Networking Women for Sustainability
Dr. Ulrike GretzelDr. Gillian Bowser
Global Women Scholars Network
IUCN World Conservation Congress, Jeju 2012
The Need
• Complex problem that requires multiplicity in insights, skills and approaches
• Sharing of information (and data collection)• Networking of people, documents and data• Knowledge flows• Social support
Availability of Technological Platforms
Value of Networks
• Dynamic, flexible• Robust• Efficient for spreading messages:
multidirectional flows, more likely to process messages from known others
• Collective intelligence; avoidance of group-think if diverse and global
• Affiliation can be informal• Self-organizing
Scalable
Why Network Women?
• Have different perspective on sustainability
• Often lack the support networks available to their male counterparts
• Lack role models
Global Women Scholars Network
http://www.youtube.com/user/Globalwomenscholars?feature=watch
Associating Climate Change and Women
Networking the Networks3 Decades of Women at Rio
Challenges
• Incentives• Commitment• Need for high tech and high touch• Sustaining initial excitement• Critical mass• Champions and Freeriders
http://globalwomenscholars.wordpress.com/
[email protected]@colostate.edu