The World Economic Forum’s 2021 Global Gender Gap Report estimates that the time required to bridge the gender gap worldwide has grown over the past 12 months from 99.5 years (estimated in 2020) to 136 years. We cannot afford to wait 136 years for more than half the world’s population to achieve parity. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated many of the issues that contribute to women’s inequality and highlighted their precarious position in the event of disasters. Despite all the efforts devoted to women’s empowerment, statistics show that globally, women still experience disrespect, disempowerment, and discrimination across all lines of race, religion, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and ability. Existing interventions, while well-intentioned, are too often unidimensional. Gender inequality is an ongoing issue that requires creative, holistic, and systemic approaches.
The AWESOME Conference aims to provide a platform to discuss and exchange ideas and perspectives on the potential of complexity science, system thinking, innovation, and impact research to address the intersectionality of women’s empowerment, leading the way to more effective and sustainable interventions. The Conference for papers is open to approaches to women’s empowerment that are holistic and multidimensional.
The Conference’s objectives are: (1) Convene an interdisciplinary team of experts to advance knowledge and interventional strategies towards empowering women and strengthening gender equality in communities, and present research findings; (2) Promote human rights-based and evidence-informed interventions tailored to girls’ and women’s needs, particularly vulnerable communities, and (3) Spotlight the state of technology and systems innovations in identifying and equipping agents of change (government, donors, etc.) with relevant, contextual knowledge on women’s empowerment issues.
By bringing together an interdisciplinary group of thinkers, researchers, practitioners, educators, and innovators from complex systems thinking, women and gender studies, technology innovation, and related fields, we hope to propel the field to the next level of acknowledging and addressing the complexity and multifaceted dimensions impacting women’s empowerment and gender equality.
The conference seeks contributions around the most recent innovations, trends, concerns, and best practice solutions adopted to address practical challenges and improve women’s resilience.
The conference will welcome topics under the following themes
Academics, policymakers, and practitioners interested in participating in the conference should submit a 300-word abstract (papers, workshop or tutorial sessions) through the online form provided below. Submissions must be original and should not have been published previously or be under consideration for any other publication while being evaluated for this conference.
Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham is a multi-disciplinary, research-intensive, private university, educating a student population of over 20,000 by 1700+ strong faculty. Amrita offers more than 200 UG, PG, and Ph.D. programs in Engineering, Management, Medical & Life Sciences, Arts & Humanities, and Social Sciences. In a short span of 15 years, we have established 180+ collaborations with Top 500 world-ranked universities as Amrita is emerging as one of the fastest-growing institutions of higher learning in India. Amrita has been selected by the Indian Government as an Institution of Eminence to be developed into a world-class institution that would put India on the global education map. In THE University Impact Rankings, a pioneering initiative to recognize universities around the world for their social and economic impact, Amrita has been ranked among the Top 300 in the world.
The Center for Women’s Empowerment and Gender Equality (CWEGE) and Ammachi Labs are two research centers within Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, focusing on promoting gender equality and fostering women’s empowerment with a special focus on technology and other innovative methods. The fact that CWEGE has been designated as India’s only UNESCO Chair in Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment since 2016 is a testimony to the commitment, success, and progress made towards achieving societal transformation and conducting world-class research.
CWEGE’s significant contribution towards this agenda is our flagship systems-based solution model that represents a ground-breaking and innovative methodology to tackle the complex and context-specific requirements related to women’s socio-economic empowerment. It applies complex systems theory to design, implement, and assess effective interventions with active and inclusive participation. Our use of this solution model aligns with Amrita’s mission for high-impact, compassion-driven research to deliver gender-transformative action rooted in research across all sustainability pillars and geographic contexts. This innovative solution is grounded in our core values of promoting social good, sustainability, systems-oriented approaches, participatory research, inclusivity, transparency, and accountable programming.
Systems Innovation is an eLearning and collaborative platform for systems thinking and systems change. We work to empower a diversity of individuals and organizations in learning and applying systems innovation ideas, by thinking in systems and understanding complexity to better manage and design complex systems towards realizing sustainable outcomes. We are a networked organization of about 10K members, about 60 Hub team members, 20 hub representatives, and 4 platform team members that contribute to creating content, organizing events, running the website etc. Community members are broad and diverse in areas of work and interest from academics – students, professors, researchers; to management – consultants, analysts, policymakers; to designers, engineers, developers, and innovators.
The “International Conference on Advancing Women’s Empowerment through Systems Model Expansion” (AWESOME) took place virtually March 3-5, 2022. The conference was hosted by the Center for Women’s Empowerment and Gender Equality, UNESCO Chair for Gender Equality, in partnership with Systems Innovation, Mumbai Hub, and supported by the Indian Council on Social Science Research (ICSSR) the conference was a great success bringing together key stakeholders and academics from around the globe.
AWESOME: At A Glance
500+ Participants | 12 Countries | 12 Keynote Speakers | 15 Accepted Papers | 15 Partner Institutions
Conference Overview
The conference featured academics, policymakers, and practitioners who will share their expertise and vision on systems thinking for women’s empowerment from both theoretical and applied points of view. Workshops and tutorials that presented effective tools for women’s empowerment took place in various breakouts. By bringing together an interdisciplinary group of academics, policymakers, and practitioners from systems thinking, women & gender studies, technology innovation, and related fields, the knowledge shared through this conference will contribute to addressing the complexity and multifaceted dimensions impacting women’s empowerment and gender equality.
Dr. Bhavani Rao kicked off the conference with the following words of inspiration: “Just as indigenous/first generation people hold this conviction: Amma also says that when the wings of a butterfly touches one part of a web, its touch reverberates throughout the entire web. It is with this understanding that the AWESOME framework addresses the multiple factors impacting women’s empowerment knowing that changes in one factor undoubtedly have a ripple effect on the others” – Dr. Bhavani Rao, UNESCO Chair on Gender Equality & Women’s Empowerment (India), Dean – CWEGE & AMMACHI Labs, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham.
Event Highlights Included:
For International Women’s Day (IWD 2022) all participants from the AWESOME Conference took the pledge to #BreakTheBias
Download the Conference Abstracts
In his concluding remarks, Dr. Tarek Rashed said “The AWESOME Framework upholds this vision to change the world: By 2050, women should be empowered to leverage their internal and external resources, live free from discrimination in healthy, sustainable, and safe environments, and enjoy access to quality education, cultural, political, and socioeconomic equality.” – Tarek Rashed, Adjunct Professor, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham.
Ph.D., Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham – organizer
Ph.D, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham – organizer
Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham – organizer
Systems Innovation Mumbai – organizer
Systems Innovation Mumbai – organizer
