Category Archives: Uncategorized
NEWS: Selima Ahmad Won the IDB Prize for Women’s Contribution to Development
Selima Ahmad, the president and founder of Bangladesh Women Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BWCCI), recently won the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) Prize for women’s contribution to development. She received the 2012 IDB Prize during the 37th annual meeting of the IDB Board of Governors that was held in Khartoum, Sudan last April. Selima through the BWCCI, also organized a seminar called, A Pathway towards Women Entrepreneurs’ Development in Bangladesh in cooperation with the Centre for International Private Enterprise. Selima, who is a strong supporter of businesswomen, believes that the funds allocated for women by the government must only be used for capacity building of women entrepreneurs and not for any credit. Moreover, she also believes that funds could also be used to include more educated rural women into ICT-based business, and implement a gender sensitization training program for banking and non-banking officials. Selima proposed to manage funds through an advisory board and a divisional women enterprise fund committee.
Selima Ahmad is also a member of the Bangladesh UNWOMEN Civil Society Advisory Group.
NEWS: Ong Soh Kim was conferred a Fellow by the CIRP
Associate Professor S K Ong was conferred a Fellow of the International Academy for Production Engineering (CIRP*). She is the 4th female in the world to become a Fellow of the Academy, and the first in Asia. She made significant contributions in several areas of manufacturing—the most notable of which are—augmented reality research in manufacturing, intelligent and distributed manufacturing, and sustainable manufacturing. Her other awards include the Singapore Youth Award, the US Society of Manufacturing Engineers’ Eugene Merchant Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer Award, the Outstanding Young Person of Singapore Award in 2006 and the US Society of Women Engineer’s Emerging Leader Award in Academia in 2009. She was also a nominated member of the Singapore Parliament from 2005 to 2006.
*CIRP is the French acronym for Collège International pour la recherché en Productique. CIRP is well recognized as the highest authority in the field of production/manufacturing engineering in the world. Election to Fellow represents the highest recognition of a scientist in the field of manufacturing engineering. It is a lengthy and rigorous process ensuring the highest possible academic standards due to the limited number of CIRP Fellows.
NEWS: Juanita Woodward Recognized at the AWARE Supersonic Ball as BoardAgender Co-Chair
Junie Foo and Juanita Woodward during the AWARE Supersonic Ball.
Juanita Woodward was recently recognized at the AWARE Supersonic Ball last September 10, along with Junie Foo, for their work as 2011-12 BoardAgender Co-Chairs. BoardAgender was chosen as the recipient of the AWARE “Cause of the Year – Women’s Corporate Leadership (Local Category)” award in Singapore. The AWARE (Association of Women for Action and Research)* Gender Equality award was given in recognition of the role of BoardAgender in raising awareness about the benefits of a gender-balanced business, and encouraging companies to advance women to leadership positions.
*AWARE is the leading gender equality advocacy group in Singapore. The judging panel of the AWARE award chose “female corporate leadership” as the Cause of the Year to focus attention to. The Aware awards were launched in 2011 to celebrate individuals and organizations that have contributed to the cause of advancing gender equality and improving the lives of women in Singapore.
Video Update: Additional videos online!
During the inaugural summit of Women Leaders in New Asia, we had the opportunity to meet with our delegates and document some of the most pressing points raised through the weekend’s activities. The following series of video clips aim to highlight reoccurring themes and topics that summarize and represent the issues discussed during the summit.
As a group of leaders, our delegates cover not only an expansive range of positions within a variety of professional fields, but also represent the growing diversity of experience and insight that can be found in Asia. At the same time, our delegates share a significant amount of commonality in intention, and are dedicated to furthering the access women have to roles of leadership through their own careers and the policies of the companies they collaborate with. As change making entities in their own right, we asked our delegates to share the developments that they are looking to initiate through their careers and hope to see embodied in Asia within the next ten years. The following clip showcases some of their desires and ambitions as they work towards achieving these goals.
http://media.asiasociety.org/video/womenleadership/101014_WLNA_changes.mp4
In the following clip, delegates define leadership in their own terms, and comment on the status of women’s leadership within the Asia Pacific region.
http://media.asiasociety.org/video/womenleadership/101014_WLNA_dreams.mp4
During the inaugural session of the Women Leaders of New Asia summit, we had the opportunity to speak with our delegates, and ask them about who had inspired them to pursue the careers and life paths they had chosen for themselves. Although the answers we received varied from prominent political leaders to personal friends and colleagues, we noticed one recurring role model who appeared to have had a significant impact on the personal and professional careers of our delegates. In the following clip, we showcase and celebrate this particular source of inspiration, and show that some of the most effective and motivational examples of leadership are found exceptionally close to home.
http://media.asiasociety.org/video/womenleadership/101014_WLNA_inspiration.mp4
In the following clip, delegates reflect on the changing nature and status of gender within the professional sphere, and emphasize the need to correctly identify and articulate the nature of female leadership within Asia. As the corporate sector expands its conceptions of who deserves to be in positions of power and responsibility within organizations, it is integral for women to take this initiative one step further and overcome previous male centered definitions of leadership.
http://media.asiasociety.org/video/womenleadership/101014_WLNA_men_women.mp4
Video update: First clip on the 2012 Women Leaders of New Asia Conference is online!
Check out our first clip from the 2012 conference!
As we mentioned before, it takes a while to edit through 200GB + worth of high quality video material, but the upside is that we captured almost everyone and everything that happened on video, and chances are that you might see yourself on camera soon enough!
If you have been waiting a while now to see the first post-conference videos, then we thank you for your patience and we hope that you enjoy this very brief clip, which serves as an introduction to Asia Society and the Women Leaders of New Asia Initiative. We’ll continue to roll out clips and montages from the 2012 conference where we’ll be highlighting the very best of the breakout sessions soon.
What to expect soon – Videos!
We haven’t forgotten the good memories of the summit at all. In fact, we’ve been reliving the conference for the past couple weeks, as we have been slowly making our way through converting and editing more than 200 GB worth of video footage that was taken over the weekend.
If you’ve been dying to see whether or not you’ve been captured speaking on film, we appreciate your continued patience – what you can expect to see next week are the first of a long series of video clips from our plenary sessions and breakout sessions, focusing on the introductory remarks and brief highlights of each section.
Afterwards, we’ll be featuring montages of the summit, and afterwards, we’ll post the post-session interviews we conducted with many of you!
In the meantime, we’ll be releasing more pictures of the event!
Stay tuned!
Reported in the Press!
Now that the 2012 Summit is over, we had the time to sit down and count the number of times the event was reported in and picked up by the press - both nationally as well as around the world. Counting them together, there were nearly 30 original articles written, and around 163 pick-ups!
In case you missed out on the press coverage, we present below a list of those press-outlets who published original articles covering the event:
International Press
The WSJ – “Report: Women Losing Ground in China”
The Tokyo Times – “Asian women professionally disadvantaged – survey”
AP – “Report: Women’s Lower Status Risk for Asian Future”
Chinese National Press (Print)
Fazhi Wanbao – “A Report on Women’s Leadership in Asia Shows Women’s Average Salary Is Only 65% of Men’s in China”
China Business Times – “A Report on Women’s Leadership in Asia Pacific Released”
Jie Fang Daily – “Family Affairs Hinder Women from Promoting to Senior Management”
China Daily – “Break tradition and end the bias against women”
Shanghai Daily – “Pay Gap Still ‘Significant’ in Asia”
Shanghai Evening Post – “Over Half of the Female Middle-level Managers Give up Further Promotion”
Xinmin Evening News – “Survey on Women’s Leadership in Asia Pacific: Over Half of Women in China Give up Promotion Opportunities”
International Finance News – “Women’s Leadership Facilitates the Development of Asian Economies”
Wen Hui Bao – “2012 Women Leaders of New Asia Summit Opened“
Chinese National Press (Online)
www.163.com – “Invisible Ceiling: China Sees a Dropping Proportion of Female Leaders”
www.ceconline.com – “Women’s Leadership in Asia Improved”
www.gemag.com.cn – “Prospect of the Development of Women’s Leadership in Asia Pacific”
www.chinadaily.com.cn – “Women Leaders of New Asia Summit opens in Shanghai”
www.cb.com.cn – “The Asia Society Holds 2012 Women Leaders of New Asia Summit”
www.xinhuanet.com – “Asia Society: Women’s Leadership Is Enhanced in China’s Economic Field”
www.eastday.com – “2012 Women Leaders of New Asia Summit Opened, Report about Women Development Released”
www.gmw.cn – “Asia Society Hosts 2012 Women Leaders of New Asia Summit”
www.ceconline.com – “Problems in Women’s Career Development”
www.xinhuanet.com – “Asia Society: Women’s Leadership Is Enhanced in China’s Economic Field”
www.jfdaily.com - “Problems in Women’s Career Development”
www.chinanews.com – “A Report Shows Economic Growth Pushes Asian Women’s Position Higher”
www.ce.cn – “Asia Society Hosts 2012 Women Leaders of New Asia Summit”
www.people.com – “2012 Women Leaders of New Asia Summit Held Today”
Group photo!
WLNA 2012 Group Photo
19th April 2012, Shanghai – The Press Conference
Astrid Tuminez, Vice Dean of Research at the Lew Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, presents “Rising to the Top”, a new report on the state of women’s leadership in Asia.
Jiao Yang , Party Secretary-General of the Shanghai Municipal Women’s Federation, speaks at the Press Conference
Q&A at the press conference
President Vishakha Desai, Party Secretary Jiao Yang and Vice Dean Astrid Tuminez share a laugh at the conference
Delegates and panel speakers discuss the press conference
Women Leaders of New Asia Report in the News
Astrid S. Tuminez, the vice-dean (research) of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore, and Asia Society President Vishakha N. Desai wrote about the report, “Rising to the Top?” in today’s South China Morning Post, a version of which also appears on Asia Society’s blog.
Read the Associated Press’s article about the report, as run by The Washington Post.
