Joanna Hartcourt-Smith is the creator of the online podcast Future Primitive and author of the memoir “Tripping the Bardo with Timothy Leary”. In this interview, Joanna Hartcourt-Smitt brings to light how living in love and caring deeply about the relationships we have with others, carries us towards an intimacy with the planet. This is what she believes brings equality, balance and sustainability.
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Four years ago, Lina Chen and Naomi Ladizinsky’s plan to shake up the gaming world on behalf of girls seemed exceedingly improbable, even to them. Chen had a psychology liberal arts degree and Ladizinsky a film studies degree, both from Yale, where they’d met. They were out to disrupt one of the world’s most elite, tech-driven men’s clubs from a tiny office in Hollywood, yet, as Chen recalls with a ripple of laughter, “We didn’t have experience or money. We’d never worked as executives, and we had no connections in tech, startup or the gaming industry. And we didn’t have a product!” Neither of these two L.A. transplants knew how to code, so they taught themselves online. That all seems like a lifetime ago, given what has happened since. Early this year, their Los Angeles company, Nix Hydra, a rare gaming firm founded by women to create games for girls and women, will launch Egg!, a more complex successor to their wildly popular 2013 mobile pet game, Egg Baby. The two long-haired, soft-spoken co-founders of Nix Hydra are now in an enviable position, with just over $5.6 million from investors including venture capital firm Foundry Group, a built-in audience awaiting […]
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Last year, Conservation International started a campaign called Nature Is Speaking, to give voice to our natural world. The video campaign uses a star-studded cast of award-winning actors, with Harrison Ford as the Ocean, Robert Redford as the Redwoods, Julia Roberts as Mother Nature, and Kevin Spacey as the Rainforest. These videos offer simple but powerful messages with one bottom line: nature doesn’t need people, but people need nature. The latest video in the series features Liam Neeson as the dramatic voice of ice, with a dire message about climate change and how melting ice is having devastating effects on humans. While melting ice contributes to sea level rise, frozen ice helps deflect sunlight. So, as ice disappears, the darker surface of the sea absorbs the sun’s energy, further warming the ocean, and creating a feedback loop. This isn’t Liam Neeson’s first time lending his voice to environmental causes. The actor was also a part of HBO’s Saving My Tomorrow, a documentary about kids working to help the environment. According to Conservation International, the film was intentionally released just a few weeks before the international climate change meeting in Paris, and the organization will be showing the films during the […]
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To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the 1995 UN Conference on Women in Beijing, MAKERS is featuring 20 incredible women who participated in the largest ever international gathering of women. Yang Lan, a television journalist and entrepreneur, is the co-founder and chairperson of the Sun Media Group, a Hong Kong-based multimedia company. Yang created the first current-event program in China, and has been a successful media personality in China since her days as a university student. Often compared to Oprah Winfrey, Yang has built a substantial media empire that includes the television shows “Yang Lan One on One and Her Village,” as well as an online magazine and website that attracts nearly 200 million Chinese women a month. In 1995, Yang was a graduate student studying at Columbia University in New York when she returned to Beijing over the summer to act as a master of ceremony for the Welcoming Ceremony of the UN Fourth World Conference on Women. Be sure to watch the trailer for the upcoming documentary, “Once and For All” and join the conversation with the hashtag #OnceAndForAll. Source: MAKERS Team
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August 6, 2015 marks the 70th anniversary of the dropping of the first atomic bomb on a human population, specifically the people of Hiroshima, Japan. As a commemorative series, Women Of Green is taking a look back at the impact of nuclear war on the lives of women. This is the first post in the series. Mothers and Daughters Reflect on the Bomb In looking at the effects of nuclear weapons on mothers and daughters, the documentary film, Atomic Mom makes clear not only the past and effects, but also a way forward. In addition, filmmaker M.T. Silva has created Momisodes, a web series of Atomic Mom where mothers and daughters share thoughts on peace, and you can contribute your own ‘momisode’ to the series. The Film: Two decades after the end of the Cold War, the U.S. President claimed it was a particular mission for his administration to reduce the numbers of weapons on the planet, and to secure those weapons and materials that remain. The importance of this mission is too often forgotten in the current century—except when politicians raise the specter of scary nations who might have or attain weapons, like North Korea or Iran, or scary, […]
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There is another form of discrimination in this country where words and opinions are blatantly expressed, and most just ignore the issue: ageism. We are a youth oriented country that looks at aging as something to avoid at all costs. We have to face that our population is aging and the number of Americans over age 60 is growing. We need to examine our social attitudes and realize that we live in a society that stereotypes aging adults.
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Last summer, Procter & Gamble’s Always scored a big hit with its stereotype-crushing Like a Girl ad, which then got a slot on the Super Bowl. Now, the feminine products brand is back with another powerful commercial aimed at building the confidence of women. The new Leo Burnett ad, Unstoppable, is directed, like its predecessor, by documentarian Lauren Greenfield. And it features a diverse group of girls and young women talking about the limitations they’ve experienced as a result of social norms.
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We as a society have an implicit bias toward extroverts — those who talk the most get the most attention, even though there’s no link between how much we talk and the quality of our insights. And that means we too often dismiss introverts and their ideas — that is, we leave out at least a third of the population, by Susan’s estimate. And that’s costly to everybody, not just introverts.
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The great whales are indicators species that have a lot to say about marine and coastal biodiversity, according to Lisa Bassett, author and professor at the University of Oregon School of Communication and Journalism. Today, seven out of 13 species of great whales are listed as endangered or vulnerable because of commercial whaling (despite an international moratorium); ship strikes; oil and gas exploration; military sonar vessels; pollution; disease, and climate change,” Bassett reminds us. As a professor of journalism, Bassett knew that by documenting an environmental problem, you can become part of the solution. This was the concept behind a four-week study abroad program offered by the University of Oregon (OU), entitled Nature & Culture: Multimedia Storytelling in Uruguay. This astonishing and exciting program focuses on the environment, traditional cultures, sustainability and conservation. The flagship program occurred in 2013, when Bassett led a group of UO students to Uruguay to create a multimedia project entitled The Route of the Whale. The project explored the route from its beginning in the hillside town of Piriapolis to the Brazilian border at Chuy. The students investigated environmental issues and solutions to those issues, in marine biology, conservation and sustainability. They did their work both in the classroom and in […]
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A cable company in Costa Rica has decided to use it’s most valuable public advertising space (which is what we meant by “prime time”) not to promote itself, but to promote local, women-run businesses in the name of female empowerment. Claro® is the company, and ‘Signs Of Progress’ is the name of this awesome campaign seeking to give Costa Rican women a place in society that elevates their economic status.
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