Hilary Clinton
In December I attended the first TEDWomen's conference in Washington DC and starting to digest some 70 presentations (each no longer than 18mins, delivered over a day and a half), focused on women as innovators, idea champions and architects of change. Speakers ranged from a highly articulate 17 year old social entrepreneur to political luminaries such as Hilary Clinton, Madeleine Albright, and Nancy Pelosi. Arianna Huffington expounded the benefits of sleep and Donna Karan discussed how life and death are inextricably linked.
Here are some of my highlights:
Hilary Clinton declared the empowerment of women and girls to be a cornerstone of US foreign policy and vital to its security, prosperity and peace. She wants every girl in the world to live up to her own dreams and aspirations. Stirring words indeed.
Hanna Rosin, a US journalist who dares to pen what people are thinking but may not have yet realised, focused on the growth of women in the Twenties, Sixties and now in the Noughties. Her 21st century criterion for a good leader was "One who can foster creativity".
Straight talking Icelandic founder of Andur Capital, Halla Tomasdottir practices feminine values when it comes to financial investment and has been one of her country's few success stories in recent years. Halla believes in understanding risk awareness and feels emotional due diligence is just as important as the financial. She is also an advocate of good business and philanthropy going hand in hand.
Deborah Rhodes
Deborah Rhodes MD, a doctor of Internal Medicine at the Mayo Clinic received a standing ovation for her revolutionary fight to improve the accuracy of early breast cancer detection, particularly for those with denser breast tissue through the use of gamma rays rather than traditional mammograms which tend to less effective results.
Kiran Bedi
Corrections pioneer, Kiran Bedi one of the most trusted and admired community leaders in India, shared how she introduced meditation to great effect into the Indian police force and subsequently to prisoners through education, resulting in facilities more akin to ashrams rather than squalid jails as before. She also shared some words of wisdom, "Life is on an incline, you can choose to go up or to go down. If 100 things happen in your life, 90 are of your own doing, good or bad. The other 10, nature dishes out to you."
The two days were punctuated by interesting musical entertainment including heartfelt chamber music (a paradox in itself), from the hugely talented, Juilliard educated, Ahn Trio - three Korean sisters breathing new life into classical music and commissioning works from visionaries such as Michael Nyman, Maurice Jarre and Pat Metheny. I downloaded their Lullaby for My Favorite Insomniac that evening and have been playing it ever since.
Madeleine Albright
The big quote of the conference surprisingly came from former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, “There is a special place in hell for women who don't help each other."
See these talks in full and discover more on TED.com.
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