Registration Now Open

Registration for the thinkBIG conference is now open! 

We are so excited about the thinkBIG conference! For the past two years, the conference has been organized by a group of seven motivated Stanford undergrads who have been inspired to hold a conference focused on educating and inspiring other students to improve the health and human rights situation of women in developing countries. But the conference cannot be a success without your help!

Register to come to the conference today! Registration is free for Stanford students, $15 for non-Stanford students, and seniors, and $25 general admission. Please look through the program and the incredible list of speakers and get excited! Tickets are limited, so don't wait.

Click to Register!

thinkBIG in the Stanford Daily

The Stanford Daily has written an article about thinkBIG in today's edition of the Daily:

Students thinkBIG for event: Group plans conference on women’s health

November 30, 2007
By Patrick K. Fitzgerald

In the fall of 2005, a group of students emerged from Human Biology Prof. Anne Firth Murray’s sophomore seminar on international women’s health and human rights stunned by what they had learned. The students had considered themselves reasonably well-informed about the issues but were “blown away” by how dire the circumstances are for some women worldwide and how little attention has been drawn to the issues.

Then they decided to do something.

Two years later, their efforts are being realized in a “BIG” way. Registration kicked off this week for the thinkBIG conference on international women’s heath and human rights, which is set to be the largest student-run conference in Stanford history and will take place Feb. 1-3.

Its organizers do not intend for the conference to preach to the choir. They are targeting students regardless of gender or academic background in an effort to raise awareness about the issues facing women in the developing world and inspire a generation to take action.

“We want to get everybody involved, from the doctor to the diplomat to the check-writers of tomorrow,” said conference chair Lee Trope ‘08.

The conference will focus on four primary issues: Education, HIV/AIDS among women, reproductive health and violence against women. Each issue will have a keynote speaker and two panelists, boasting a who’s who of activists in the field, including Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland, and Stephen Lewis, former UN Special Envoy for AIDS in Africa.

Read the article...

Stephen Lewis Confirmed HIV/AIDS Keynote

Stephen Lewis, the former UN Special Envoy on HIV/AIDS in Africa, has confirmed that he will be coming to Stanford this February as our HIV/AIDS Keynote speaker. He is the founder of the celebrated Stephen Lewis Foundation (SLF). He is also a Professor in Global Health, Faculty of Social Sciences at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, a Senior Advisor to the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University in New York, and co-Director of AIDS-Free World, a new international AIDS advocacy organization. The SLF website states, "As a politician, diplomat and international envoy for humanitarian efforts, Stephen Lewis has dedicated himself to improving the human condition." Mr. Lewis brings a long history of commitment to African and the problem of HIV/AIDS:

Stephen Lewis’ work with the United Nations spanned more than two decades. He was the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa from June 2001 until the end of 2006. From 1995 to 1999, Mr. Lewis was Deputy Executive Director of UNICEF at the organization’s global headquarters in New York. From 1984 through 1988, Stephen Lewis was Canada’s Ambassador to the United Nations.

Mr. Lewis was an elected member of the Ontario Legislative Assembly from 1963 to1978.

In 1970, he became leader of the Ontario New Democratic Party, during which time he became leader of the Official Opposition.

Mr. Lewis is co-chair of the Leadership Programme Committee for the XVII International AIDS Conference, which will be held in Mexico City in August 2008. He also serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative.

In 2006, Stephen Lewis’ best-selling book, Race Against Time won the Canadian Booksellers Association’s Libris Award for non-fiction book of the year and Mr. Lewis was named the CBA’s Author of the Year for 2005.

Mr. Lewis holds 26 honorary degrees from Canadian universities and is a Companion of the Order of Canada, Canada’s highest honour for lifetime achievement. In 2007, the Kingdom of Lesotho (a small mountainous country in Southern Africa) invested Mr. Lewis as Knight Commander of the Most Dignified Order of Moshoeshoe. The order is named for the founder of Lesotho; the knighthood is the country’s highest honour.

We are so excited to welcome Mr. Lewis to Stanford in February. For more information on the conference, please visit http://thinkbig.stanford.edu or email thinkbig.info@gmail.com

Showcase your pictures from abroad!

Taken photos abroad?
Want your work to be showcased?

The thinkBIG conference on International Women's Health and Human Rights is looking for pictures of women from abroad to be showcased in a photo gallery during the opening event of the conference.

Please email submissions in JPG format to lat008@stanford.edu.

For more information about the conference check out our website at http://thinkbig.stanford.edu.

Join the thinkBIG team!

Sorry! Our applications are currently closed. Thank you to everyone who responded!

We are so excited you are interested in joining our team! For the past two years, the thinkBIG Conference on International Women’s Health and Human Rights has been organized by a group of seven motivated Stanford undergrads who have been inspired to hold a conference focused on educating and inspiring other students to improve the health and human rights situation of women in developing countries. The motivation behind the conference came from Anne Firth Murray's course, International Women's Health and Human Rights. We have planned a campus-wide weekend event in which students with diverse interests throughout the Stanford community will focus on the issues surrounding international women’s health and human rights through speeches, student group performances, information panels, opportunity fairs and more. The ultimate goal is to mobilize our generation-- from the diplomat to the doctor to the ‘check-writer of tomorrow’-- to step up to the challenges of the future and work to improve the situation of women throughout the developing world.

As February 1-3 rapidly approaches we need your help! We are looking for similarly inspired, energetic and motivated students to join our team. Here are the open positions:

1. Marketing Assistant: Our goal is to make the conference known to every single student on campus. We will do this through a countdown in White Plaza, T-shirts, Stickers, Emails, Pre-Conference events and much more. We are looking for an energetic and creative applicant to work with our Marketing Director, Tessa Watt, to pursue this goal.

2. Opportunities Fair Director: Following the Keynote address, there will be a fair in which student organizations, NGOs and academic programs can showcase their work and encourage students to get involved. Many organizations outside of Stanford will be involved. We are looking for an organized student who is skilled at working with people to help coordinate this event.

3. Dorm Representative Supervisors: Our goal is to get at least 300 Stanford students to register for the conference. In order to achieve this goal each dorm on campus will have a representative resident whose job is to register as many people as possible. We are looking for two students who have exemplified strong leadership attributes to coordinate the recruitment efforts of the dorm representatives as well supervise their continued progress leading up to the conference.

4. Film Festival Director: In the months before the conference there will be a film festival featuring one film on each of the four main topics of the thinkBIG conference. We are looking for a passionate student who will organize the film festival.

PLEASE NOTE! If you are interested in helping out but do not have the time to be a cabinet member, you can still be involved! See the Application for more information.

Thanks so much, and we look forward to hearing from you!
Lee Trope and the thinkBIG team

Fiona Muchembere New Education Panelist

thinkBIG is proud to announce our first confirmed Education panelist Fiona Muchembere. A Zimbabwean lawyer and advocate for law reform, especially in regards to women. Fiona is also a member of the The Campaign for Female Education (CAMFED) Association (CAMA) of successful young women. The CAMFED website had this to say about Ms. Muchembere:

When CAMFED Director Lucy Lake first met Fiona Muchembere, she was working as a cleaner in an office building in Harare – despite having achieved some of the best school exam results in Zimbabwe. Her dreams of going to university seemed far beyond reach. But with CAMFED’s support and encouragement, she defied the odds to become the first member of her rural community to go to university and is now a fully-qualified lawyer.

“I grew up in a society where it is said that the only course a woman would pass is marriage,” explains Fiona. “I come from a family where there is no one qualified for any professional job, where there is no one who has been to university. I am actually their pioneer.”

Fiona was brought up by her grandmother in the rural district of Wedza. They worked side by side tending a small plot of land and selling fruit and vegetables at the local market in order to buy basic supplies to get through each week.

Today, Fiona stands as a powerful role model for girls in her rural community.

Ms. Muchembere has expressed a great deal of enthusiasm for the thinkBIG conference, which is set to take place Feburary 1-3, 2008. In her acceptance letter, she wrote:

I wholeheartedly believe in the obkectives of the conference particularly that it is crucial to embark on an international advocacy campaign around women's issues in order to bring about real change to women's lives globally, particularly in the developing world.

It is my sincere hope that the thinkBIG conference will be ahuge success and I am honored to have been offered an opportunity to contribute to that success. For over 14 years CAMFED and CAMA have been focusing primarily on Women and Education in Africa providing resources to take the thousands of rural girls through primary, secondary and tertiary education as well as broadening life choices for rural women; I look forward to sharing more on our experiences on the importances of investing in education for women and the differences that it makes in the lives of women and in communities across Africa.

We're thrilled that Ms. Muchembere is coming to speak on our Education panel! If you have any questions or comments on the thinkBIG conference, please email lat008@stanford.edu or visit our website at .

Nadine Gasman is confirmed as Reproductive Health panelist

Nadine Gasman is a newly confirmed thinkBIG panelist on Reproductive Health. The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Representative to Guatemala, her background on issues of international reproductive health issues is extensive, and includes formerly serving as the Ipas Director of Mexico. From the Ipas website:

Dr. Nadine Gasman, a respected physician with many years' experience in the field of international health, has been appointed Executive Director of Ipas Mexico, Ipas President Elizabeth Maguire announced today. When she assumes her new position in March, Dr. Gasman will have overall responsibility for directing Ipas's full range of programmatic activities in Mexico, which include training, research, technology distribution and policy work.

"Nadine Gasman's solid understanding of the health sector and familiarity with essential health commodities will considerably strengthen Ipas's programs in Mexico," said Ann H. Leonard, Ipas's Executive Vice President. "We are especially excited to be able to draw on her experience using rights initiatives to achieve change in the health sector."

Dr. Gasman is a graduate of the medical school of the Universidad La Salle in Mexico City. She also holds a master's degree in public health from Harvard University and a doctorate in health policy and administration from Johns Hopkins University. She is the author or co-author of numerous publications on topics such as pharmaceutical policies, children's health, ethics, rights and health care reform.

We're very excited that Dr. Gasman has agreed to join us for the thinkBIG conference in February 1-3, 2008.

For questions or comments on the conference, please email lat008@stanford.edu or visit our website at thinkbig.stanford.edu

Confirmed speakers update

thinkBIG is pleased to announce a number of new speakers for the conference. Mary Robinson is confirmed as the keynote Education speaker, Esta Soler will give the keynote address on Violence Against Women, and Dr. Eunice Brookman-Amissah is the keynote speaker for Reproductive Health. Also, Paul Blumenthal will be a panelist on the topic of Reproductive Health, and Natasha Martin and Yvonne Maldonado will be on our panels regarding HIV/AIDS. Below you will find information about who they are and what experience and expertise they bring to the conference.

Reproductive Health | Education | Violence Against Women

Reproductive Health Keynote

Dr. Eunice Brookman-Amissah Ipas Vice President to Africa, based in Nairobi Former Minister, Health of Ghana Former Ghanaian Ambassador to The Netherlands Biography

Education Keynote

Mary Robinson President Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative Former President of Ireland Former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (Girls Access to Education and its Relationship to Women's Health) Biography

Violence Against Women Keynote

Esta Soler President of Family Violence Prevention Fund Consultant and adviser to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Soros Justice Fellowship Program, the Ford Foundation/Harvard University Innovations in American Government initiative, and the Aspen Institute. Former member of the Violence Against Women National Advisory Council

The date has been set!

After many meetings, emails, conferences, and debates, we are pleased to announce that the date has been set!

The thinkBIG conference will be held on February 1-3, 2008.

Please keep checking the website for information about new confirmed speakers, registration information, etc.

Any questions? You can contact Lee Trope at lat008 at stanford.edu

Check out our new blog!

Thing Big has a new blog! As our project develops, we will post updates on confirmed speakers, events, meetings, and other items of possible interest. Please check this and our website often, and contact us if you want to get involved or in touch!