The WOW Foundation is a charity working to build a global movement celebrating women and girls. Through its WOW – Women of the World Festivals and events, WOW takes a frank look at the obstacles to gender equality and explores solutions for change.
Though not (yet) as fully representative as we'd like to be, the Supercool team is very deliberately gender-balanced. So, it's great to be working with an organisation that not only values equality, but educates about it, champions it, and fights for it.
WOW was founded by Jude Kelly in 2010. Starting as a three-day festival at London’s Southbank Centre (where Jude was Artistic Director for 12 years), WOW events now take place in over 30 locations, across 6 continents, and is run as an independent charity.
If you identify as a woman, or know a woman, WOW is for you.
Jude Kelly – Founder, WOW
With the current coronavirus crisis disproportionately impacting women – and Black Lives Matter adding an increased sense of urgency – Jude and the small but mighty WOW team decided to take action.
They conceived, organised, and realised WOW Global 24 – a completely free, 24-hour, global, live-streamed festival – in under 2 months. Pow! 💥
The team set us the comparitively simpler challenge of working with them to design, build, test, and launch a new website – within 6 weeks. Say what?! Challenge accepted! 🤓
Launched 5 days ahead of the festival, the website has some nifty features including:
- The ability to list, and visually present, live and virtual events
- An inline video player
- Auto updating of event times, based on your timezone – globaltastic!
- A dedicated space for the WOW Marketplace so you can browse independent brands by Black women and women of colour in the UK
- Flexible fundraising calls-to-action
It was amazing to be able to say to viewers across the world, watching on the website, "Click the donate button"!
Jude Kelly – Founder, WOW
WOW Global 24 took place from 10am (BST) on Sat 27 June 2020.
The impressive line-up of speakers included the likes of Julia Gillard, Gillian Anderson, Sherry Rehman, Nimco Ali, Gina Miller, The Duchess of Cornwall – and Sir Patrick Stewart talking about his childhood experiences of domestic violence.
The entire 24-hour festival is available to watch online, for free and at your leisure – and it's captioned / BSL-interpreted too. Accessibility WIN! 👏
A huge thank you from the whole team for all the work you did … It was so important for WOW to have a digital platform we're proud of and this has exceeded our expectations. The Supercool team has been efficient, clear, creative and fun (not to mention quick!) to work with throughout.
Charlie Marshall – Head of Communications & Marketing
And because it's especially relevant to what we do here at Supercool, and at this moment in time, let's end with a quote from WOW Global 24's headline speaker – the legendary feminist, activist, academic, and author Angela Davis:
Art is not a luxury. I remember Audre Lorde's words when she said poetry is not a luxury; it is a necessity. We need art to illuminate the way to a different future.
Angela Davis – in conversation with Jude Kelly, WOW Global 24, June 2020
[We can also make websites – for arts, cultural, and non-profit outfits – to much more traditional timescales. Get in touch if you'd like to chat 📧]
