The Innovation Station Amplifies the Voices of Woman and Girl Innovators

The Innovation Station Amplifies the Voices of Woman and Girl Innovators

Aubrey R. Paris, Ph.D

Office of Global Women’s Issues

The Innovation Station, which amplifies woman and girl climate innovators, celebrates its three-year anniversary this July. It is a flagship initiative of the Secretary’s Office of Global Women’s Issues.

In the case of climate and environmental challenges, one thing is certain: no country or community experiences them in isolation. Consider how severe storms affect countries in Southeast Asia and also rip through communities in the southeastern United States. Wildfires have ravaged parts of Europe in recent years, just as they continue to spread throughout the American West.

In response to realities like these, the Secretary’s Office of Global Women’s Issues launched the Innovation Station initiative to highlight women’s and girls’ leadership in climate and environmental action and share their solutions and best practices with new communities globally. This initiative is one way S/GWI is bringing the U.S. Strategy to Respond to the Effects of Climate Change on Women to life.

Three years later, more than 150 women and girls from across the United States and around the world comprise the Innovation Station network, a group of organizers, innovators, and entrepreneurs who are eager to expand their work on topics ranging from irrigation to climate anxiety, from textiles to urban green spaces, and more.

We are proud to have helped these women and girls establish more than 1,400 new relationships to date. In fact, an annual poll of our network’s members revealed that 90 percent of respondents had attended meetings with new contacts as a result of introductions received through the Innovation Station.

Broad Impact

Network members also reported that being part of the Innovation Station has helped amplify and grow their organizations’ projects. For example, the Marine Conservation Institute has grown its Blue Parks initiative aimed at improving marine conservation, while Youth4Nature shared its climate storytelling resources during a U.S. Center event at COP28’s Gender Equality Day. During the United States APEC host year in 2023, Blue Ocean Gear’s leadership attended the Vice President’s launch of the Women in the Sustainable Economy Initiative. Our annual poll indicated that approximately 40 percent of respondents have spoken at events convened by new partner organizations as a result of Innovation Station relationship-building.

Peer learning and mentorship opportunities have also been available to network members. Recently, the Innovation Station collaborated with the U.S. Consulate General in Mumbai to create the first-ever U.S.-India Women Climate Innovators Mentorship Program. The program paired Indian women who are developing solutions in climate education, emissions reduction, recycling, and sustainable agriculture with U.S. counterparts from the Innovation Station network. Illustrative outcomes of the six-month virtual program include Veer.Voyage exploring collaborative projects related to generating hydrogen and combatting microplastics pollution, as well as Rural Action and its Indian mentee brainstorming joint environmental education and waste management programs.

Collaborations Formed

More than 40 percent of respondents in our annual poll shared that they have ongoing conversations or collaborations as a result of introductions made following their exposure to the Innovation Station initiative. Perhaps most special are the collaborations formed between network members themselves. Green Writers Press and Girls Write Now, co-panelists during an Innovation Station virtual event, are now seeking to establish an internship program. Farm From a Box (FFAB) and Responsive Drip Irrigation (RDI) are working together to pilot innovative irrigation solutions and explore the potential integration of RDI irrigation kits in the next generation of FFAB’s modular sustainable agriculture system.

“The Innovation Station is giving a voice to small startups with innovations that could make a difference if people only knew about them.”

—Jan Gould, CEO, Responsive Drip Irrigation
Through its public-facing virtual event series, weekly podcast, and quarterly newsletter, the Innovation Station has spent three years demonstrating women’s and girls’ leadership in tackling climate challenges, reversing environmental degradation, and promoting sustainability. We’ve even empowered creative writers to imagine a greener future through the One Humanity Writing Collective. Bringing the Innovation Station’s collaborative ethos to life, the writers—hailing from the United States, Latin America, and Oceania—received expert advice from network members such as Climate Resolve, The Water Collaborative, and WIFIRE Lab to inform their speculative fiction stories.

As we kick off the Innovation Station’s fourth year amplifying woman and girl climate innovators, we look forward to our next milestone: reaching 200 network members pioneering diverse, translatable, and impactful solutions. We are exploring new projects to further expand their community impact, including through audio and video formats that will amplify their voices. And while we may not know where in the world their innovations will take root next, the Innovation Station is eager to support them through relationship-building in the hopes of bringing solutions to communities faster and more effectively than ever.

Aubrey R. Paris, Ph.D., is the Senior Policy Advisor for Gender, Climate Change, and Innovation in the Secretary’s Office of Global Women’s Issues (S/GWI), where she leads the Innovation Station initiative. Dr. Paris received her Ph.D. in Chemistry and Materials Science from Princeton University and B.S. in Chemistry and Biology from Ursinus College.

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