Top 5 Women Taking the Future by Storm

Over a hundred years ago, on February 28, 1909, the first Women’s Day observance was held in New York, organized by the Socialist Party of America. Eight years later, on March 8, 1917, the Russian Revolution was initiated by a demonstration held by women textile workers. March 8 would eventually be declared a national holiday by the Soviet Union, which was later adopted by the United Nations in 1975.

This day would become known as International Working Women’s Day, or as we now simply call it International Women’s Day. It’s an international celebration of women throughout the globe and serves as a reminder of the arduous struggle for women’s rights.

In celebration of International Women’s Day, we’ve provided a list below of five women who we believe are helping create a better future for all of us. These women have broken boundaries with their accomplishments and would most assuredly make all of those immensely proud who’ve given their lives for the cause.

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1. Kathryn Finney

Tech entrepreneur Kathryn Finney has made waves across the business world, not just as a woman, but as a woman of color. Receiver of the Champion of Change Award from the White House in 2013, Finney has made it her mission to empower both black and latina women entrepreneurs. In late 2012, she founded the social enterprise company digitalundivided as a means of achieving her mission.

Finney co-founded The Robert Finney Foundation with her mother and brother, which provides scholarships to African-American students pursuing studies in the field of technology. In addition, she currently serves several advisory roles to black women-led startups and organizations across the country.

Because of her accomplishments, Finney was named one of the most influential African Americans in the United States on the 2013 Ebony100 list and was also awarded the 2016 Eisenhower fellowship for her role as a young global leader.

2. Maria Konovalenko

Scientist Maria Konovalenko is a molecular biophysicist who dedicates her time and research on the study of aging. She is currently in a joint Ph.D. program between the University of Southern California and the Buck Institute. With her background in molecular biophysics, she has made it her life’s mission to defeat aging – a facet of life in which she believes is no different from a disease in need of a cure.

Konovalenko is a member of the Science for Life Extension Foundation, a Moscow-based non-profit, and is also one of the organizers of the Genetics of Aging and Longevity Conference series. In 2015, Konovalenko successfully launched a book project via Indigogo, titled the Longevity Cookbook, whereby she aims to provide a scientifically-based diet for people to rely on to help them combat the effects of aging.

The last time Serious Wonder spoke to Konovalenko, she made it very clear, “My goal in life is achieving radical life extension. For it to happen a large group of people must agree with the idea of slowing down aging using the advances of science and technology.”

3. Martine Rothblatt

Martine Rothblatt is an American lawyer, author, and entrepreneur. She began her work in Washington, D.C., in the field of communications satellite law where she famously became known as the creator of SiriusXM Satellite Radio. Soon thereafter, she became involved in the Human Genome Project, leading the International Bar Association’s biopolitical project to develop a draft, titled Universal Declaration on the Human Genome and Human Rights, for the United Nations. It was officially adopted by the UNESCO in 1997 and endorsed by the United Nations General Assembly in 1998.

As a transgender woman, Rothblatt has been an outspoken advocate of LGBTQ+ rights and has written about the importance of the transgender rights movement in her wildly successful books Apartheid of Sex and its second edition expansion From Transgender to Transhuman: A Manifesto on the Freedom of Form.

In response to her daughter being diagnosed with a fatal orphan disease, pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), Rothblatt sold off all of her telecom stock and founded both PPH Cure Foundation and medical biotechnology company United Therapeutics. Today, she spends a lot of her time speaking around the world about artificial intelligence and how humanity will eventually upload their minds and merge with AI. To help her in this quest, she launched the Terasem Movement Foundation.

4. Katie Aquino (aka Miss Metaverse)

Katie Aquino (aka Miss Metaverse) is a professional futurist, speaker, and entrepreneur. Aquino has dedicated her life to helping humanity become aware of not only the exponential growth rate of informational technologies, but also their relationship with these same technologies in the future. She has done work as a speaker and consultant for several conferences and companies, discussing the future of science and technology.

Aquino runs an online podcast on YouTube called The Future Now Show, where she speaks with other futurists, entrepreneurs, CEOs, etc. on the varying topic of the future. And in 2015, she helped co-found BodAi – a robotics company which aims in the development of companion robots and artificial intelligence. These companion robots will vary between those that’ll provide social interactions with humans, help them with their day-to-day activities, and even serve as a sexual partner.

According to Aquino, “We need to understand what women in the future are going to be like and what their lives will be like. Why? Because women are the greatest consumers; because women are going to make up much more than half of the world’s population. And it’s more important now than ever to understand women and to respect their privacy and to teach good digital citizenship.”

5. Liz Parrish

Known as “the woman who wants to genetically engineer you,” Liz Parrish is a humanitarian, entrepreneur, and innovator. Similar to Maria Konovalenko, Parrish has devoted all of her time and resources in the pursuit of defeating aging. As a proponent for the advancement in gene therapies, she currently sits on the board of the International Longevity Alliance (ILA).

Parrish is also an affiliated member of the Complex Biological Systems Alliance (CBSA), which is a global research consortium dedicated to the investigation of fundamental questions regarding biology and medicine. She’s the founder of BioTrove Investments LLC and the BioTrove Podcasts and serves as Secretary of the American Longevity Alliance (ALA) – a 501(c)(3) nonprofit trade association that brings together individuals and companies who work in advancing the emerging field of cellular and regenerative medicine. Their goal: to convince governments to consider aging as a disease.

More prominently, Parrish has become famously known as “patient zero,” having administered two revolutionary gene therapies created by BioViva Sciences USA Inc., while also serving as CEO of the company. BioViva is a biotechnology company that is developing treatments to slow the aging process in humans. It’s in her hopes that the two gene therapies she had administered onto herself will prove successfully as the first official treatment in extending healthy lives.