GDST Inspiring Change Makers Online Summit
22 May 2020 | Share:
The GDST held the Inspiring Change Makers Online Summit on May 21st, which was open to girls from all GDST schools and aimed to educate, inspire and empower through its large variety of online sessions.The summit was designed with young women at its heart, but had opportunities and sessions suitable for the whole family and all ages to get involved with too, attracting over 26,000 visitors to the website. The initiative, which was led by Norwich High School for Girls GDST, included 45 amazing speakers from all walks of life, who had volunteered their time to create free-to-access inspiring TED-style talks, insightful careers-focused presentations, interactive sessions, Q&As, active sessions and much more too.
The day kicked off in spectacular style with a Breakfast with Prue Leith CBE, followed by a welcome from CEO of the GDST, Cheryl Giovannoni and warm up by coach Sara Milne Rowe. Design Engineer Yewande Akinola MBE, then gave a Change Makers keynote speech.
Six lively ‘Activate’ sessions were designed to get everyone ready for the day and ranged from a HIIT workout to yoga to weights to circuits with Olympic gold medalist Kate Richardson-Walsh! The ‘Inspire’ section aimed to uplift the audience, including talks on shyness, anger, careers, confidence and diplomacy. The seven speakers for the ‘Aspire’ sessions told is of their varied careers and career paths, including investment management, news reporting, owning your own business and the power of journalism.
Tram Anh Nguyen Co-founder of the CFTE provided a wonderful keynote at the end of the morning, followed by Q&As with six women with fantastically varied careers, ranging from law to the media to football!
In the afternoon, we were encouraged to feel empowered with six sessions with change-making charity and social enterprise leaders, some of whom had set up their own charities, while others had made huge contributions to their local communities.
The closing notes were given by Tessy Ojo Chief Executive of the Diana Award and Kirsty von Malaisé, Headmistress of Norwich High School for Girls, GDST.
Feedback for the day was overwhelmingly positive, with girls who participated commenting, “I should try and leave the world in a better way than before,” and “We can all be change makers if we put our minds into it.”
If you would like to see any of the inspiring sessions, the Summit is still available to view here.
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