SPRING IS THE BEST SEASON TO PAY TRIBUTE TO WOMEN IN THE WORLD

by Arianna Caracciolo

MONACO. Spring is the best season to pay tribute to women. Spring means birth, renewal, love. Today it is crucial to open a reflection on the past and on the present of the feminine side of society, on which there are broad and more than ever priority issues for the social and economic development of the community. The ninth annual Women in the World Summit took recently place  on April 12-14, 2018 at the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center in New York City. The summit focused and  aimed at an overall reflection on the Woman with the will to open a season of public confrontation able to face the many delicate issues today more than ever demarcating for a civil world, starting from a program of meetings on the role of woman in her historical memory and in her near future. Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton appeared at the Summit along with Academy Award-winner Viola Davis, who was interviewed by MSNBC host Joy-Ann Reid, contributing writer at The New Yorker. The three-day Women in the World Summit, held at New York City’s Lincoln Center, presents powerful new female role models whose personal stories illuminate the most pressing international issues. They range from CEOs and world leaders to artists, activists, peacemakers, and firebrand dissidents. The Summit’s vivid journalistic narratives, high-impact video, and fast-paced staging have made it the premier platform to showcase women of impact. Increasingly, Women in the World also includes the participation, onstage and in the audience, of men who champion women.

Ronan Farrow moderated a panel with Italian actress Asia Argento and Italian model Ambra B. Gutierrez, two women who stood up to Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein. Weinstein was reportedly facing criminal investigations in Los Angeles, New York, and London as of last month, and the list of his accusers has grown to 84 women. “We’re ready to go with an arrest,” a New York Police Department official told last week. The disgraced film producer arrived at a police station in Lower Manhattan around 7:30 a.m. on May 25th carrying what appeared to be two books—biographies of Broadway and Hollywood director Elia Kazan and Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II—and turned himself in to face criminal charges. He was “arrested on rape, criminal sex act, sex abuse and sexual misconduct charges for encounters with two women.” Parkland gun control activist Delaney Tarr, Liberian Nobel laureate Leymah Gbowee, restaurant workers’ activist Saru Jayaraman, and Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi were some of the other big highlights. Numerous other luminaries and inspiring women and men joined onstage, including U.S. Senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Lisa Murkowski, Italian EU parliamentarian Laura Boldrini, best-selling author and principal dancer at American Ballet Theatre Misty Copeland, award-winning actress and star of Dietland Julianna Margulies, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof and Dr. Fozia Alvi, a volunteer in the Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh. The 2018 Summit was generously supported by presenting sponsor Toyota; leadership sponsors AT&T, The Boston Consulting Group, Mastercard, P&G and UBS; supporting sponsors The Rockefeller Foundation and Thomson Reuters; and media sponsor The New York Times.

As for Monaco, since 2012 the Monte-Carlo Woman of the Year Award takes place at the most prestigious venues in Monaco. The Monte-Carlo Woman of the Year Award is an international award that aims to distinguish women from around the world for their personal or professional actions, whatever the sector concerned. It is placed under the High Patronage of HSH Prince Albert II of Monaco and with the honorary presidency of HSH Princess Charlene. The laureates are selected by an independent commission, chaired by the Founder of the Award, Mrs. Cinzia Sgambati-Colman, also director of MonteCarloin. In 2102 the idea for this award was conceived by Cinzia Sgambati-Colman, journalist, entrepreneur, mother and wife. This remarkable lady  has always tried to maintain balance among all her roles. The award is a tribute to those women who, by assuming one or the other of these roles, managed to achieve something special that marked their lives or those of others. In 2012 the award’s theme focused on the  humanitarian field and in the field of sciences. In 2013 the Monte-Carlo Woman of the Year Award was entitled to “Women and Medicine”. In 2014 the theme of the event sponsored by Alliance Boots, was “Women involved in the protection of the rights of the child”.

Thanks to the financing of the legendary fashion creator AGNES B., in 2015 for the defense of the marine environment, two Special Monte-Carlo Awards of the Year were given:  the first, to the French fashion designer Agnès b. who retrieved in the ice of the Arctic the schooner “Antartica”. The boat became Tara, which she gave to research. A true laboratory, the scientist aboard Tara control the situation of sea and oceans.

For more information: http://www.montecarlotimes.eu/2018/05/20/monacos-connections-tara-expeditions-foundation-pacific/

In the occasion of the 2016 theme “Women and Technology”, a new application for tablet called Kukua has been presented. Designed by Lucrezia Bisignani, this program will enable children in sub-Saharan Africa to learn to read and write quickly, while playing and without the need for books.