Women's networking helps create fresh ideas
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Kang Kyung-hee, president of the Seoul Foundation of Women and Family, speaks during the Power Women Network for Change in Asia Pacific at Seoul Innovation Park in Eunpyeong, northwestern Seoul, Sept. 29. / Courtesy of Seoul Foundation of Women and Family
By Chung Hyun-chae
Female leaders of various fields said having a network among them helps create fresh ideas and ultimately improves the world.
“Each of us has been participating in a number of associations or networks like this, but joining this kind of women’s networking event can help us to connect more easily and create a special synergy between us,” Trang Thuy Tran, human resources director at Deloitte Vietnam Company in Hanoi, told The Korea Times.
About 30 female leaders from Korea, the United States, Vietnam, Mongolia and other Asia-Pacific countries gathered to attend a network event hosted by the Seoul Foundation of Women and Family, a foundation under the Seoul Metropolitan Government established for female empowerment.
The event, called the Power Women Network for Change in Asia Pacific, was held Sept. 29 at Seoul Innovation Park, a social innovation platform located in Eunpyeong-gu, northwestern Seoul.
The event was sponsored by the U.S. Embassy, local newspaper Women News and educational board game development company Happy Baobab.
“Physical distances and awareness distances are being demolished in this network event,” Robert W. Ogburn, minister-counselor for public affairs at the U.S. Embassy, said in his congratulatory speech.
“The work that you are doing is really helping to shape my 17-year-old daughter’s future, your own daughters’ futures and those of all the different young women in the colleges and countries you represent and the other countries that you have an impact on.”
Five of the participants had met each other in July 2015 at a three-week seminar in Hawaii that was offered by the East-West Center, an education and research organization established by U.S. Congress in 1960 to strengthen relations among Asia-Pacific countries.
Among the five was Lee Keun-chung, founder and CEO of Happy Baobab, who took the initiative to organize the networking event.
“I hope this event will work as a venue where female leaders of various fields can share their ideas and plans with each other,” Lee said.
The business sectors of the participants range from art and education to consulting and broadcasting.
“We are all passionate about social issues which are complex and multidisciplinary, so we need people from different fields to be able to make change happen,” said Kawtar El Alaoui, a lawyer from a third-world country.
Tran said, “We understand that participants come from different parts of the world, having diverse backgrounds, but we had a common interest: making the world better.”
Uyanga Batzogs, CEO of Proliance LLC, a medical equipment company headquartered in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, connected with women who have senior care expertise, through the networking event.
“Today I met some people from the Asia Foundation. I have heard of them but I didn’t realize that they are doing a project in Mongolia,” Batzogs said. “Using such a good network, I hope I can help women entrepreneurs to do a better job in Mongolia.”
For Tomomi Kumai, an education consultant for international students, the event helped her realize her dream which is to create a share house for single moms.
“I, as a single mom who is raising two kids, the older one having a brain tumor and disability, have always struggled to find caretakers,” Kumai said. “Today I met Shin Se-jin who said one of her future projects is to make a share house for single moms. I told her that I am very happy to volunteer to make that happen.”
Shin, president of Insadong Bee Soap, a handmade natural soap store, was one of the participants of the networking event.
“It feels very lonely when you are a leader, when you are responsible for an institution, a team or assignment. There is a lot on your shoulders,” said Lee Mi-ho, co-founder of the Japan Multicultural Relief Fund in Oakland, California, the first U.S.-based grant-making entity for the victims of the Fukushima earthquake and nuclear disaster.
“I know that it’s important to spread the seed. And it’s the relationships that really help blossom and give you the help when you need it,” she added.