Like so many others over the past year, I approached the pandemic "pause" in all our lives as an opportunity to evaluate priorities, rethink my commitments and most recently, to use the accumulated experiences and learnings from Zoom forums and webinars to make some significant ‘resets’ in my life and work. 

Even though I appreciate the sentiment expressed in the often stated goal to “build back better,” I don’t accept that as the best outcome of this unprecedented time and experience. 

I embrace the possibility emerging from this time to envision how we “build FORWARD better.”

The past year has upended so much for so many, and forced global reckonings with systems, processes and policies that too often let us down.  

The pandemic shined a grim spotlight on inequalities and disparities that already existed throughout our society and that need to be addressed if we are to build forward to a more equitable and sustainable future.  

On both a personal and societal level, the question that looms now as we embrace the re-openings and what is starting to feel in some places like a return to "normal," is how to change much of what had become "normalized," pre-Covid, and to approach recovery not only as needed restoration, but as an unique opportunity for a complete reset. No surprise, then, that the theme of TEDWomen2021 poses the question on which Resets are formed.

Registration is now open on TED.com for TEDWomen2021. 

To quote from our official announcement, "At this year’s triumphantly live-and-in-person TEDWomen2021, we’ll hear from speakers who are imagining new possibilities and exploring new ideas for how we might live and work better together in the years to come. We'll learn the 'what now?' in fields including design, technology, science and culture — and together, we'll envision a future we can build together."

Social entrepreneur Noeline Kirabo speaking at TEDWomen 2019; Perception designer Jiabao Li speaking at TEDWomen 2019; Attendees at TEDWomen2019 in Palm Springs, CA.

TEDWomen2021 will return to Palm Springs, CA, from Dec. 1-3, 2021 for six sessions of TED's famous talks, plus performances, interviews and other surprises that will reframe the power of women to lead, individually and collectively, towards the better future that we will be more prepared to shape, together.  Learn more here.

I am longing for that particular alchemy that happens when we are physically together, and believing as I do that when women — and our male allies, friends, partners — come together, with an opportunity to listen and learn from scientists, storytellers, artists, activists, cultural and government leaders, we will be better prepared to answer the question: “What Now?”

It's a high bar, but for those of you who have attended TEDWomen in the past, you know that these convenings can be and often are transformative. 

As the powerful Indian feminist leader and writer, Arundhati Roy, wrote at the beginning of the pandemic: “Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next.”

I hope you’ll consider joining the journey to envisioning the “next” at TEDWomen2021. 

Onward,

-Pat