NEW YORK, April 5, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Innovation,
creativity and courage are being rewarded at the fourth annual
Women in the World Summit. Three Toyota Driving Solutions
grants of $50,000 each were pledged
today by Toyota for women selected as "Mothers of Invention" at the
Summit. The $150,000 in grants
were awarded to the recipients who are addressing some of today's
most pressing global problems with ingenuity. Recipients include
Kativa M. Shukla, founder and CEO of
Fenugreen; Caitria O' Neill and Morgan O' Neill, co-founders and
chief executives of Recovers.org; and Sejal
Hathi and Tara Roberts,
co-founders of girltank.
"It's an honor to return as a sponsor of the Women in the World
Summit," said Julie Hamp, Chief
Communications Officer for Toyota in North America, and summit co-presenter.
"Toyota is proud to demonstrate its ongoing commitment to women by
honoring the Mothers of Invention – courageous and innovative
leaders who are making a difference in their communities and the
world."
Toyota awarded the Mothers of Invention honorees with
$50,000 grants to recognize the
recipients' creativity, drive and determination in fostering social
good while supporting their projects that impact positive
change. Toyota also surprised the Mothers of Invention with
an additional $15,000 grant for each
of the women to "pay-it-forward" to another innovative organization
or cause of her choice. The "pay-it-forward" grants were
presented so that honorees could help a budding Mother of Invention
and continue to share good ideas and make great things happen in
the future.
The Summit, hosted by Newsweek & The Daily Beast
Editor-in-Chief Tina Brown, of which
Toyota is the presenting sponsor, was held at the David H.
Koch Theater at New York's Lincoln
Center and featured two days of programming and panels aimed at
addressing urgent issues facing girls and women worldwide. This
year's participants included Meryl Streep, former Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton, Oprah Winfrey, Tina
Brown, Dr. Hawa Abdi,
Tererai Trent, Ambassador
Susan E. Rice, Eva Longoria, Michaela
DePrince, Ambassador Melanne
Verveer, Diane von
Furstenberg, Anne Finucane,
America Ferrera, Tom Hanks, Lesley
Stahl, Cynthia McFadden,
Patricia Amira and many others.
About the Mothers of Invention:
Kavita M.
Shukla
Founder/CEO Fenugreen
Kavita Shukla is the inventor and founder/CEO of
Fenugreen, a social enterprise addressing the major global
challenge of food spoilage with a simple solution: FreshPaper.
Shukla developed FreshPaper in high school, after she discovered
its active ingredients in a home remedy given to her by her
grandmother in India. The product
allows users to keep produce fresh for up to four times longer than
has so far been possible. Today, FreshPaper is used by farmers and
consumers across the globe, and Fenugreen is establishing
initiatives to benefit local food banks in the U.S. and small-scale
farmers in the developing world.
Caitria and Morgan O'Neill
Founders of
Recovers.org
After a tornado destroyed their Massachusetts home, the O'Neill sisters
created an online organizing platform to help disaster-stricken
communities quickly launch recovery efforts. In the immediate
aftermath of a disaster, the Recovers.org toolkit helps communities
match local resources with local needs using features such as
volunteer management tools, donation databases and information hubs
to make disaster response smarter.
Tara Roberts & Sejal
Hathis
Founders of girltank.org
Girltank is an
online crowd-funding platform that gives women and girls the
opportunity to share their social initiatives with the world, and
offers donors and investors an easy way to find and support these
projects. Girltank provides a much-needed infrastructure for
girls starting promising projects and helps them sustain their work
and gain visibility as real innovators. Thus far, girltank has
mobilized approximately 1,500 women change-makers from 104
countries.
For more information about the Mothers of Invention and the 2013
Women in the World Summit, please visit
http://www.thedailybeast.com/sponsored/MothersofInvention.html.
About Toyota
Toyota (NYSE:TM)
established operations in the United
States in 1957 and currently operates 10 manufacturing
plants. There are nearly 1,500 Toyota, Lexus and Scion dealerships
in the U.S. which sold more than two million vehicles in 2012.
Toyota directly employs nearly 30,000 in the U.S. and its
investment here is currently valued at more than $18 billion, including sales and manufacturing
operations, research and development, financial services and
design. Toyota's annual purchasing of parts, materials, goods and
services from U.S. suppliers totals more than $23 billion.
For more information about Toyota,
visit www.toyota.com or www.toyotanewsroom.com.
About Women in the World Summit
Newsweek
& The Daily Beast's Women in the World Summit is centered on
vivid journalistic storytelling, featuring inspiring women and men
from diverse cultures and backgrounds. From CEOs and world leaders
to artists, activists and firebrand dissidents, the summit tells
the stories of the courageous and intelligent women who are
battling the status quo in their countries, picking up the pieces
in the aftermath of war and shattering glass ceilings in every
sector.
(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20030501/TOYLOGO)
SOURCE Toyota