This edition of press highlights is like a pregame for National Women’s Month, which begins on Thursday. These ladies are not only doing cool stuff, they are doing cool stuff to help other women live their best lives.
Shazia Ijaz, a Pakistani American from Dearborn, Michigan, wanted all women to be able to express themselves with clothing. For Muslim women who follow religious rules of modest dress, this is often difficult. Wearing a long-sleeved, floor-length dress has a time and place of course, but I for one don’t want to be tripping on my own hem all the time. Ijaz just launched Seek Refuge, the first streetwear brand for Muslim Women. It’s all designed to be loose-fitting, but still designed for women. While someone like Bella Hadid may be able to wear men’s clothing and still look like a goddess, I for one look like a child when wearing men’s clothing. Seek Refuge is providing more ways for women to be themselves, be comfortable, and be confident, regardless of their religious beliefs.
We all make choices every day for our safety, but for women this calculation dictates many of our decisions, and it’s not fair. We should be able to run when it fits into our schedules, walk home when we need to walk home, regardless of how dark it is, and go places by ourselves. While InvisaWear CEO and cofounder Rajia Abdelaziz can’t make the world safer for us, she has invented a way for us to feel safer in any situation. She made jewelry that looks nice, and when you press the button on the back calls 911, shows your location, and gets you the help you need faster. Empower the women you love with the gift of safety and independence.
Rebecca George (Jessica’s long-lost cousin) is empowering others too. She went all in to open a bookstore designed to be a community space that also sold books, bringing free events and workshops to anyone who is interested. Volumes is still in debt, and the owners are using their retirement savings to pay their employees. Talk about noble. They launched a campaign to make sure that this beloved center for connecting with other humans about shared loves stays open.
Tech
In design nerd news, the challenge of making a single-handed watch that tells the time has hereby been solved! It was not a challenge I was aware of, but that’s what crowdfunding is for. In spite of my snark, I actually think it’s a pretty cool idea, and much easier to tell the time than with a standard analog watch. They also innovated big time with the name – SNGLRTY, because no one else has ever thought of removing the vowels from their company name.
As promised, the CES coverage is still rolling in. In celebration of our 10th anniversary, Dave talked to PC Mag about everything Indiegogo. Over the last 10 years, “our entrepreneurs have matured, and so what they’ve needed has progressed along” and we’ve added things to our platform to meet those needs, like Marketplace, shipping and manufacturing support, equity, and now even ICOs. It’s remarkable that we’ve had the flexibility to adapt to what our customers need, and fearlessly exploring uncharted territory.
