Please join Guilford Public Schools for a special one-time free screening of this new empowering documentary on female entrepreneurs in the technology and science fields. The event will be held at the GHS Performing Arts Center, Thursday September 28th, 7pm.
She Started It follows five young women over two years as they build teams, bring products to market, fail and start again. She Started It takes viewers on a global roller coaster ride from San Francisco to Mississippi, France to Vietnam. Along the way, it weaves in big picture perspectives from women like investor Joanne Wilson; White House CTO Megan Smith; GoldieBlox CEO Debbie Sterling; and Ruchi Sanghvi, the first female engineer at Facebook.
We encourage all of our students, and in particular our young women and girls in middle school and high school, to attend this screening and to bring their parents and guardians. All will be inspired by the stories in this film.
Following the 52-minute film, there will be a panel discussion, and time for questions from the audience, with the film’s director, Nora Poggi, and local businesswomen. They include:
Mary Jo Kestner, AIA, Partner, CK Architects, a residential and commercial architectural firm recognized for design and construction techniques that are progressive, innovative, environmentally responsible and beautiful.
Noemi Zelanski Kearns, Owner & Creative Director, Ink&Pixel Agency (formerly How2Design), an award-winning, brand development and marketing firm.
Pat Lore, Creative Director, Headline Productions, video production company, creating original productions for all aspects of commercial, marketing, corporate, and educational video projects.
Dawn Parker, Senior Research Scientist, GSK ViiV Healthcare, a company dedicated to HIV research. Formerly with Bristol-Myers Squibb, Dawn has co-authored numerous journal articles, a textbook, and is the inventor on many patents through her work in drug discovery.
This film was created to help the next generation to dream bigger and to urge today’s generation to support the entrepreneurial spirit.
Kearns said when she was in college, her design courses were filled with women, but after graduation, she couldn’t find a single woman-owned or woman-led design company, so showing young woman in the community a successful female business owner or entrepreneur is important.
“It’s beneficial for young people to be able to have mentors and know that there are people out there that they can reach out to and talk to and see themselves in,” she said. “Whether it’s talking at the school or establishing programs, I think we can’t even guess what the impact will be on these young women and I am very proud to be a part of this.”
While the program is geared towards young women, Kearns said boys and men are a big part of the conversation as well.
“I think that it is as critical as a parent of girls as it is parents of boys to make sure that there is no such thing as gender bias,” she said. “These are people [in the film] who had great ideas and the education and the grit to actually bring it to fruition. That, to me, is what was most exciting about the film. The fact that they are women is great, but I am for empowering anyone with a great idea.”
-Zoe Roos, Staff Writer for Zip06 (Read the full story on zip06.com)
