Women Moving Millions

The purpose of Women Moving Millions is clear: to encourage members to set new standards for bold philanthropic leadership and to support their partners in raising greater resources for organizations committed to the lives of women and girls.

This nonprofit brings together women leaders and partner organizations to learn, share and connect with each other and external experts in “gender-lens” philanthropy. Since its founding in 2007, Women Moving Millions has inspired over 230 members to pledge over $600 million to organizations and initiatives that share our commitment to advancing women and girls around the world. More at womenmovingmillions.org

Alphachimp was invited to document the keynote presentations ranging from gender equality, protection of refugees, access to education, healthcare, curbing traditional practices such as genital mutilation and child-marriage.

Event Summary

During their three-day annual summit, WMM brings together over 130 members, prospective members, and partners to catalyze unprecedented resources for the advancement of women and girls.

This year, Women Moving Millions was honored to welcome Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen(Founder of the Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen Foundation) to The Annual Summit as our keynote speaker. In her remarks, Laura set out a call to action to embrace innovation and challenge in philanthropy, “to see every day as an inflection point for doing our philanthropic work better tomorrow” and to “not take no for an answer when the well-being of others are at stake”. For Laura, that means democratizing philanthropy, making it inclusive and to educate philanthropists freely and globally. What does it mean for you?
 
We were also thrilled to invite Pam Scott (Member of Women Moving Millions) to our stage to highlight the power of human-centered design as a framework and tool for elevating our work in social impact. Her advice to demystifying HCD? Understand, Define, Create & Ideate, Implement and of course, LEARN.
 
Our Friday Summit also featured a panel on Innovation + Entrepreneurship with Zubaida Bai (Founder of ayzh), Cheryl Dorsey (President of Echoing Green), Leila Janah (CEO of Sama) as our speakers and Elizabeth Gore (Entrepreneur-in-Resident at Dell) as our moderator. Together, they shared what it takes to innovate (experiment with models, seek hybrids, explore supply chains, etc.) and what it takes to succeed (align investor expectations, connect through stories, move from “bootstrapping” to equity or impact investing, and more).
 
We then invited Barrie Landry (Member of Women Moving Millions), Caryl Stern (President & CEO of U.S. Fund for UNICEF),Kuoth Wiel (Actor, Activist, Co-Founder of the NyaEden Foundation & Former Refugee) and Jessica Houssian (Chief Philanthropy Officer of Women Moving Millions) to share their personal stories and experiences working to address the global refugee crisis (over 65 million people have been forcibly displaced from their homes) and the role that innovation can play to empower women and girls in times of conflict. We were also lucky to have Shared Studios bring us live to Erbil, Iraq to meet Tafra, a school teacher, Myrna and Rind, two ten year old girls, to hear their stories of life in Harsham Refugee Camp. At the close of the session, Kuoth shared an inspiring message of encouragement to Tafra, Myrna & Rind: “There is hope. I want you to see that I am proof that there is hope.”
 
Our next speaker, Geena Rocero (Model, Producer & Trans Rights Advocate), then took the stage to share her story as a transgender woman of color and highlight her work to develop an intersectional and inclusive dialogue about the trans experience. That means, “when we talk about women’s equality… we need to talk across the spectrum of identity, policy, history, media, and culture.”­­
 
Geena’s session was followed by our panel on Innovation + Story featuring Jess Tomlin (Executive Director of The MATCH International Women’s Fund), Sherrie Westin (Executive Vice President of Global Impact & Philanthropy at the Sesame Workshop), Kamal Sinclair (Director of the Sundance Institute’s New Frontier Labs Program) and Cara Mertes (Director of the JustFilms Initiative at the Ford Foundation) who moderated the conversation. In this session, our panelists shared their work in activating storytelling in the form of codes, algorithms and puppets to transfer knowledge, shape attitudes and create a new future for women and girls around the world.
 
Finally, our last session introduced Sonita Alizadeh, 19 year old Afghan Rapper & Activist to the Women Moving Millions community in a breathtaking performance about her life and struggle to defy tradition and eradicate child-marriage.  In an interview with Mona Sinha (Vice President of the Board of Women Moving Millions), Sonita also shared a few inspirational parting words about changing her destiny: “I had a vision for my life, and my dreams helped me to be loud and to be brave.”­­­ We heard Sonita loud and clear. 

Facilitated by superstar Lisa Witter co-founder of Apolitical and former COO of Fenton, the largest public interest communications firm in the US. She has been a commentator and moderator for outlets including NPR, MSNBC, CBS and the Clinton Global Initiative. She has worked in government for the Seattle City Council. She is a WEF Young Global Leader and sits on the Global Agenda Council on Behaviour.

Collaborating to Create Real-Time Photo-Painting Portraits of Iconoclasts

NOTE: This post is an abbreviated version of the full article about a collaboration with international photographer Asa Mathat, originally published on Medium.com read full article

At the 2016 EG Conference in Carmel, California, I was a member of a volunteer creative team tasked with documenting the conference presenters; people described as “among the most industrious and iconoclastic talents of our time.”

This goal required a fast-paced artistic collaboration between photographers, artists, and students.

Together, we created portraits of this gifted mix of people, ranging from rising tech innovators to living national treasures, from the godfather of design thinking to wildlife photographers and winner of the international beatbox championship.

We were confronted with a unique challenge, the brainchild of photographer Asa Mathat, and none of us had done anything quite like it before.

Each portrait session required a four step process…

STEP 1: Interview

Briefly interview the subject of the portrait and try to pull out a visual theme, key word, symbol, or scene that sums up who they are and what is important to them and their work.

STEP 2: Ideate

As a team, quickly brainstorm, plan out, design, and paint a unique, multi-layered photo booth set to illustrate the person’s story. Super tricky because we needed to work with the photographer on what was possible.

STEP 3: Photoshoot

To see the wet and wild photo session for Sandeep Das (pictured above), check out this video.

Photograph the person, often with some other challenge such as jumping off chairs, flinging water or paint, rolling plexiglass stands, hanging black drapery, swinging lights, or some other perilous piece of gear ready to reek havoc!

STEP 4: Reset

And then? Wash. Rinse. Wipe. And repeat. This had to happen 30+ times in three days.

The resulting portraits have an emotional range as diverse as the people at the center of the photograph. Topics ranged from deadly serious (police brutality, surviving war and disability) to the magnificent (eagles in flight, blue whales) to pure joy (performers, families, survivors).

Some of the 30+ Portraits

David Kelly | design thinking guru

One of my heroes, David Kelley, along with his brother Tom Kelley, is the founder and chairman of the global design and innovation company, IDEO. He also founded Stanford University’s Hasso Plattner Institute of Design, known as the d.school. They co- authored the New York Times best-selling book, “Creative Confidence” (Unleashing the Creative Potential Within Us All).

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Giles Duley | photojournalist & humanitarian

In 2011, Giles Duly lost both legs and an arm after stepping on an IED in Afghanistan whilst photographing those caught up in the conflict. Duley was told he’d probably never walk again. However, characteristically stubborn, he told his doctors “I’m still a photographer”, and returned to work in Afghanistan less than 18 months later. A mere 24 hours before this photoshoot, Giles was with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) working with Syrian refugees at a camp in Northern Iraq.

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Butterscotch | singer, musician & beatbox champion

A one-woman symphony and the world’s first female beatboxing champion, Butterscotch sings, plays guitar and keyboards, and writes her own music as well as playing everything from Chopin to Stevie Wonder. She has performed alongside music legends including Earth, Wind & Fire, Chick Corea, Bobby McFerrin, and many others.

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Mark Pollock | adventurer, athlete & activist

Unbroken by blindness in 1998, Mark Pollock went on to compete in ultra endurance races across deserts, mountains, and the polar ice caps including being the first blind person to race to the South Pole. He was left paralyzed after a 2010 fall from a second story window. He is now exploring the frontiers of spinal cord injury recovery combining an innovative electrical stimulator over his spinal cord and a drug super-charging his nervous system, whilst walking hundreds of thousands of steps as the world’s leading test pilot of Ekso Bionics robotic legs.

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The Halabiskys | a loving life of sailing & dreaming

In 2004 Tiffany Loney and Bruce Halabisky left Victoria, Canada for Hawaii aboard their sailboat. This was to be the first leg of an 11-year voyage around the world including crossing the Pacific and Indian Oceans and three trans- Atlantics. Along the way Tiffany and Bruce added two children to their crew -- Solianna and Seffa Jane. The entire family will be at the EG Conference to talk about the challenges and rewards of ocean voyaging on a small wooden boat.

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John Quinn | conductor & composer

Quinn has spent a lifetime working with the most talented musicians on the planet, the NY Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Leonard Bernstein, Roberta Flack, Stevie Wonder, Harry Belafonte, and many more. He told us, “Wow. I have never done anything like that before!”

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OUR VOLUNTEERS

FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: Dusan, Warren Yu, Marian, Peter Durand, Lucy, Alison Kerr, Amara.
NOT PICTURED: Casi, Tennyson, Thomas & Frank, Skyler Stanley, Gordon Garb, Richard Kerri

For More...

To see all of the photo-painting portraits created by photographer Asa Mathat and our team, go to: http://bit.ly/EG-10-Portraits

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