The Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship seeks to accelerate entrepreneurial approaches and solutions to the world’s most pressing problems by uniting social entrepreneurs with essential partners in a collaborative pursuit of learning, leverage, and large-scale social change. This year's theme is the Power of Proximity: "In order to address inequality and injustice, we must more deeply understand the current status quo—and how to disrupt it."

In 2018, the year that marked the 100th anniversary since some women got the vote in the UK, and when #MeToo shook the world, the WOW festival organizers brought together artists, writers, politicians, comedians, activists and more for the 8th annual WOW London at Southbank Centre. Learn more at the official WOW website.

At Sundance Film Festival's annual Women's Leadership Brunch this year, I had the privilege and responsibility of moderating a panel intended to highlight some of the activism and initiatives that have emerged from the #MeToo movement.  Read my blog post for a lightly edited version of my remarks introducing the panel and some highlights from our discussion.

This year’s TEDWomen in New Orleans was a truly special conference, at a vital moment, and I’m sure the ripples will be felt for a long time to come. The theme this year was bridges: we build them, we cross them, sometimes we even burn them. Our speakers talked about the physical bridges we need for access and connection as well as the metaphoric ones we need to bridge the differences that increasingly divide us. Watch some of the talks at Ted.com and read my blog post about the event.

The Spotlight Health forum covered a lot of ground in search of common ground on new challenges to reproductive justice and human rights. The forum welcomed 1,000 physicians, scientists, activists and frontline leaders, many facing rollbacks on government-sponsored medical research, climate action and other policies, to share ideas and solutions. Read my blog post to watch videos and panels from this informative conference with speakers including Planned Parenthood's Cecile Richards, Care.com Founder and CEO Sheila Marcelo,  National Domestic Workers Alliance director Ai-Jen Poo, and many, many others.

Getting to meet the social entrepreneurs and learn about their work is one of the compelling reasons that Scott (my husband) and I have attended 13 of the 14 years of the Skoll World Forum. This year, we felt an even greater connection to the community as this was my first as a member of the Skoll Fund board. Read my blog post to learn more about this amazing community of entrepreneurs. 

For the first time, over 300 Acumen fellows gathered together to share a decade of learning with each other. The Acumen community is committed to accelerating social change, together. Read my blog post to learn more about the creative and innovative enterprises that Acumen had identified and invested in as solutions for serving poor communities with sustainable businesses.

WOW – Women of the World festival celebrates women and girls, and looks at the obstacles that stop them from achieving their potential. Why is gender equality taking so long to achieve? Southbank Centre's festival is a global network of festivals which provides a platform for interrogating this question. WOW 2017 speakers included Angela Davis, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Gemma Cairney, Sandi Toksvig and Gillian Anderson.

I participated in the fourth Women Working for the World conference in Bogota, Colombia. It’s a privilege to invite US activists such as Musimbi Kanyoro of the Global Fund for Women, Daniela Ligiero of Together For Girls, and writer Miriam Zoila Pérez to speak about their work on reproductive rights, girls empowerment and philanthropy. Read my blog post about the amazing speakers who shared their stories. 

 TEDWomen is a conference that I co-founded and co-curate with TED. We’ll be convening for our fifth year in 2016, October 26-28 in San Francisco. Some of you may have seen the “save the date” announcement that recently went out; if you didn’t, make sure you’re signed up for the TEDWomen newsletter, where we’ll announce pre-registration in early 2016, and share more information as we develop the event’s theme.