MAKERS 2021 Kickoff Event - Lori Bongiorno

MAKERS 2021 Kickoff Event - Lori Bongiorno

Video Transcript

LORI BONGIORNO: Hi, everyone. It's so good to be here. For those of you new to our community, I'm Lori Bongiorno, the general manager of MAKERS. I want to thank you all for joining us today and continuing on this journey as we keep each other going throughout 2021. Every year on the Maker stage, we feature the brightest, most innovative thinkers who present ideas that create progress for women, which means progress for everyone. In that spirit of innovation and action, we're planning a virtual MAKERS Conference that will be unlike anything you've experienced in the past year.

We're recording a podcast called, you guessed it, "Keep Going." It leans into nuanced, difficult, and sometimes uncomfortable conversations around equity. Designed to fuel progress and also inspire momentum, these discussions are going to be led by thought leaders and barrier breakers who are going to share their experiences and provide actionable ways we can all keep going in the fight for equity and justice at work and in the larger world.

We'll premier these episodes at our May conference. And then instead of simply watching an influential speaker on a stage, we'll flip the model and they're going to join all of you for intimate breakout sessions. In other words, everyone who attends will actively participate in MAKERS this May.

So one of the ways I've been able to keep going during this past year is by regularly unplugging. Sometimes I need to completely check out and I'll literally turn my phone on airplane mode or I'll escape into a fictional audiobook while roaming the streets of Brooklyn. But more often than not, I turn to others, taking a socially-distanced and masked walk with a close friend, joining an online yoga class with the community I have been practicing with for well over a decade, or learning Tai Chi with the group I first joined on March 1. And in the spirit of community and staying grounded and connected, we have Lululemon global ambassador Sanchia here to lead us in a mindfulness moment.