, offer mentorship, or better yet sponsorship.

Hiring and promoting can be rife with issues. Unconscious bias training can be useful to an extent. Having a diverse panel can only go so far if they aren’t trained to check their bias (see common gendered biases in research). Transparency in reviews can also address some of the issues.

I’m not going to have the quotas discussion or argue about the value of meritocracy. A true meritocracy can’t exist while systemic bias exists. In our current system, performance isn’t wholly dictated by merit alone (see gender bias in the Heidi and Howard example (1) (2) (3)). If you want to have diverse teams, you’ll need to build them somehow. Look at the language you use and the channels where you advertise.

The next big shift we need is for workplace and career structures that allow for flexibility — things like job sharing and part time work, HR policies to help return to work, adequate parental leave facilitated so that uptake does not result in bias, and provisions for childcare. This isn’t just about families, but also people with chronic health conditions for example.

How is your organisation represented externally? Be inclusive of diverse groups in campaigns, in events, in everything. It may seem small, but making visible change reflects not only on your organisation but also your industry. Check about diversity when speaking externally at events (especially panel events). When organising events, make them representative and have authentic engagement.

OUTSIDE OF THE WORKPLACE

To achieve equity in the workplace we need equity in domestic responsibilities as well (high quality affordable childcare must become a reality — look at m-time for diverse local initiatives).

If you have or will have young people in your home you have an amazing opportunity to instill values in them, and act as a support system. Build self confidence, independence, and bold vision in young people, so that our world can thrive under future generations. As our world becomes more automated and machine focused, creativity and creative thinking will become massive assets. Here in Melbourne we’ll soon be home to a node of the international Science Gallery network, where young minds will be inspired by the intersection of art and science.

Universities need to provide supports for students who have come from diverse backgrounds, including, for example, first generation students and students from low-income backgrounds who can experience a very real ‘culture shock’ upon entering university.

WE NEED TO MAKE A REAL IMPACT.

Let’s commit to and action this, not just talk about it.

MORE RESOURCES

How to move beyond ‘diversity hires’: Now that we have your attention by Leena van Deventer

Want to know the stats? See Diversity in Science: Where Are the Data? by Fred Guterl

5 Numbers That Explain Why STEM Diversity Matters to All of Us by Maeghan Ouimet

Diversity in business: Driving Diversity and Inclusion by Autopia

Exploring the gender gap in STEM: Closing the science gender gap: we need to increase the public presence of women in STEM by Dr. Megan Sebben

If you think there is some ‘natural’/biological reasoning for the discrepancy of gender in STEM, please read Delusions of Gender by Cordelia Fine.

Summary of some recent instances of racial harassment and discrimination in Australia: The Australian condition: Brown Poppy Syndrome by Ketan Joshi

Prioritising diversity: That Time You Failed to Follow Up on Diversity by Melissa Nightingale

How Madeleine Grummet is building the next generation of female leaders.

This article first appeared on Business Chicks 2017.

Business Chicks Premium member Madeleine Grummet, 44, seems to be one of those people who always has something on the go.

“I have a full dance card,” she says. “But, for me, it’s the only way to play.”

Madeleine has her own creative consultancy, Do Re Me, and recently completed a Master of Entrepreneurship at the University of Melbourne. She also interviews incredible women alongside journalist Mignon Stewart for the Wise Women Project.

Her most recent project is girledworld, Co-founded with Edwina Kolomanski, which aims to inspire young girls to become brilliant leaders. Their motto? “If you want to change a generation, start with the girls.”

Madeleine is constantly blown away by the power of storytelling and its capacity to ignite change. She is known for her ability to challenge status quo, transform business models and cultivate diverse, collaborative communities. Oh, and she holds a number of board and ambassadorial positions, has four daughters and a husband, Jeremy, and lives in an amazing house in Melbourne.

Where did you grow up, and what did you want to be when you grew up?

I grew up in Melbourne and spent my childhood playing street cricket, sleeping under outback stars on wild family road trips, and being part of the tumult, abundant love and thrills and spills of a family of eight! For as long as I can remember I wanted to be a writer. I wrote copious notebooks full of poetry and short stories! I still have boxes stuffed with them. They capture moments of time that would otherwise be lost. 

Well, it’s sort of come true, right – you’re a bona-fide creative now.

Yes, I did my cadetship at the Herald Sun/Pacific magazines, and worked as a freelance journalist and business consultant for years.

Tell us a bit about the inspiration behind girledworld. 

It was founded to close the gender gap and build the next generation of female founders and leaders in this country. We believe if you want to change a generation, you start with the girls. So our events, digital resources and mentorship for girls aged 15-18 years cultivates entrepreneurial mindsets and leadership skillsets, so by the time they begin tertiary and workplace pathways, they are ready to engage, lead and succeed. Our first conference, supported by Airbnb, will be held at Melbourne University in June 2017. Stay tuned for details of seriously amazing speakers and workshops.

What do you love about it?

I love people, and I’m passionate about building communities, so I’ve been lucky enough to work with and learn from amazing entrepreneurs, founders, academics and leaders across the government, corporate, NFP and startup sectors over the past few years. Melbourne has a thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem and it’s awesome to be part of that energy and big talent every day.

What do you find challenging?

I still don’t love burgeoning to-do lists and looming deadlines, and of course, there’s never enough hours in the day. Family, work, friends and time for self is always a juggle, but I’m getting better at triaging priorities!

What made you join Business Chicks?

I joined Business Chicks because I’m a big believer in the power of women sharing our stories, inspiring each other, and trading wisdom. The business journey of an entrepreneur can be lonely. Business Chicks creates thriving places on and offline to find your tribe, chat through challenges and triumphs, and learn from one another.

I loved the recent Facebook event in Melbourne – we leaned in to listen as Mia Garlick from Facebook spoke candidly about the state of affairs at Facebook saying that they, too, had a long way to go before they had truly representative diversity internally, and that she believed women generally lacked the confidence to get the skills they needed to step into tech and leadership. Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg’s Be The Nerd and Hackergirl initiatives are directly attempting to address this lack of diversity and drive more women and girls into STEM and leadership pathways, which we at girledworld endorse wholeheartedly! Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commissioner Kristen Hilton’s speech was also powerful and inspiring for all present.

What’s the toughest career challenge you’ve had?

Probably studying the Masters. Juggling four kids, running a business, launching a startup and studying at university full-time meant I had to make every moment count.

It was intense, with lots of late nights and dawn starts, but actually one of the most rewarding and transformative years of my life! Worth the hurdle! To get through this year I gave myself permission to let some stuff go so I could step out and step up to find the spaces I needed to give study my all. I reduced external commitments, let the laundry fester, got help when I needed it, and dropped the bar on perfection.

You can’t do everything – something’s gotta give. So I gave my gotta to my family and study and let some other things go.

What is the best piece of advice you’ve been given?

“Don’t ask for permission. Ask for forgiveness later.”

I heard this from Sally Ann Williams, engineering community and outreach manager at Google HQ in Silicon Valley, on a recent innovation trip there.

What’s a day in your life like?

No day is ever the same! Meetings, kids, endless emails, trawling blogs, news, radio, academic articles, social media, writing copy, interviewing, cups of tea, school pickup, dog belly rubs, phone meets, and whatever else comes my way! A cathartic walk along the bay with my beautiful husband, cooking to cranked up music, or a long bath with a pile of books are the salves for my soul.

Is there anything you tell yourself on Monday mornings?

One life. Use it.

Yassmin Abdel-Magied paves the way for women of colour with MUMTAZA

We are honoured to have the extraordinary Yassmin Abdel-Magied joining us for the 2017 @girledworld APAC Summit at the University of Melbourne on Sunday June 25 2017.

We've put together a TED-style interactive learning event for teenage girls, and it's exceptional women like Abdel-Magied who will empower, inspire and educate our young audience with her incredible stories of hardship and leadership as a woman paving the way in the world. 

Truth be told, Abdel-Magied is a total hands-down dynamo. 

Flying the flag for parity, diversity and gender equality for women the world over, Abdel-Magied is a brilliant example of what it means to be a change-maker and strong female leader on every front.
 
Her list of accolades is long. A mechanical engineer, author, social advocate and internationally sought-after speaker who founded Youth Without Borders at the age of 16, Abdel-Magied's @TED talk on unconscious bias has been viewed millions of times, she published her first book, Yassmin's Story, aged just 24, and her commentary has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, on the BBC and regularly on TV and mainstream media.

More recently, Abdel-Magied Co-founded Mumtaza - the world's first speakers bureau for women of colour - with M-Time, Foundation for Young Australians and G20 entrepreneurs Dr Yan-Ting Choong, Sarah Agboola, and Maeva Heim of the League of Extraordinary Women - all amazing women in their own right, who will also join us at the girledworld Summit.

Abdel-Magied was awarded the 2007 Young Australian Muslim of the Year, the 2010 Young Queenslander of the Year and the 2015 Queensland Young Australian of the Year, and continues to bring her critical voice, expertise and perspective to social and political discourse.

We think the world needs more women like her in it. 👏🏽

Join Abdel-Magied and the Mumtaza team @girledworldSummit - bring your daughters, nieces, friends, and be inspired. ✨✖️✖️

EARLY BIRD TICKETS ON-SALE NOW!

TED Talks every girl should watch.

We know the power of females sharing stories, trading wisdom and learning from life lived. It's how we make sense of ourselves, the world around us, and where to chart our next course.

One of the best sources of rich, free storytelling and untold wisdom is TED which millions of people the world over jump online to watch day to day, and hear and learn from extraordinary thinkers, survivors of unimaginable adversity and ordinary people like you and me, sharing their unique spin on life.

There are thousands of talks on topics as wide-ranging as you can get.

Here are a few of our favourite talks for girls. Enjoy.

And take some TED time out this weekend to change your thinking, open your eyes and hear the stories that matter.

Australian entrepreneur blazing the digital way in LA

Loving learning and hearing from Sarah Harden, trailblazer and President of Otter Media, on female leadership, entrepreneurial way-finding and driving growth and opportunities in the digital domain through acquisition.

Especially loving the recent JV with Reese Witherspoon to form multimedia cross-platform content company Hello Sunshine, a women's media and storytelling brand telling female-driven stories.

Learn more about Australian Sarah Harden's career pathway here.

And watch this space to hear more from Sarah in the leadup to the girledworld Summit!

Melbourne Knowledge Week Event: Women Entrepreneurs Changing The World

We know how important it is to find your knowledge tribe, tap your female networks and support each other to work toward the possible. girledworld is built on it. It's why we started. And it's why our community continues to grow as we future face, learn from each other and embrace innovation.

One of the biggest gifts of working in a startup building the next Gen of female founders and leaders is the fact that we get to meet incredible women. All the time.

In this city alone there are scores of phenomenal Changemakers, Trailblazers, Budding Entrepreneurs, Courageous Status Quo Shakers and Purpose-Fuelled Leaders inspiring, collaborating, co-creating and reimagining the way we work, live and play. Outstanding humans all round, innovating, iterating and building the futures we'll inhabit.

So it's my great pleasure to invite you to a Melbourne Knowledge Week University of Melbourne event I'm delighted to moderate, where you'll hear from a stellar panel of Melbourne’s best female entrepreneurs!

Unlock their secrets to entrepreneurial success. Learn how they lead companies that are changing the way the world works. Ask them how they started and scaled. And after the panel, stay and network with other passionate entrepreneurs and business owners over a drink or two at the Wade Institute of Entrepreneurship at the University of Melbourne (home to the next Gen of budding founders).

See invite below. Please share with your networks.

And please join us on the night.

I look forward to future-facing with you all.

Madeleine Grummet

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MELBOURNE KNOWLEDGE WEEK EVENT
Wade Institute, University of Melbourne

Tuesday May 2, 2017 6pm-8pm

Women Entrepreneurs: Changing The World

The Wade Institute is thrilled to invite you to hear from a panel of three amazing women entrepreneurs as part of Melbourne Knowledge Week. Moderated by entrepreneur, Co-founder of girledworld and Master of Entrepreneurship Alum Madeleine Grummet, Women Entrepreneurs: Changing the World is part of a week-long, city-wide annual festival featuring 70 new wave events to inspire curiosity, ignite conversation, encourage collaboration and bring future-focussed ideas to life.

FEMALE GUEST PANELLISTS

Bec Scott, STREAT

Bec Scott is the Co-founder and CEO of STREAT, a Melbourne-based social enterprise that works with marginalised young people aged 16-25 years and provides them with a healthy self, job and home. STREAT run a portfolio of eight foodservice businesses across Melbourne, including cafes, an artisan bakery, a catering company, and a coffee roastery. Prior to starting STREAT Scott was the Vice-President of KOTO, a hospitality training program and social enterprise for street youth in Hanoi and also worked for a decade in management positions at CSIRO, Australia’s premier science research organisation. Awarded a scholarship to the Australian National University and holding a Masters in International and Community Development, Scott traveled Australia as part of the Shell Questacon Science Circus, has founded a number of large interdisciplinary programs (particularly international science art programs) and helped establish the ACT Film Makers’ Network. For six years Scott has been on the Board of the Australian Choreographic Centre and was awarded the Vincent Fairfax Fellowship, an 18-month program to further develop outstanding young Australians who have demonstrated strong ethical leadership. 

Dr Elaine Saunders, Blamey Saunders

Dr Elaine Saunders has been a pioneer in hearing research and innovation for over forty years. An award-winning, globally-recognised business woman, audiologist and academic, Saunders is the co-founder and CEO of Blamey Saunders hears, an innovative, world-leading hearing aid and telehealth company. In 2015 the Blamey Saunders IHearYou® self-fit hearing aid system received the Australian Good Design Award for Social Innovation and was a finalist in The Australian Innovation Challenge. Saunders was named an AFR/Westpac 100 Women of Influence in 2015, awarded the 2016 Clunies Ross Medal for Entrepreneur of the Year, the BioMelbourne Network's Women in Leadership Award 2015 and recognised as Asia's Leading Woman in Healthcare. Saunders blogs about hearing and hearing loss at elainesaunders.com.au

Charlotte Petris, Timelio

Charlotte Petris Co-founded Timelio after experiencing first-hand how difficult it was for businesses to raise finance. Actively involved in shaping Australia’s FinTech industry, Petris is Vice President of FinTech Australia and a member of the Australian Federal Government’s FinTech Advisory Group. Passionate about making it simple and easy for businesses across Australia to get finance, Petris describes the award-winning tech startup as a peer-to-peer marketplace for invoice financing, which will soon expand to a staff of more than 30 (with more than half of those hires female). Petris remains one of the only Australian females at the helm of a rapidly scaling Fintech startup.

Join us to hear and learn from these knowledge-rich, extraordinary entrepreneurs.

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MELBOURNE KNOWLEDGE WEEK EVENT BOOKINGS

Register here – but be quick, tickets are going fast!

If you have questions or queries please email: events@wadeinstitute.org.au

The Experience Age - a night at PwC as a STARTUP

This week the team at girledworld paid a visit to the new PwC (Price Waterhouse Coopers) offices located in Southbank, Melbourne, for The Experiences Event.

With 360 degrees of the city, the new state of the art office facilities filled with open plan offices, technology and collaborative spaces were an enviable setting, which provided the perfect backdrop to begin discussions about the future of big business in Australia.

To begin the evening, we were invited to select three of following perspectives: 

1. Student experience: Going digital to raise the bar on student employability
2. Connected Retail Experience: Maximising the engagement of tomorrow's customer in a connected retail world
3. Employee experience: How creative communications is changing the employee experience
4. Solving wicked problems: Co-designing solutions to wicked problems in an experience-led world
5. When data is the difference: Three ways to use data to reduce cost and engage your customers
6. Cyber Security: Security by design
7. Disruption: Swimming against the tide - Disruption in established organisations incorporating a Blockchain case study
8. Government: Solving big problems and rebuilding trust in Government

We selected the following perspectives and here's our biggest take-aways from each: 

1. Student experience: Going digital to raise the bar on student employability

• Given the way that students (at both secondary and tertiary levels) interact with one another, technology needs to be at the core of key communication strategies
• Understand what the outcome of tertiary education is --> employability 
• When designing curriculum, ensure that the end goal (of employability) is always engineered into the educational framework. Students must be skilled and ready for employment 
• STUDENTS are educational institution's CUSTOMERS

3. Employee experience: How creative communications is changing the employee experience

• Internal communications within companies continues to be under-utilised and under-valued
• Storytelling is the most effective way to communicate KEY information. This can come in many forms including storybooks, one page posters, in-office interactive technology displays
• Digital communication tools do not completely replace traditional communication media (i.e. paper materials)

4. Solving wicked problems: Co-designing solutions to wicked problems in an experience-led world

• Human-centred design approaches are now becoming more "mainstream" 
• Ensure that diversity is at the core of the design process - bring the right people into the design process 
• Understand the PROBLEM that you are trying to solve 
• Co-creation leads to a deeper connection, higher engagement and ownership of solutions 

Following the live perspectives, a panel presentation included the following: 

• Airbnb Australia & New Zealand Country Manager, Sam McDonagh

• Telstra Group Chief Technology Officer and previous Ericsson Australia and New Zealand CEO,  Hakan Eriksson

• NSW Treasury Director and previous EGM Strategy, Education and External Relations at SunSuper, Andrea Forbes

• Previous Executive General Manager of Channel Ten and PwC's current lead of our Chief Marketing Officer Advisory, Russel Howcroft

• Commonwealth Bank National Director of Health, Caitlin Wilson

The all-star panel including representatives from Airbnb, CBA, Telstra, NSW Treasury and PwC

The panel discussion largely focused around discussions of innovation (integrating innovation projects into large companies), technology (like 5G and drones), disruption and addressing national problems of the future (like health industry and the ageing population of Australia).

From a start-up perspective, it was fascinating to see the discomfort and struggle that large corporations are experiencing in relation to the broader market which is being rapidly disrupted by innovation, technology and startups! The future is going to be vastly different to the past and present. That's why we need to ensure the next generation is prepared and skilled accordingly with the soft and hard enterprise skillsets to adapt to this rapid change.

---

At girledworld we're constantly seeking new information and checking in with industry to ensure our eduTech resources and experiences for Australian girls are relevant and in-tune with the employment landscape of the future. We are developing world-leading educational experiences for Australian girls, so that they have the resource and skill-sets to succeed in the future of work - whatever that looks like!

If you have any suggestions regarding resources, events or initiatives you think we should be aware of please don't hesitate to get in touch with us at hello@girledworld.com  - we're always up for a great conversation! 

5 Stories of Powerful Women Who Inspire Us

For International Women’s Day today (8 March) you’ll see a lot of stories about impressive and accomplished women breaking barriers and fighting the accepted norms for how we see women and what they can achieve.

We need to tell these stories to push forward the conversation about gender equality and normalise the voice of powerful women.

Here we want to shine a spotlight on the women in our everyday lives who have shaped us, our views, the impact we have on the world, but who don’t get the attention they deserve.

We spoke with five of our students from The University of Melbourne’s Master of Entrepreneurship who shared stories about these women in their lives. The women who shaped how they see the world, understand their own drive, and pushed them to have a bigger impact.

Melissa Tenggara (2017 student) – My Grandmother

“My grandmother acquired the shipping company, PT Sinar Maluku Lines, back in 1969 at a time when it was not very common for women to continue work after having children. But she resisted the pressure to stay at home and went on to establish a successful business.”

“I can clearly remember going to her office every day for lunch from when I was about three years old. Looking back, it was her way of ‘introducing’ me to the business. Today, she’s 75 years old and still goes to work every morning.”

“Seeing how strong and decisive my grandmother is has really given me the confidence to pursue a career in business and, ultimately, set-up my own social enterprise.”

[Excerpt from a longer article originally published in the Faculty of Business and Economics Newsroom]

Sarah Agboola (2016 alumna) – My Mum

“My mother is one of the bravest people I have come across in my life. She lost both her parents when she was a child but worked herself to independence. She took a risk and moved from Nigeria to Canada at age 24 without knowing a soul in the country or having a clear idea of what would await her when she arrived.

She was one of the first black women to work in our local hospital when we moved to Australia in the late 90’s, and she has raised myself and my siblings by herself since my father died in 2012.

When I think of everything she has gone through in life, and the fact that she has taken on every setback and just used it as a chance to push harder, I can only think of how lucky I am to be in a position to have someone with her strength backing me.”

[Sarah is currently working on her startup, M-Time, which gives parents time for self care by connecting them with Mumcierges, all-in-one assistants who can do cooking, cleaning, chores and childcare.]
 

Rosh Ghadamian (2016 alumnus) – My Mum, Aunty, and Girlfriend

“The women in my life have been huge role models and supporters for me. From my mum, who has always been a bed-rock of emotional and financial support when starting my first business.

My aunty who gave me opportunities to travel and work with business leaders around the world which gave me a glimpse into the entrepreneurial path. To my girlfriend who is an inspiration, constant companion and cheerleader for everything that I do. 

Women are also the biggest consumer group for my business [The Baby Club] and have been the most patient, giving and understanding group I could ask for. They care deeply about the products, friendships and families they belong to and they have a quiet strength that helps empower the group of men and women under them to grasp further than they were able to themselves. "
 

Madeleine Grummet (2016 alumna) – My Four Daughters

“I don’t have to look further than my four daughters to find the purpose, passion and energy I need to propel myself forward. They are my living life lesson, every day. They teach me humility, humanity, humour, and that there is no one way to be a girl (or woman) in the world.

My girls are distinct, unique, insightful, and don’t yet know their own power. And it is a privilege to simply lay down the path from girl to woman for them, to teach them, learn from them, know them, and nurture them when they stumble (as they do, and will, like us all).”

“I have always said to them ‘Do as I do, not as I say’ and tried to lead by example. Mentors and role models are so crucial in young girls lives.”

“I also frequently remind them I was a woman, then wife, and then mother, and that although they are of course incredibly important in my life, they are not my everything. We are each made of many moving parts. And we each have one quick life, so you need to find your purpose, find your tribe and use your energy wisely.

My four daughters remind me to be courageous and brave enough to take measured risks and constantly strive for purpose that is bigger than them or me. [My startup] Girledworld was born of that.”
 

Daarshinie Nadarajan (2017 student) – The Women of Bangladesh

“The women of Madhupor, Bangladesh are amongst the strongest and most persistent people I know. I met these wonderful women in 2011, when I was doing an internship with Grameen Bank – a Nobel Peace Prize winning micro-finance organisation.”

“Characterised by gender inequality, low education and poor hygiene, women in Bangladesh never had the opportunity for any financial freedom. Less than 10% of Bangladeshi women have any form of credit from the conventional banking system. This was a humbling experience – these women allowed me to see the power that credit had on alleviating gender inequalities. I was 21 then, financially supported by my parents and never exposed to any form of financial challenge or discrimination. These women had to fight for every basic need that I took for granted.”

“Women borrowing from Grameen represents a social revolution. There was a lot of resistance to the bank’s practices, many women faced threats as a result of this. Despite that, there was a fighting spirit to face these threats and borrow from Grameen, because they saw an opportunity that they wouldn’t otherwise have. For women to be granted the loan was a definite effect on the family. Children benefit automatically with better clothes, food and the possibility of education. Men often spend the money on themselves; women spend it on the family.”

“Today, the bank has almost 8.3 million borrowers. The bank is self-financing, as the women who started off as borrowers have progressed to savings. Having since graduated from university and gone out to the corporate world, I’ve seen how gender inequalities manifest in very different ways. Meeting these women has been a huge inspiration for me to want to create better financing solutions for women everywhere, of any circumstance.”
 

This article was first published on March 7 2017 on The University of Melbourne's Wade Institute website. Sign-up to the Wade Institute Newsletter to stay up-to-date with free events, and inspiring stories.

The Future is STEM.

The future is STEM.

We need to grow the skillsets, mindsets and tech sets of school-aged girls NOW so they can step up to #STEM careers and shape the future of work in science, technology, engineering and maths. 

But we can't do this alone.

So @girledworld we are honoured to have the support and expertise of Women in STEM Australia and WISE (Women in science and engineering at the University of Melbourne) to lead by example, encourage girls aged 15-18 to study STEM subjects, and show them some of the great careers built on STEM. 

Because role models matter. 

Girls (even little baby robot girls 🤖) can't be what they can't see.
And they don't know what they don't know.

So we need more female STEM role models inspiring girls, science teachers, educators, entrepreneurs, executives, manufacturers, editors and policy-makers to bring the numbers up. 

But we've got a long way to go.

A recent Australian Government National Innovation and Science Agenda Report stated that only one in four IT graduates and fewer than one in 10 engineering graduates are women.

Further, women occupy fewer than one in five senior researcher positions in Australian universities and research institutes, and around one quarter of the STEM workforce overall.

So clearly we need a concerted, national effort to overcome the cultural, institutional and organisational factors that discourage girls and women from studying STEM, and that limit their opportunities to pursue careers in STEM and entrepreneurship.

Help us make the change.

Register for our @Girledworld Big Ideas Summit at the University of Melbourne's Wade Institute Saturday June 24 and Sunday June 25 where we'll bring together a roomful of secondary school aged girls and extraordinary female mentors, STEM champions and entrepreneurial change-makers who are paving the way in the future of STEM and the future of work.

The girledworld Big Ideas SUMMIT 2017 is supported by Airbnb and a generous portfolio of advisors, mentors and businesses. Speaker lineup announced soon! :) 🤖

REGISTER EARLY TO AVOID MISSING OUT. LIMITED PLACES. UNLIMITED INSPIRATION.

#leadership #startup #stepup #STEM #education #empowerment #inspiration #diversity #girledworld