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Innovation>Encouraging
South Asia | India | Career

Women are bringing solar energy to thousands of Indian villages

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India is trying to bring electricity to hundreds of millions of its citizens who live off the grid. And it's trying to ensure that the power comes from clean and renewable sources. Frontier Markets is helping to achieve both those goals in the Western desert state of Rajasthan, selling solar-powered products to hundreds of villages. The company is thriving by turning its customers into salespeople. The company employs women to sell products like lamps, stoves, and even TVs that run on solar power through a program called Solar Sahelis (Solar Friends). Each woman is in charge of sell
International | History

5 women inventors you can thank for making your life so much easier

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We live in a cushy and convenient world full of big and small innovations that mean we can spend an entire weekend in bed rather than actually doing something with our lives. But somebody had to make it all possible, and not all great inventors are men in white lab coats hiding behind curtains. Here are are just a few of the women inventors you can thank for making your life a little easier. Amalie Auguste Melitta Bentz (January 1873 – June 1950) Bette Nesmith Graham (March 1924 – May 1980, Dallas, TX) Marjorie Joyner (October 1896 – December 1994) Mary Anderson (1866-1953) Ma
Europe | Italy | Innovation

Italian student invents marble stone fabric

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Alice Zantedeschi, a 26 year-old student from Verona, invented a new fabric by mixing an marble stone with synthetic or organic materials commonly used in the textile industry. Verona, renowned for being home of Romeo and Juliet, is also famous for its wine and marble quarries. The local stone has a peculiar pale pink color, as opposed to the more famous white Carrara marble. Grinding the stone to dust and adding it to polyurethane or wool gives the fabric a natural pink color, otherwise achievable using dyes. The technique seems to work best with synthetic materials used in sportswear.
Africa | Ghana | Activism

Helping Girls Go To School. Period.

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Each year, millions of girls all over the world experience their first period. For some, it is minimally disruptive or even a proud coming of age moment. For others, including thousands of school-aged girls in Ghana, it means beginning to miss 30-50 days of school each year. And this means falling behind in their education. When she was 15 years-old, Winnifred Selby learned that many girls in her native Ghana cannot afford sanitary supplies. Some girls improvise, using anything from dirty scraps of fabric to newspaper to mud. Some are at risk for being exploited in their desperation to obta
Asia | Japan | Health

The invention that aims to make periods less of a pain

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Even in 2015, menstruating females in Asia and Africa are shunned as unclean and have difficulty getting hold of sanitary products. A 2011 survey for the Indian government found that only 12% of women across India use sanitary pads. Others use old rags, and unhygienic substances such as sand, sawdust, leaves, mattress foam and even ash to stem their monthly bleeding, with implications for their health and education. Menstruating girls in both Asia and Africa are unable to go to school during their periods, or drop out of school altogether. Japanese design student Mariko Higaki Iwai hopes th
Africa | Kenya | Economy

Kenya’s Water Women

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Across the world, almost 1.2bn people live in areas where water is physically scarce and this has an enormous impact on the quality of life. Without clean water, communities suffer from recurrent diarrhoea and other debilitating or fatal diseases which, together with the time spent going to collect it, means a significant amount of time for education and employment is lost. Collectively, women in 25 countries in sub-Saharan Africa spend at least 16 million hours each day collecting drinking water. So, how could things be different? In this film we head to the western Kenyan town of
North America | Canada | Innovation

Women of Distinction honoured at annual event

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A group of "unique and exemplary" women was honoured at the 2015 YMCA-YWCA Women of Distinction Awards Wednesday night at the RBC Convention Centre. Awards were presented to 12 recipients and more than 60 nominees were recognized. CBC’s Diana Swain was the host to more than 600 guests at the sold-out event. "Each year we ask the community to share the stories of Manitoban women who are trailblazing, advocating and change-making. This is our 39th annual awards and, once again, the stories are awe-inspiring," Melanie Verhaeghe, chairwoman of the Women of Distinction Steering Committee
North America | United States | Business

Women innovators leading by example

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What's it take to be a female innovator in the male-dominated worlds of business and technology? Here are three stories of three women making a difference in Utah. The caretaker - Dr. Donna Milavetz, 48, has spent her adult life trying to help improve people’s health. The social environmentalist - When Priyanka Bakaya, 31, chief executive officer of PK Clean, was a young girl growing up in Australia, she became captivated by science, chemistry and the environment through her relationship with a family friend and “grandfather figure” named Percy Keen, who spent his life working on c

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