Daily Archives: July 2, 2021

The Branson Regional Arts Council is hosting auditions for its first musical of the fall, 9 to 5 The Musical.

The musical, which features music and lyrics by Dolly Parton and was written by Patricia Resnick, is based on the seminal 1980 hit film. Auditions for the production are being held at the Historic Owen Theatre in downtown Branson on Friday, July 9, from 6 to 9 p.m. and Saturday, July 10, from 2 to 5 p.m.

Set in the late 1970s, this hilarious story of friendship and revenge in the Rolodex era is outrageous, thought-provoking and even a little romantic, said a press release from BRAC. Pushed to the boiling point, there female coworkers concort a plan to get even with the sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot they call their boss. In a hilarious turn of events, Violet, Judy and Doralee live out their wildest fantasy giving their boss the boot.

The production will run for a total of eight performances and will be held from Sept. 9 to 12 and Sept. 16 to 19.

For the musical, strong singers, actors and dancers ages 16 and up will be cast. Those auditioning will need to bring with them an up-to-date headshot and resume, a conflicts list with any conflicts dates from the first cast meeting through the performance dates, clothes and shoes to move and dance in, and a one minute cut of a musical theatre song that is preferably in the style of the show.

An accompanist will not be provided, so auditioners will need to bring tracked accompaniment. They may also be asked to cold read upon request. Anyone who would like to audition, but will be unable to attend the scheduled auditions are encouraged to contact director Kyle Bradley at kylebradley8913@gmail.com.

The first rehearsal and cast meeting will be on Sunday, July 18 at 2 p.m. The rest of the rehearsal schedule for the production will be determined after casting has been completed.

Character breakdowns for the musical are as follows:

Violet Newstead: The companys Head Secretary and Mr. Harts Administrative Assistant, she is a single mother and typically stands up for what she believes in. Attractive, strong, ambitious. Age: 40 to 50 Vocal range top: D5-F3.

Doralee Rhodes: A young, sexy spitfire who works at Mr. Harts office. She is proof that there is more to a woman than just her looks. Age: 20 to 30 Vocal range top: E5-G3.

Judy Bernly: The new girl at the firm, she has been burned by her husbands affair and is searching for personal empowerment. Insecure, determined, and hopeful. Age: 30 to 35 Vocal range top: F5-Ab3.

Franklin Hart, Jr.: One of the firms executives and a notorious chauvinist. He is capable of faking charm but usually shows his true colors as an arrogant, self-absorbed boss. Age: 45 to 50 Vocal range top: Gb4-C3.

Roz Keith: The attentive office gossip queen and snitch. She has an unrequited love for Mr. Hart and will do anything she can to win his approval. Age: 35 to 45 Vocal range top: C5-G3.

Joe: A handsome, young office accountant. Genuine and nice, and smitten with Violet. Age: 25 to 35 Vocal range top: G4-B2.

Dwayne: Doralees attractive husband. He is very supportive of her professional pursuits. Age: 25 to 30 Vocal range top: G4-E2.

Josh Newstead: Violets awkward teenage son. Age: 15 to 18.

Missy: Franklin Harts wife, clueless to her husbands true nature. Age: 20 to 35.

Maria: A young and vibrant secretary in Harts office. Age: 20 to 30 Vocal range top: D5-F4.

Dick: Judys soon-to-be ex-husband. An average guy, he is sporting a little less hair and a little more paunch than he did ten years ago. Age: 35 to 45.

Kathy: A secretary in Harts office with a tendency to gossip. Age: 30 to 40 Vocal range top: D5-G4.

Margaret: A secretary in Harts office with a tendency to drink. Age: 30 to 40.

Tinsworthy: Franklin Harts boss and Chairman of the Board. A good man, who may be wiser to Harts ways than he lets on. Age: 50 to 65.

ENSEMBLE: Office employees, police officers, hospital employees, etc. The ensemble plays a wide variety of roles. Production is seeking a full range of male and female voices including excellent low-reaching Altos, experienced Mezzo and Sopranos, Basses, Baritones and Tenors.

For additional information on the audition process and the production visit bransonarts.org.

Original post:

BRAC to host casting auditions for '9 to 5 The Musical' - Branson Tri-Lakes news

In the days leading up to his passing in January, the late, great food-policy guru and Corporate Knights contributor Wayne Roberts answered a few questions from our managing editor, Adria Vasil. He shared his thoughts on the rise of regenerative agriculture and his hopes for our food future. Here are his gently edited remarks:

Regenerative agriculture springs from a global Indigenous view of agriculture. Its not tied to a European/Western way of framing the issues, as was inevitably the case with organic agriculture. It does not settle for sustainability; rather it aims for something truly regenerative. Dream no small dreams, as Tommy Douglas used to say.

Regenerative agriculture is rooted in leaving the soil as nature intended, and basing food production on crops that can be grown without the violence of plowing, which upturns the earth and undermines the earths metabolism and gut.

The beauty of regenerative agriculture is that it can work on many scales. Its methods are appropriate to various scales of food-growing, from backyard gardens (North America has more land in lawns than in food production), green roofs and community gardens to small, medium and large farms permitting universal access to food and land.

Im delighted that regenerative agriculture is being supported by both small and big food enterprises, which is important in the successful delivery of viable efforts to improve the environment. It avoids the problem of turning the perfect into the enemy of the very good, which has been the bane of social-change movements for a century. I love the open-endedness of regenerative agriculture, its lack of clear, binding and dogmatic definitions, its openness to what good people can do as they try to accomplish whats possible. That, of course, creates a vulnerability to greenwashing. But the answer to greenwashing is not dogmatism, but real action on the ground.

Regenerative agriculture also avoids sterile debates around anti-meat climate change policies. Pasture-raised animals can become the basis for both humane agriculture and a protected climate.

Carbon is not the problem; the problem is that the carbon is in the air, not the soil. We seem to have to turn everything into enemies, but nature is made for us to partner with if we just open our eyes.

On the future of food

I would like to see a food future that identifies three streams of food thinking, each a power in its own right:

1. Bringing food from farm to table in as humane and generous a way as possible.

2. Ensuring that the food that makes it to our table matches our love for delicious food as well as our need for nutritious food, and that this can be accessible to all.

3. And finally, what I hope will be my legacy is what I call people-centred food policy thinking about food in terms of how it promotes personal empowerment, how it overcomes loneliness, how it brings people together and how it makes a celebration of joy a part of everyday life. People-centred food policy needs to become as powerful as farm-to-table and nutrition models of food.

Go here to see the original:

The beauty of regenerative agriculture and the future of food - Corporate Knights Magazine

This article originally appeared in the July/August 2021 issue of Museum magazine,a benefit of AAMmembership.

Three zoos and aquariums are designing environmental empathy into their work.

In a time when the biological diversity of our planet is at risk, zoos and aquariums are doing pioneering work to mitigate the loss of nature by addressing an important agent of behavior change: empathy. Their work in building empathy for positive conservation outcomes is rooted in evidence-based, long-term, multidisciplinary collaboration that is action oriented. When a fun visit to a zoo or an aquarium is transformed into one that also builds empathy, bridges of understanding, and emotional connections with the environment, we can appreciate the importance of our individual choices within an interconnected universe.

To mitigate and reverse destructive behavior that contributes to the loss of nature, we need more than an intellectual understanding of the environment. We need an emotional connection that makes us care, be concerned, and act compassionately. This requires a pragmatic perspective shift where, through the lens of empathy, we might realize we are inherently connected to something much greater than ourselvesall of humanity and the environment. This understanding inspires us to calibrate and harmonize our attitudes, behaviors, and actions within this whole and leads to a more humble worldview that recognizes the environments independent value and right to exist. At this critical moment in history, humanitys collective survival depends on our ability to inspire this fundamental perspective shift.

As science- and research-based informal learning platforms, zoos and aquariums bring people closer, both intellectually and emotionally, to the otherour planet and the variety of life that it supports. They can create meaningful encounters with our environment where we also learn about ourselves, notice our biases, and understand our responsibility as integral parts of this interconnected, fragile whole. Zoos and aquariums can offer experiences of awe and wonder, experiential learning, storytelling, and contemplation that are known to foster empathy. And they can inspire action by intentionally incorporating empathy into their institutional cultures while modeling behavior in their practices, policies, and leadership.

Following are three examples of zoos and aquariums that are intentionally building empathy to inspire environmental and wildlife conservationand are simultaneously being shaped by the very tools that they are innovating to become more empathetic institutions themselves.Elif M. Gokcigdem

By Jim Wharton

According to data from the United Nations, more than half the worlds population lives in cities. In North America, its more like 80 percent. We are more urban, more digital . . . and in many ways, less connected to nature than ever before. We dont often know where our food comes from or where our waste goes.

As people become more disconnected from the natural world, animals and habitats become unfamiliar, even frightening. If terrestrial ecosystems are unfamiliar, marine and aquatic environs are downright alienless accessible, harder to explore, difficult to understand. Fostering empathy in zoo and aquarium settings can mitigate, if not reverse, this disconnection.

Research on the best practices for developing empathy encourages authentic animal experiences that allow people to observe an animals agency and share their experience of the world through rich, sensory inputs. If you can see what an animal sees, smell what an animal smells, and feel what an animal feels, its easier to imagine a shared perspective.

All mammals share similar emotions (though we may experience them differently), but if we restrict our idea of empathy to merely emotions, we also limit our opportunity to explore our connections with the vast majority of life on Earth. A sea star may not have emotions, but it does have a perspective of the world. It collects sensory input and reacts to stimuli in consistent ways. We can understand that responding to a shadow above by holding on tight is an appropriate response to what might be a predator, even if a sea star doesnt have the neural hardware to experience fear. Some might consider this anthropomorphism (applying human characteristics to non-human objects), but what were really doing is learning by connecting the perspective and experience of the sea star to an experience with which we are more familiar (our own).

Learning how our experience of the world overlaps with an animals is productive and beneficial, but it requires an investment. We must be open to learning about the animal and its life so that when we reach out to empathize, we accurately acknowledge a shared experience rather than merely replacing an animals experience with our own. The latter is a kind of anthropocentrism that is much more dangerous than anthropomorphism because it centers the human experience as the most universal and important at the expense of other living things.

Perspective-taking also requires us to be open to seeing the shared characteristics and experiences humans may hold with non-human animals. The notion of human exceptionalism (the belief that humans are categorically or essentially different from all otheranimals) may suggestthat being like an animal makes us somehow less than human andcan prevent us from exploring ourconnections.

At the Seattle Aquarium we use knowledge-building and anthropomorphic metaphors to help people see their connections to barnacles, sea cucumbers, octopuses, anemones, urchins, and more. Using names and personal pronouns (he, she, they) helps visitors see animals as subjective others rather than natural objects. Sharing information in narratives, rather than just presenting facts, facilitates perspective-taking. By learning to connect and empathize with animals, we bring them into our circle of concern. By appreciating the expansive biodiversity of the ocean and beyond, we can also begin to appreciate our place as a mere thread in the great tapestry of life.

By Michele Miller Houck and Kristin Dean

Established in 1981, the Carolina Raptor Center is an avian zoological facility and environmental education center permitted by the US Fish and Wildlife Service for the display and rehabilitation of birds of prey. Our mission is to ignite imaginations and engage people with the natural world so they will act on behalf of the environment.

We became interested in the concept of wonder when we adopted a new educational platform called Birds Inspire in preparation for the development of a new campus. In 2016, we partnered with researcher Mary Beth Ausman to embark on The Wonder Project, a yearlong examination of the visitor experience to help us understand the elements of wonder. As we observed visitors interacting with our people, birds, and exhibits, we realized that we relied heavily on cognitive wonder (the how of the natural world) instead of emotional wonder (the wow). To get in touch with our wow factor, we needed to figure out defining moments that already existed in our facility so that we could create more of them.

We developed a five-question activity that asked visitors to choose their responses to the following questions: What did you see that you will remember? What did that make you think about? How did that make you feel? Who inspired you today? And, most importantly, what are you going to do about it? Responses were organized in a Likert scale in which 1 was the least desirable response and 5 the most desirable. Scores from the first summer ranged from 2.12.7 for each question. After revisions in programming, interpretation, and nose-to-beak experiences for the second summer, raw scores rose 0.30.7 points.

This project showed us that the key to wonder is creating extraordinary experiences for humans, because human-centric design has the power to create meaningful connections with the animals. Using words that people understand (family, baby, food, love) sparks curiosity about birds (and the natural world) and inspires people to care about their protection.

This research prompted us to create Tell Your Raptor Story, a new exhibition currently being prototyped at off-site events and via curated on-site experiences, that is scheduled to be installed at our new Raptor Trail at Quest facility in 2025. The experience begins with visitors identifying their raptor avatar and taking on the mantle of that bird throughout the facility. A seven-question quiz asks visitors their own preferences on food, habitat, and social situations and then matches them with one of six bird groups. Participants get a sticker that identifies them as part of that group: I am an owl.

As they move through the facility, they encounter birds (and humans) of their type, sparking conversations around the accuracy of the quiz, their new bird persona, or the associated superpowers. Close encounters with the animals enhance empathy by creating a defining moment, a memory, which draws the visitor closer, creating a palpable bond with the natural world.

The new identity that the raptor avatar provides breaks down social barriers and offers the visitor membership in a new group that crosses cultural, political, and economic barriers and builds new understanding. Empathy for their bird grows as they make new connections throughout the experience. Prototypes for this experience have used bird costumes at a selfie station to connect people to their bird. The focus then shifts from the individualI am an owlto the group: We are part of the parliament of owls. Curiosity about the bird, the birds habitat, or even where the bird shows up in a visitors cultural tradition appears to activate the desire to help protect the bird and its habitat.

Future plans for the avatars include affinity groups, special events, and store merchandisingall to provide more connection points after the initial experience. The Tell Your Raptor Story exhibition space will include hands-on stations to test your raptor superpower and write your raptor story, and a storytelling circle will feature storytellers from a wide variety of cultural backgrounds. Each element is designed to touch the heart, teach the mind, and create wonder so that the human visitors will take action on behalf of the birds.

By Laurie Stuart

Recognizing the collaborative nature of understanding and fostering empathy for animals, the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle, Washington, invited 19 zoos and aquariums from the region to its first Creating Change Symposium: How Empathy Can Advance Your Mission in February 2019. The goal of the 2019 symposium was to generate commitment among participating organizations to develop and implement empathy-based programming by providing summaries of current research, foundational tools, and opportunities to collaborate across institutions.

From this event, the Advancing Conservation through Empathy (ACE) for Wildlife Network was launched as a vehicle for organizations to support one another in designing and implementing empathy-based programming in diverse contexts. Partners in the ACE for Wildlife Network are working together to advance effective practices in using empathy-driven experiences to not only connect visitors to the animals they engage with at our facilities, but also to catalyze pro-environmental behaviors for the benefit of wildlife and habitats that our visitors may never encounter directly.

Research indicates that evoking empathetic responses toward specific animals or plants can increase a persons willingness to take actions that protect the environment. However, we dont yet understand how to align someones empathy-driven connection to Taj, a rhino at the zoo that visitors can meet up close, with the pro-conservation behaviors they could take immediately or later in life on behalf of wild rhino populations thousands of miles away.

Currently, the team at Woodland Park Zoo is working on a causal chain model that describes three key pathways by which empathy-based programming on-site might influence a social movement for conservation, meeting our mission to make conservation a priority in everyones lives. These pathways foster informed connections with animals, reinforce social-emotional development such as self-and social awareness, and strengthen self-efficacy so that individuals are empowered to take meaningful action in response to their empathetic connections. To incorporate these pathways into zoo programming, such as in our Creature Feature presentations with ambassador animals, the Woodland Park Zoo has published an Empathy Bridge tool that outlines nonlinear strategies for utilizing language and activities that increase visitors knowledge, emotional awareness, and sense of self-empowerment that leads to participation (see Resources at left for a link to more information on this tool).

Effective conservation requires complex conversations and pro-environmental actions that no single person or organization can achieve on their own. Therefore, the most effective empathy-based programming must also incorporate the human contexts of conservation issues by fostering pro-social empathy for other communities of people. For example, keeper talks that focus on tigers at Woodland Park Zoo not only encourage empathetic perspective shifts toward our resident tigers and tigers in the wild, but also connect our visitors to the human communities that coexist with and steward indigenous tiger populations in places like Malaysia.

Eventually, we hope that by bridging empathetic connection-making, people will feel inspired to take community-level actions made in mutual consideration of human and non-human animals within any habitat. While the zoo highlights successful conservation stories and shares resources on solutions, such as supporting only sustainable palm oil production, we believe that communities are in the best position to define and implement actions that meet specific conservation needs. Rather than prescribing specific activities, we hope that fostering empathy for wildlife and humans, as well as empowering individuals and communities to participate in conservation activities, will result in the most innovative and self-sustaining behaviors.

To this end, both Woodland Park Zoo and our partners in the ACE for Wildlife Network are currently asking meaningful questions, such as what empathetic connection looks like in different cultural contexts, how empathy for animals is experienced within subsistence-based communities, and whether it is possible to foster empathy for landscapes as living entities. The network is committed to including organizations with diverse audiences, missions, and representative voices so that we can strengthen ongoing conversations about best practices in fostering empathy for wildlife conservation.

Pull quote

When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe. One fancies a heart like our own must be beating in every crystal and cell, and we feel like stopping to speak to the plants and animals as friendly fellow mountaineers.

Empathy-Building Through Museums initiativeelifgokcigdem.com

Seattle Aquariums empathy workseattleaquarium.org/fostering-empathy-wildlife

Carolina Raptor Centers new YouTube series, Avian Adventuresyoutube.com/c/CarolinaRaptorCenter

ACE for Wildlife Networkaceforwildlife.org

Woodland Park Zoos empathy journeyzoo.org/empathy

Woodland Park Zoos Empathy Bridgeaam-us.org/2021/03/19/an-empathy-bridge-helps-the-woodland-park-zoo-drive-social-change/

Elif M. Gokcigdem, Ph.D., is the editor of Designing for Empathy: Perspectives on the Museum Experience.Jim Wharton, Ph.D., is director of conservation engagement and learning at the Seattle Aquarium in Washington. Michele Miller Houck is chief wonder maker and Kristin Dean, CPBT-KA, is director of birds at the Carolina Raptor Center. Laurie Stuart, Ed.D., is director of impact at Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle, Washington.

Visit link:

The Key to Conservation American Alliance of Museums - aam-us.org

Over the past 12 months, we have come up against two public health crises. The first, a global pandemic. The second, misinformation that has run rampant in Singapore of late, amid the rise of COVID-19 cases and several clusters that have recently come to light.

Think this sounds overdramatic? Just a few weeks ago, a group of 12 doctors in Singapore penned an open letter urging parents with children aged between 11 and 15 to rethink their need for vaccination. They highlighted concerns of children receiving mRNA COVID-19 vaccines like Pfizer-BioNTech and its potential long term side effects. While 11 out of 12 of these doctors have since retracted the statement and Singapore's expert committee on COVID-19 vaccination have clarified that the vaccine is safe for this age group, the facts, it would appear, have not changed peoples opinions. A sizable number of Singaporeans remain sceptical of the benefits of getting vaccinated, despite the governments push for half of the population to be fully vaccinated by this August.

Fake news or misinformation is not a new trend. For years, the media has been hounding Big Tech to take more responsibility for staunching the spread of misinformation on social platforms. Now, we are witnessing the dangerous consequences of it as we deal with the pandemic and an infodemic.

The fight against misinformation has gone up a notch.

How can we defend ourselves?

There is currently no legislation or technology that can stop misinformation before it spreads. But there are ways to combat misinformation, and they require input from all of us. We can no longer sit back and put the onus of sole responsibility on policymakers and industry leaders. Instead, we need to look at the role that we play in disseminating misinformation and how we can arm ourselves with the tools to protect ourselves and others around us.

Just as we take responsibility to maintain our health and wellbeing when it comes to smoking, drug abuse, or obesity, we need to start taking more responsibility for the impact of misinformation on our health and the health of others.

Your role

Let us consider what misinformation or fake news is and what it does. Misinformation is the manipulation of information, of data. It corrupts the facts we use to understand the world around us. It exacerbates social divides and hinders our ability to make the best decisions for our families, businesses, and communities.

We need to start thinking about how we can apply the same skills that help people understand and use data effectively to the issues of misinformation. Individuals should interrogate information in the same way they review data when at work.

The key is working directly with individuals, businesses, and the wider community to help restore the integrity of information. Not everyone needs to become a data scientist; we just need to empower them to understand data in context. This starts by recognising the need to advance data literacy at all levels, from the classroom through early childhood education to the workplace by equipping employees with the right tools and training programs to read, analyse and communicate with data to form accurate, meaningful, and actionable insights. With more practice comes more accurate data reporting and more confidence in identifying misinformation.

Encouragingly, research shows that there is a desire to upskill their data skills to make a positive difference. Closer to home, 4 in 5 Singaporean employees (82 per cent) are willing to invest more time and energy in improving their data skills to make better decisions. We need to leverage this and provide them access to tools that helps them to question and challenge the information they are given, seek the truth behind a story, and support others when misinformation takes hold.

From a community perspective, we are no longer suffering from having a baseline reality. We are operating in competing realities that have created deep rifts in global communities. Chinese medical company, Sinovac, for example, has been subject to several misleading narratives across online media and social channels on the efficacy of its COVID-19 vaccine shot.

In the open letter example in Singapore mentioned earlier, the group of 12 doctors promoted the Sinovac vaccine for everyone, including children, citing that it could protect against B1617 variants. But in other accounts, scattered reports in the media sent countries across the world into a tailspin. A handful of unsubstantiated reports alleging that the Sinovac vaccine led to the death of a participant in a local trial that disrupted the global vaccine rollout; some paused, some continued as before, and others ceased using it altogether.

Misinformation and disinformation weaken the bonds we build in our communities, so its high time we start making sense of and communicating complex information to help restore these bonds.

Become information empowered

If there is one thing to take away from this, it is that the ability to silence misinformation is about personal empowerment. Businesses and the government need to set an example by giving people, and the communities that they live in, the tools so that they can see misinformation and know how to respond; to challenge such instances in a positive and constructive way.

In the age of an infodemic, our health depends on it.

See the original post here:

From pandemic to infodemic has misinformation become a public health issue in Singapore? - Singapore Business Review

BEIJING--(BUSINESS WIRE)--As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to aggravate gender inequality, women are looking for solutions. In light of this, representatives from UN Women, APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC), Manat Whine Ministry for Women, China Chamber of International Commerce, China Womens University, Women Political Leaders, and other speakers shared their vision and recommendations on digital transformation for women to get through the crisis, at the APEC Women Connect Online Conference on 30 June.

The virtual conference was co-hosted by ABAC, the private-sector arm of the APEC, and DHgate, the leading B2B cross-border e-commerce marketplace in China.

Julia Torreblanca, chair of ABAC Inclusion Working Group, said in the welcome remarks, "This is a great opportunity for us in the private sector to engage even more actively and fight together with authorities the best way around challenging times."

Mohammad Naciri, regional director of UN Women for Asia and the Pacific, shared a general landscape of the gender inequality in technology adoption, citing India as an example, where only one-third of women have a mobile phone, compared to two-thirds of men. "We believe that digital technologies present enormous opportunities for women, which is why we want to get them into their hands," Naciri said.

Public and Private collaboration empowers women

Our chamber places top priorities on gender equality and skill empowerment, said Sun Xiao, director general of Multilateral Cooperation Department of China Chamber of International Commerce. The chamber has launched many projects in empowering women, including the BRICS Women Innovation Contest to increase the participation of women in the economic process and online capacity-building training for female entrepreneurs in various countries.

Silvana Koch-Mehrin, president and founder of Women Political Leaders (WPL), a worldwide network of thousands of women politicians, emphasized the importance of including women equally in leadership in the public and private sector, adding that "women leaders, in our experience, really need three things, and that's community, connection, and communication,"

"We've got around 50% of women on the public sector boards. So, we use it as an example to prove it is really a good thing," said Rebecca Barnes, policy director of Manat Whine Ministry for Women in New Zealand. The Ministry is the governments principal advisor on achieving better results for women, and wider New Zealand.

Professor Li Ying, dean of the School of International Education at China Women's University, shared a case of a female entrepreneur in Jiande county in Zhejiang province, East China, to illustrate the public and privates strong collaboration in empowering women. The unnamed entrepreneur, who had never received higher education, used to raise chicken at a time when the local government would like to attract people to upskill to more environment-friendly industries. The local government teamed up with an agricultural institute to seek alternatives. They found the land suitable for planting a specific herb, which could be used to cure cardiovascular diseases. Afterward, the government provided funds and encouraged the women to lead villagers to grow this herb, while the institute offered technological support. The new venture turned to be a success finally.

"COVID-19 reminds us we need to accelerate the efforts to narrow the gender gap because women in the disadvantaged group are more fragile. If we do not accelerate this pace on these efforts, the gap will become bigger," Li said.

Technology empowers women in the crisis

Annie Cheng, vice president and head of corporate communications, Greater China at Visa, said the company, as a sponsor for Olympic for 30 years, aims to provide capacity building, including digital adoption. It has trained over 5,000 women, who are business owners in culture, tourism and the sports sector, so they could capture the opportunities in the games.

"We know that when we empower women, individuals benefit, the family benefit, and the community benefit," Cheng said.

"89% of our Chinese female entrepreneurs, graduated from our programs, had already been giving back to their community by donation or mentoring more women in the community before COVID-19, echoed Mandy Ying, an associate of corporate engagement at Goldman Sachs. She is responsible for running the firms philanthropic initiatives in China, particularly the 10,000 Women China.

This proves that the Chinese female entrepreneurs are walking the walk," she commented.

Diane Wang, founder, chairperson and CEO of DHgate, gave the attendees an example of how tech has helped a girl survive the pandemic. Meria, a Texas-based Zumba instructor, quarantined and lost her previous way to make a living, but she has learned to leverage on DHgate's decentralized e-commerce SaaS - MyyShop to earn new money.

She has introduced Zumba leggings and tops from the SaaS platform to her fans in Facebook groups. Once her fans place orders from her channels, MyyShop would dropship to her customers directly. At the same time, she can make money from selling products through her private online community, without the need to understand trade policies, operations, and logistics. "This simple business model has enabled everyone access to international trade equally, and boosted international trade to the next level," said Wang.

While Meria's story is inspiring, Zhixin Chen, vice president of Plug and Play China, shared her observation, which is encouraging. "We still have a long way to go, but in recent years it's happy to see more female founders in the high technology sector."

Chetna Gala Sinha, a social activist and founder of Mann Deshi Bank, said that only 10 % of women had an access to smartphones in her area at the beginning of the pandemic, and now it has increased to 40%. She added that the increased penetration of smartphones had created many opportunities for women to do business.

"Women are ready to go for this digital platform. And once they get that entry, nobody can stop that," she predicted. Sinha, the female activist, has actually witnessed womens growth and advancement for years in her country. She founded the first business school for rural women in India in 2006 and launched a toll-free helpline and the first Chambers of Commerce for women micro-entrepreneurs in 2013.

"I believe, very strongly, on one side, we will help these women to scale their business, provide them loans for their micro enterprises, but on the other side, we have to get the data and make this micro enterprise visible globally, Sinha said.

In China, Ruby Xing, founder of Hello Future Academy, shared her experience in coping with COVID-19. She ran a preschool daycare center in Beijing, but had to shut that down amid the health crisis. The female entrepreneur shifted to offer short videos to help train the parents of their previous clients, kids aged below 6, bringing the number of online tutors to 200 within one year.

"We don't need to be the man, but we still need to figure out a way to be strong. We can learn from mistakes, we can focus on a single wide industry, and we will be successful," she said.

Her Story: Women use tech to make a change

The APEC Women Connect Online Conference also presented a stage for women founders to share their stories.

Kara Nguyen from Vietnam, founder of Mpact, said women use only about 20% of their wardrobe while spending 17 minutes on average every morning to select what to wear. To minimize waste, she founded Mpact, producing clothes not based on trends or forecasts but actual feedback data directly from women.

"It could be very revolutionary to see women can take back the power from media, embrace their uniqueness, and only buy what truly fits them and not just their body, but also the lives by personal values," she said.

Anna Davidson from the UK, founder of Amazon 101 Academy, who knows well how to build brands, create e-commerce stores, and market on e-commerce, has taught over 2,000 students to build successful businesses through online and offline training programs.

It's great to be able to help other women go and find an interest and learn these digital skills to be able to create the ground and sell into the marketplace. And they look after their family at the same time, said Davidson, who has recently been featured in Forbes Magazine in April 2020.

"The more role models we have, the more relatable success feels," chimed in Sabina Nforba from Cameroon, co-founder and president of AfriTech Hub. This nonprofit organization is dedicated to creating innovative young people through STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics).

Watch the full replay of the conference to gain more insights: https://fb.watch/6uBaJ_eDMe/

About DHgateFounded in 2004, DHgate has become the leading B2B cross-border e-commerce marketplace in China. Through our global operations and offices, including in the USA and UK, we reach millions of people with trusted products and services. As of December 31, 2020, DHgate served more than 36 million registered buyers from 223 countries and regions by connecting them to over 2.3 million sellers in China and other countries, with over 25 million live listings on the platform annually. For more information, please visit dhgate.com and follow @DHgate.com.

Read more:

Digital Key for Women to Get Through COVID-19 - Business Wire