“The mission of UMO Design’s WiDesign Fest 2021 is to educate and empower a million women/girls with the design skills and confidence necessary to get a job by 2030” UMO Design
The Belgium Design Council partners with UMO Design for this incredible initiative to empower women and girls around the globe. Especially poignant on this day being International Women’s Day 2021.
This International Women’s Day, UMO Design Foundation together with it’s partners, will be dedicating from March through to early April, with the launch of WiDesign Fest 2021.
This inspiring mission is initiated by our new partners, of UMO Design is announcing to globally to “educate and empower a million women/girls with the design skills and confidence necessary to get a job by 2030.” In order to make this happy and there will be scholarships to educate 100 aspiring women worth 150,000 USD via the UMO Design School. There is also a call out to Mentors and Design Leaders to join this initiative.
The BDC has been driven by the need to educate the value of Design for designing solutions for societal challenges that we face. Participating last year in UMO Design’s event last of UXI20, where Rozina Spinnoy, MD of BDC, spoke on the trans-disciplinary range of projects with our sister organisation BIDs Belgium. It’s been a positive evolution on building our relationship and partnership with this important initiative.
The current ongoing global pandemic of COVID-19 period has highlighted how the pandemic has affected women disproportionately across the globe. Yet it has affected women from BAME communities further. Therefore this initiative of the WiDesignFest 2021 and the Women in Design initiative has struck a cord with us, as Rozina Spinnoy states:
“We need to strive for a more inclusive society overall. We must encourage more the diversity in the design sector. In order to have more women in leadership positions and each level create mechanisms to ensure that diverse women working across the intersectionality, are part of this process. Therefore this initiative of Women in Design with the WiDesignFest by UMO Design and partners, has an excellent role to play in this. It’s crucial to empower women and girls, to educate the value of studying and working in a career within the various disciplines of design. Design has a intrinsic value in all sectors of industry and business. As a whole the creative and cultural industries, bring an immense value to our socio-economic value to our society and our economy . From policy design, strategy and management tool, to the aesthetic, cultural, urban and visual fields. There are many studies that also show the evidence of educating and learning through creativity/play/design from young age and throughout, encourages the much needed skill of the 21st Century of critical thinking that we need – now, in the future and always”.
Here is the excerpt from UMO Design and the WiDesignFest website: “Women today have made significant strides in growing their contributions and influence. However, for all the accomplishments and progress made in women empowerment, they still are underrepresented in various domains across several levels.
UMO.Design is incredibly proud to have played its part over the years by celebrating women’s empowerment in design. WiDesign Fest 2021 manifests our gratitude to all the women who have set a benchmark in design and related domains. Our mission is to inspire and educate one million women and girls to become designers by 2030. To take this movement forward, we aim to provide $150,000 USD scholarships to educate 100 women aspirants in Design essentials and UX design via our UMO Design School this year.
This women’s day, UMO.Design is going to dedicate the month of March to all wonderful women with the launch of ‘WiDesign Fest 2021’ on the occasion of International Women’s Day.”
Thank you to Bapu Kaladhar and the whole team & partners at UMO Design.
To find out how you can join and be part of this global initiative – please click here and join us!