Our Picks for Women of The Year
Creating a better future for women requires developing bonds across generations, communities, and borders. These honorees are brave and persevering women who have been advocates of change all over the world, leading and empowering as they promote and strive for equity and provide a safe haven for others to seek guidance and hope.
We would like to recognize these women for their extraordinary efforts today that are paving the way for the women of tomorrow, from shifting and serving society to saving lives, shattering glass ceilings, and creating communities.
1) Mira Murati
Murati is the chief technology officer at OpenAI, where she leads the teams behind DALL-E, which uses artificial intelligence to make artwork based on cues, and ChatGPT, the incredibly popular AI chatbot that can answer complicated queries with remarkably humanlike ability.
Although ChatGPT and Dall-E receive the majority of the limelight, Mira Murati may be the true hero of OpenAI.
Murati, who was born in Albania and previously worked at Tesla, where she oversaw the creation of the Model X, has been with OpenAI since 2018. While the rest of the world marvels at the technology and debates its potential, she and her team are concentrating on improving OpenAI's goods, which will have a massive impact on mankind.
2. Jacinda Ardern
To say that leading a company, let alone a nation, is demanding is an understatement.
Many of her constituents and leaders around the world were stunned when New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced her resignation as the country's leader, citing burnout.
Whether or not you agree with the former Prime Minister's policies, promises, or crisis management of the COVID-19 pandemic, her open and honest explanation of why she decided to leave her role as Prime Minister may have rewritten the rules for the qualities leaders should possess today, especially in the context of the complex times we live in.
She is also one of the only two global leaders to have given birth while in government, highlighting the possibilities for change she has created for those who serve thereafter.
3. Nikhat Zareen
Nikhat Zareen has defied stereotypes and overcome barriers to become a world champion. Fighter, rebel, and change maker. Nikhat Zareen, the boxer, has never shied away from taking any of these tags, in addition to the medals.
Zareen earned a gold medal at the 2022 IBA Women's World Boxing Championships, becoming the fifth Indian woman to do so. In doing so, she had to not only strike and punch her way through her opponents but also social conventions that questioned why she had taken up a 'man's sport' when she began boxing. Her triumphs have made her an inspiration to many young girls who want to partake in sports or are already getting warmed up.
4. Tracy Chou
An internship at Google or Facebook should be like winning the jackpot for a young individual just beginning out in technology. But, from the minute Tracy Chou stepped into the offices of Silicon Valley's tech behemoths, she felt profoundly uncomfortable as a woman in a sea of men.
Chou's personal experiences spurred her to become one of tech's most conspicuous, passionate diversity champions. She developed Block Party. Block Party enables individuals to create a safer Twitter experience. Block Party, which is built on top of Twitter's API, allows users to simplify the process of blocking bad participants and making block lists on Twitter. For example, if a specific tweet is causing hostility, you can immediately ban anyone who likes or shares it.
Chou has previously addressed how she came to question the idea of meritocracy that altered her worldview, and how she thinks you should "carry yourself with the confidence of a mediocre white guy."
5. Jacinta Kerketta
Jacinta Kerketta is a Jharkhand-based poet and independent journalist. Her name was recently added to Forbes' ranking of India's self-made women in 2022. Jacinta is an Oraon tribal member from a rural village near Khudpos in Jharkhand's West Singhbhum region. Her efforts at modern Hindi writing have earned her national and worldwide acclaim.
While Jacinta Kerketta's poems focus on the lives and deaths of Adivasi communities in Jharkhand, her writing focuses on the dispute over land, the effect of risk management programmes on those who live within forests, and local democracy among indigenous populations.
Jacinta's writing resonates with the lives and hardships that indigenous people in India face on a daily basis.
6. Zahra Joya
Joya founded Rukhshana Media with her own money in December 2020 as Afghanistan's first feminist news agency, with the goal of becoming the first national news source where an Afghan woman from any region could see her own life reflected in the tales released every day.
Because of their reporting on women's rights, she and her journalists have endured attacks and threats to their lives, and her team in Afghanistan continues to operate in secrecy.
Joya is now a refugee in the United Kingdom, where she runs Rukhshana Media from exile, releasing the reporting of her team of female correspondents across Afghanistan on life for women under Taliban control.
7. Ashwini KP
The UN Human Rights Council named the first Asian and first Indian as an independent expert on racism and associated prejudice in October 2022. The UN Human Rights Council, which has 47 members and is headquartered in Geneva, had approved the nomination of Dalit activist and political science professor Ashwini K.P.
Ashwini's name was on a three-person shortlist proposed by the Consultative Group for the nomination of mission bearers to the Council President. In addition to Ashwini, the list included Joshua Castellino from India and Unity Dow from Botswana.
The UNHRC president then recommended her to the Council, which formally named her shortly before its 51st session ended making history.
8. Ayisha Siddiqa
Poetry signifies hope for the 24-year-old Pakistani human-rights and climate activist. She is aiding in the development of a support system that bridges the gap between intergovernmental leaders and local advocates, as well as lobbying for the inclusion of human and natural rights in climate legislation.
Raised in a matriarchal home, certain things became profoundly embedded in her conscience, prompting her to support the marginalized and hold polluters answerable.
Siddiqa co-founded "Polluters Out", a global young activist alliance, in 2020, and facilitated the start of the Fossil Free University, an advocacy training course. She is now trying to help establish a youth climate justice fund to address the resource imbalance that activists have in comparison to the fossil fuel business.
9. Triveni Acharya
Triveni Acharya is a Mumbai-based Indian journalist and activist best known for her work with the anti-sex-trafficking organization the Rescue Foundation. Her spouse, Balkrishna Acharya, established the organization, but Triveni Acharya took over as president after he died in a car accident in 2005.
The organization's mission is to "rescue, rehabilitate, and repatriate victims of human trafficking from various areas of India, Nepal, and Bangladesh who have been sold for forced prostitution," and it has been performing "brothel raids" since 1993.
Every year, the group frees approximately 300 girls while also providing counseling, employment training, and HIV testing. Acharya has received several death threats as a result of her work because these searches frequently result in severe financial loss or incarceration for the offenders.
10. Women of Iran
Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish woman visiting Tehran, was detained and assaulted in September 2022, during what appeared to be a routine detention for an inadequate hijab. She succumbed in prison later on. The news was broken by two female journalists. They are now imprisoned. The nation exploded in widespread protests unparalleled since the 2009 Green Revolution, calling for justice for Mahsa as well as independence and civil rights for all women.
They are spearheading a movement that is educated, liberal, secular, and yearning for normalcy: college and foreign travel, decent careers, a significant role in politics, and the freedom to say and dress however they choose.
While some argue that the protesters do not reflect the majority of the nation, they have been loud enough to make the current regime understand that the status quo cannot be maintained. This genie cannot and will not return to its bottle.
Comments