Sustainable Seattle – a regional indicator organization founded in 1991 focused on the long-term health and sustainability of Seattle and the Puget Sound region has awarded Sustainable Leadership Award since 2001 in categories like Change Agent, Livable Urban Communities, Stewards of Healthy Ecologies and Humans, Vitalizing Local Sustainable Economies, and Sustainable Hero!
To our surprise, WINS 2012 was nominated for the Change Agent award. http://sustainableseattle.org/component/content/article/43-awards/298-nominees.
This is what was said about us:
WINS the first ever Women in Innovation Summit (WINS) was held at Seattle Center, led by founder Kristiina Hiukka. This new concept for gathering passionate women to share, collaborate, and innovate to solve our world sustainability problems started as a seed of an idea. It grew into a conference of close to 300 people including a large staff of volunteers who applied their skill and enthusiasm to create the first ever conference of its kind. Ideas were not only shared but catalyzed with follow-on actions.
Since the conference, a number of actions have taken off including community sharing of socially conscious purchasing choices through the Twitter handle #pursepower. The concept for the conference was to hear from inspiring leaders, then come together in working groups to participate in shared innovation, developing tangible proposals and commitments from participants to take the ideas forward that would be most likely to bring about lasting change. The conference resulted in tangible action.
The winners of each category were announced at Sustainability Leadership Awards Dinner on November 15th 2012. To be nominated is an incredible honor. It means that someone in the Women in Innovation community has deemed our efforts so worthwhile that they put forward a nomination. The nomination went through a rigorous vetting process with thirteen judges who are all highly accomplished leaders in our community. The fact that WINS was at the table with the most remarkable leaders in sustainability is a humbling honor. I’m still deeply moved by the recognition.
The winner of the award was BEST (Businesses Ending Slavery and Trafficking) Alliance led by Mar Smith, a non-profit organization built through partnerships, developing resources, training businesses, and innovating new solutions. In 2012, BEST and partners successfully advocated for the passage of a key piece of legislation to prevent human trafficking in foot massage facilities. Since the efforts began, investigations into human trafficking and illegal massage in Washington have increased substantially thanks to the diligence of legislators, the Department of Health, ICE, and law enforcement. BEST forged another key partnership with the Washington Lodging Association leading to collaborative efforts between leaders in the local lodging industry, law enforcement, and victim service providers for sex trafficking prevention in local communities.