women entrepreneurs | Women of Green

How To Cut Through The Local Clutter

By wogwpa1358 on January 8, 2016 / Featured Post, Leadership / Leave a comment

Tags: Carolyn Parrs, conscious marketing, Small Business, women entrepreneurs, women in business, women in green business, women of green, women's empowerment, women's leadership

One of the biggest challenges for small, local businesses is getting noticed. The truth is that local businesses have unique advantages over the big boxers, and if they are strategic about it, they can carve out a sweet piece of the market pie. The Good News In recent years, there has been a huge resurgence in customers wanting to shop local and support the community. Emarketer recently reported the following: U.S. consumers are choosing small businesses because of the personalized experiences they provide compared with larger businesses. According to April 2014 data from AYTM Market Research, personal service was the Number 2 reason U.S. internet users preferred small businesses vs. large companies, cited by 52.7%. This trailed supporting the local economy (56.2%). What’s more, prices did not play a huge role in choosing small businesses. In fact, 61.2% of respondents said they would pay higher prices to support small businesses. The truth is people are rooting for you to succeed! Here are 3 ways to help make that happen. Don’t Put the Cart Before the Horse One of the biggest and most expensive mistakes I see with small, local businesses is putting the cart (creating a website or ad campaign) […]

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30 Under 30 in 2016: Young Leaders Unleashing Learning For All

By wogwpa1358 on January 5, 2016 / Featured Post, Innovation, Leadership / Leave a comment

Tags: holistic education, rethink schools, social justice, women and education, women entrepreneurs, women's leadership, young women enterpreneurs

Maggie Dunne, Forbes' 30 Under 30 Education 2016 List

We shouldn’t need hot-button issues like the deeply flawed college admissions race, DREAM Act and emerging landscape of K-12 digital learning to remind us that educational opportunities matters — to all of us. Luckily, it’s self-evident to the women and men who earned a spot on the 2016 Forbes 30 Under 30 in Education. Their spirit of innovating in education is deeply original. They range from edtech entrepreneurs such as literacy champions Matthew Ramirez, cofounder of WriteLab, and Quill’s cofounder Peter Gault, and Rebecca Liebman, whose LearnLux focuses on financial literacy. Zaption’s Charlie Stigler has trained his focus on video learning as a dynamic teaching tool. Cassandra Tognoni of BookReport uses data to help districts figure out best practices for spending and saving, and Christopher Pedregal has $7.5 million in funding to crowdsource learning to Socratic’s 8.5 million customers. Increased access to learning for all startups are prominent in this year’s list. Heejae Lim, founder of Talking Points, built an app that bridges the language barrier between teachers and non-English speaking parents, while Sarahi Espinoza Salamonca’s app helps undocumented students find money to go to college. Chelsey Roebuck, cofounder of Emerging Leaders in Technology and Engineering (ELiTE), left the consulting fast track to […]

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This Young Woman Won $100,000 For Developing A New Way To Purify Water

By wogwpa1358 on December 10, 2015 / Featured Post, Innovation / Leave a comment

Tags: ecological sustainability, environmental sustainability, women and the environment, women entrepreneurs, women in green

Maria Elena Grimmett receives $100,000 award

17-year old Maria Elena Grimmett won the prestigious Siemens Competition in Math and Science for developing a new water purification method that can remove pharmaceutical pollutants from water. Maria Elena Grimmett was 11 when she noticed that her family’s well water was tinged brown, and she wondered why. Her curiosity sparked a six-year investigation into a new way to solve a common water pollution problem, and on Tuesday, that inquiry — conducted largely at Grimmett’s dining room table — won her a prestigious prize for young researchers and a $100,000 college scholarship. “Oh my goodness. I can’t tell you how shocked I was,” Grimmett, now 17, said outside an auditorium at George Washington University, which hosted the final round of the 2015 Siemens Competition in Math, Science and Technology. Grimmett’s initial questions about the color of her family’s water led her to learn about pharmaceutical pollution in the Florida Everglades. She was disgusted, and she wanted to help solve the problem. “I couldn’t imagine how people were letting this happen,” she said. So she settled on figuring out a new way to remove sulfamethazine, a common veterinary antibiotic used in pigs and cows, from water. Sulfamethazine contamination is common in rural areas, she said, and is helping to create antibiotic-resistant bacteria […]

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How Gambian Women Are Turning Trash Into Treasure

By wogwpa1358 on December 7, 2015 / Featured Post, Health / Leave a comment

Tags: eco moms, women and the environment, women entrepreneurs, women in sustainability, women's empowerment

An initiative in Gambia is empowering women and reducing hazardous waste at the same time. The Waste Innovation Center, launched in August and initially funded by the European Union’s Global Climate Change Alliance, shows women in the Brikama area how to recycle waste into useful materials and products, which they can then sell in local markets, news site AllAfrica.com reported. Wood-like waste is recycled into charcoal, for example, which can be used as an alternative to firewood and decrease deforestation. Food waste is recycled into compost to function as environmentally friendly fertilizers and plastic is turned into everything from paving slabs and gutters to local sanitary toilet holes. Supported by Waste Aid UK and the Gambia Women’s Initiative, among others, the project provides women with skills they can use to become self-sufficient entrepreneurs. Women learning at the center come from five communities, and some of them travel as far as 12 miles to learn these skills that will provide them with an income, according to the Guardian. Isatou Ceesay, who now leads GWI, highlighted the need to focus on economic equality in her country, telling the Guardian, “In terms of education, [women] are the ones who are always behind. Boys are chosen to go […]

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What The U.K.’s Former First Lady Can Teach Us About Mentoring

By wogwpa1358 on November 30, 2015 / Featured Post, Leadership / Leave a comment

Tags: women entrepreneurs, women's empowerment, women's leadership

Fast Co. spoke to Cherie Blair to find out how she’s using technology to pair mentors and protégés in unexpected ways with remarkable results. As an international human-rights barrister, Cherie Blair has traveled around the world and met women in impoverished areas. Many had business ideas but lacked the resources and assistance necessary to get them off the ground. She always thought there had to be a better way to help them than the ubiquitous two- or three-day conference. I wanted to do something that used technology and targeted a particular group of women who were not the poorest of the poor, but who had businesses that were employing other people.” –Cherie Blair If she could help those business owners succeed, not only would each woman and her family have a better life, but she would also be able to employ others and encourage the economic development of her region and country. It was an ambitious goal, but Blair is no stranger to tackling big challenges. She came from humble beginnings, raised by her single mother and her grandmother, each of whom had only attended school until age 14. Having made the journey from her modest Liverpool home to accomplished […]

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Women Change Makers, What’s Your Passion?

By wogwpa1358 on November 17, 2015 / Arts, Featured Post, Innovation, Leadership / Leave a comment

Tags: women entrepreneurs, women in green business, women's empowerment, women's leadership

Ronnie Planalp Ronnie Planalp is a producer of documentary films and theater in New York and London through her production company, Clear Eye Productions. She splits her time between New York City and Martha’s Vineyard. I am passionate about living every day with love in my heart and compassion toward others. By letting this inform my daily life, I can see the positive energy everywhere. I am passionate about connecting people and mentoring. Through these relationships, I hope to affect change, in myself and in others. In my work, I tell stories of pursuing one’s dreams and persevering with purpose and determination. Life is full of surprises, and embracing uncertainty and risk-taking without fear of failure is something I pursue every day—with passion! SHAKESPEAREHIGH.ORG | THEYCAMETOPLAY.COM Jodi Wing Founder, The Art of Peace Club & Academy Los Angeles, California Jodi Wing, education activist and author, evolved from savvy marketer to satirical novelist, and, finally, thought leader to inner-city youth by creating and teaching Art of War-inspired lessons for practicing peace. Having embraced Sun Tzu’s The Art of War in a modern context, I write about how to manage social conflict and competition to make winning decisions. Working within LA’s […]

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Industry with most female leaders? Marijuana

By wogwpa1358 on November 13, 2015 / Featured Post, Leadership / Leave a comment

Tags: women entrepreneurs, women in green business, women in sustainability, women's leadership

WomenGrow - Marijuana Industry Women Leaders

Women still continue to earn less per hour than men for the same amount of work in America, but there is one highlight — the marijuana industry. Marijuana Business Daily reports this October that the percentage of women executives in the cannabis industry is far higher than in all U.S. businesses as a whole. About 36 percent of executives in the cannabis industry are women. By comparison, just 22 percent of executives in all U.S. businesses are women. And in some sectors of the cannabis economy, women’s gains are even more stark. In the cannabis testing labs sector, women comprise 63% of executives. When it comes to cannabis processing or edibles — executives are 48 percent women. Women executives are most rare in cannabis investment sector (28%), but that’s still above the U.S. average. By comparison, a Pew Women in Leadership study from 2015 found women are under-represented in Congress (20% women). Women make up just 5% of CEOs in the Fortune 500. Women account for about half the labor force. The cannabis industry is often criticized for using sex to sell products, or engaging in frathouse hiring practices. But the survey shows it’s also among the most equitable. Researchers […]

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Rural Development, The Charakha Way – Gandhi Would Be Proud

By wogwpa1358 on November 10, 2015 / Featured Post, Leadership / Leave a comment

Tags: ecological sustainability, green business, social entrepreneurs, social justice, women entrepreneurs, women's empowerment

(This post is authored by Rohit Parakh who is Global Chapters Lead with Rang De and has been an active and pivotal part of the fight against poverty in India. He recently went for a field trip to one of Impact Partners organizations, Charkha. Here is his story.) I was recently reading the book India of My Dreams by Mahatma Gandhi which is a collection of his writings and speeches and one of the key points he makes in the book is for India to truly develop its villages have to progress. And for its villages to progress, the poorest amongst the villagers need to be empowered to earn decent wages to help them move out of poverty. He also extensively spoke about production by masses rather than production for masses which could contribute to large-scale unemployment and poverty. It is a testimony how miserably we have failed to live his dreams of India, that after nearly 70 years of Independence we have a situation that in 75% of rural households (nearly 50 crore people), the main earning member of the family earns less than Rs 5,000 a month (i.e. less than Rs 170 a day). Prasanna, who decided to […]

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