More and more women are becoming entrepreneurs. To support and celebrate them, the ITP program at NYU’s Tisch School for the Arts hosts an annual Women’s Entrepreneur Festival, also known as WE.
WE 12 kicked off on a Tuesday with an introduction by Mary Schmidt Campbell and a key note address from Arianna Huffington. She’s actually pretty funny and more down to earth than I expected.
Some of her takeaway quotes:
I am a life long learner […] which means, among other things, [I’m] never going to get bored
It’s important to integrate your personal and professional life. As long as you have one person to support you, through thick and thin, your dream has a foundation.
Failure is a stepping stone to success.
Taking risks is not a problem–you learn a lot along the way.
Entrepreneurship, leadership is being able to see what’s around the corner.
I believe there is such a thing as a spirit of the times. We’re moving [from competition/survival] to meaning and collaboration.
On Moms: I think when they take the baby out they put the guilt in.
Feel grateful for what you have at 25. You have a sense of possibility of everything.
There is absolutely nothing now that does not happen that does not involve technology.
Sleep is important […] I had dinner with a man who bragged he had only four hours of sleep. I thought, “If you had five hours this dinner would be more interesting.”
She also mentioned that The Huffington Post has two nap rooms–which employees are encouraged to use. Pretty cool.
The next day at WE was a long, information-packed, yet fun day of networking and learning from other successful women entrepreneurs. There were many panels, including ones about change makers, community makers, taste makers, and the all-important investors panel.
I was very fortunate to attend this festival, especially since hundreds of people applied and not everyone was accepted. To learn more about WE and find out how to attend next year, please visit their website. There are bios of all the panelists and attendees, and if nothing else, it’s a great networking site.
I definitely remember that line about sleep from a talk she gave for Planned Parenthood in Santa Barbara back in 2008. I don’t blame her for reusing it–it’s a good line and a good point.