I was delighted to learn that my 2006 student delegation fellows Prudence Mutowo and Pardis Sabeti have been selected as “Rising Talents” for the 2007 Women’s Forum (see also these previous posts for more on the 07 RTs).

It is no surprise, though, as these 2 friendly young women are real brains and committed scientists in their countries: The American Pardis Sabeti is an Assistant Professor at Harvard in Systems Biology and Organismal and Evolutionary Biology, after shooting-star studies at MIT, Oxford University and at Harvard Medical School. Prudence Mutowo, from Zimbabwe, works as a doctoral researcher on micro-organism archea at the University of Nottingham.

Prudence and Pardis both received the 2006 “L’Oréal For Women Science Fellowship”, an L’Oréal-UNESCO award, given to young female scientists.

Catching up with Pardis, I was wondering why there were so few women involved in sciences. “We need a better science education, and more role models in sciences”, she says, and this is one of the key aspect of her job as an Assistant Professor: teaching scientists and teachers-to-be how to communicate about science. “Children should also be given the chance to see the people behind a project.” Project Runway, a reality show showing designers realizing their project, could be a good source of inspiration for something similar in sciences.

Nevertheless, she shows a great enthusiasm in attending the Women’s Forum for the second time, this time as part of the Rising Talents delegation. “It’s a great network, and there was a good balance between all generations coming together, and meetings for the Rising Talents Group, where we could discuss the issues applying to our stage of career.”

When I saw her speaking Portuguese while walking around in the Women’s Forum, I was happy to find someone who speaks my native language. Only after I learned that she was one of the “Rising Talents“. Joana Loureiro is a real woman entrepreneur. She is the General Manager of Junior Achievement in Portugal, the world’s largest organisation dedicated to educating students about entrepreneurship.

Joana told me that she knew Junior Achievement in the United States, where she followed a post-graduation course on Management of non-profit organizations. She then had the idea of bringing it to Portugal. Today, Junior Achievement Portugal has already established a network made up of over 600 volunteers and 600 teachers in 13o schools.

The advice she gives to people who think of becoming entrepreneurs are: first you have to try, to experiment. And the other important aspect is that you have to be willing to take risks. She said that in Portugal, for example, people tend to be very averse to risk.

With the importance of entrepreneurship growing in the world, it is quite amazing to see initiatives such as Joana’s in the Women’s Forum. We can hope that more women (and men) would be inspired by her and help create an entrepreneurial culture in other countries too.

Virginie Dangles-Marie always loved animals. Her childhood dream was to be a veterinarian. And she became one. She made her studies at the École Vétérinaire Nationale d’Alfort, in France. But because of difficulties in this profession due to the economic reality, she decided to follow a research master on cancer research, a subjet that also interested her. After the master, she completed a PhD and today she is a prominent researcher on cancer at the Institut Curie, in Paris.

Virginie received the Mitjavil National Academy of Medicine Fellowship award and is also a nominated member of the French Ministry of Agriculture’s National Commission of Teachers and Researchers. She is one of the young women selected in the “Rising Talents” program, launched by JP Morgan and the Women’s Forum with the support of Egon Zehnder International, which aims at creating every year an international network of women between 25 and 35 years old, who have demonstrated particular passion, commitment and social involvement, making them inspiring women for the future.

I asked Virginie — selected this year among the WF’s Rising Talents — what would be her advice for women who wish to pursue a career in science. Her answer was: you must have passion for what you do. Another important thing is that you should try to get the maximum of information you can about the opportunities and possibilities in this type of career, and try to bring this “plus”, this “exotic touch” to what you do.

Today I spoke to another amazing woman, Hasina Kharbhih. She looks like any other charming young woman from India, who talks about her achievements with great simplicity as if she had set up just another NGO. In fact, she is a great innovator who over the last ten years has weaved a web of cooperation between people and organisations who did not understand each other, let alone work together, to help young victims of trafficking.

She founded and heads the Impulse NGO Network and is one of the Women Forum’s Rising Talents. A management graduate from a good university in India, Hasina decided to defy expectations of a successful career in business to found an NGO which started off by helping rural women in the Indian state of Meghalaya gain a livelihood producing handicrafts. Through close contact with rural communities she saw the increasing numbers of young women and children who fell victims of trafficking and forced labour. This prompted her to focus on this larger challenge, and to persuade local government, the police, the media and local communities to work with her to help these young boys and girls. Now she is running a home centre, she trains the police, educates other NGOs and has built up a network of 11 centres in her state to help victims of trafficking.

She has managed her NGO network with the efficiency and systemic view of the best businesses, measuring results and ready to restructure and innovate to improve effectiveness.

Hasina has received enormous recognition from her work on the part of the international community. She is advising the Anti Human Trafficking Unit of the United Nations and has represented India as Commonwealth Youth Ambassador for Positive Living, among others.

She talks with great passion about the need for NGOs to take a holistic view of the problem of trafficking and work together among themselves and with governments and other institutions. She will make this plea to the larger NGOs who are active in this field, and judging by how many she has been able to persuade so far, I have no doubt she will succeed.

If someone can change the world by doing TV, it is harder, however, to change it by watching it.

Well, this is not Jobeda Ali’s point of view. And the last thing you want to do is contradict this committed and effusive 32 years-old film-maker – the main reason being she may be right, and is determined to prove it. This young woman of Bangladeshi origin aims at making the world a better place thanks to the promotion of equal opportunities for everyone – nothing more. And for that, TV and media contents are nowadays the best ways to increase the visibility of given issues, and in the end, raise people’s awareness and make them react towards those issues. “People often believe I’m doing films because I like it”, she says, “Actually, it’s more like a social tool for me.” Jobeda is currently working on a film aiming at modernising radically the way Muslim women are perceived, as well as the way they perceive themselves. “The problem with Muslim women is they don’t realise they can disagree,” she comments. In order to help them gain their independence, this bullish young woman has a 20-year plan: make them and people around them accept they can question their environment, and give them the tools to get what they want and need.

The least you can say is this proactive woman has a strong sense of values and morals. Jobeda was raised in the Muslim faith, and her opinions make her take risks towards her community. Though, she is not afraid to face complex questions such as cultural relativism and tolerance, and does it in a really lucid way. For instance, where should be the limit between acceptable and non-acceptable when it comes to discuss personal beliefs or cultural issues? Where is the deadline in the sacrifice of oneself when balanced with the greater good? Can anyone pretend  to have an answer on that?…

Emilie Goodall is a match-maker, but of an unusual type. At New Philanthropy Capital, she guides corporations and wealthy individuals in their search for the ideal NGO to support. Getting this match right is crucial to ensure that money given to charities does make a difference to people. She is one of 20 Rising Talents awarded by JPMorgan at the Women Forum 2007.

“It is difficult for donors to fund small organisations because large charities have more resources to get themselves known than small ones. We must have a better flow of information about which NGOs are achieving results”.

She believes that NGOs can learn from the business world, as much as time-poor wealthy individuals can learn from working with charities. She talks of many of her friends who agonise over what to do for society, but many never get round to doing anything. This sounds so familiar! But organisations at the interface between the NGO and the business world can take would-be volunteers by the hand and help them put some of their business skills to a good cause.

Emilie has so far focused on very important problems affecting young people in the UK – child abuse, school disaffection, truancy and exclusion – and measured the impact of different types of interventions.

She finds it inspiring to work with so many different players, from the tiny NGO to the millionaire. She sees a new trend of charitable giving among young individuals who have made their first million and want to donate some to NGOs, but who also want to know how the money is spent.

Emilie is passionate about what she does and her passion is infective! I left our meeting convinced that if we get to understand better the impact NGOs make, and if NGOs take whatever practice from the business world can be useful to be more effective, a lot more can be achieved.

The ebullient winner of the Rising Talents award, Emilie Goodall, New Philanthropy Capital.

The exemplary leaders - this year’s “Rising Talents”

From left to right: Maryana Iskander (Planned Parenthood Federation of America), Marina Flindell (JPMorgan Chase) Mona Mourshed (McKinsey & Company)

Scenes from the Women’s Forum 2007. A break at the main bar:

Discovering the “Rising Talents“:

At the Cartier Women’s Initiative Award booth (a joint project by Cartier, McKinsey and Insead aimed at encouraging female startup entrepreneurs), getting ready for tonight’s presentation of the finalists:

Say it with flowers: