First Year EPAIS Student, Bisman Deu, invited to speak at the next WEF forum

Bisman, who is a first year undergraduate studying Economics, Politics and International Studies (EPAIS) has been invited to speak at the next Women Economic Forum (WEF) as well as become a member of the Advisory Executive Council. The forum is the largest international framework of women from across the world, which aims to connect women of inspiration from all countries and cultures.

The Forum is part of the ALL Ladies League, which has 40,000 members across 150 countries, with a unique and all-inclusive ethos of celebrating diversity. It is the only chamber in the world to offer completely free membership to women.

When I got the invitation to not only come and speak at the Forum but also be on the Advisory Executive Council for WEF, I was simply elated

The forum is a five-day event, which will take place in New Dehli on 8-13 May 2017, where Bisman will speak on ‘innovating for sustainability and inclusiveness’ and ‘why innovation matters more than ever’. She will be sharing the stage with a number of inspirational women, such as Naina Lal Kidwai (ex-chairman of HSBC India), Regina Robinson (award-winning speaker and entrepreneur) and Anna Letitia Cook (CEO of WomenUP Ltd).

At the age of 15, Bisman invented a low cost building material, ‘Green Wood’, made up of rice waste, which aims to provide affordable housing to the underprivileged. After seeing the environmental hazards that burning rice was causing at her family farm in North India, she began to research pollution and the properties of rice husk, and went on to experiment in her mother’s kitchen and formed a prototype product. Bisman and two other students then went on to enter HP’s 2013 Social Innovation Relay competition and Green Wood was chosen the winner out of 43,000 global entries.

It’s an absolute honour to be representing Warwick at the Women Economics Forum 2017. Warwick is where I have always wanted to study, and being able to make the institution proud is an absolute dream.

She was invited by UNICEF to launch their Flagship publication, ‘SOWC 2015’, to which she had also contributed an essay, and acted as keynote speaker and panellist. She was further involved with UNICEF as a judge for their ‘Wearables for Good Challenge’ and was a highlighted speaker at Nexus Global Youth Summit in New York, and the leading voice at the Nexus India Youth Summit.

Bisman is not only passionate about sustainability and innovation, but is also an ardent supporter of women’s rights and empowerment which led her to start her own campaign, ‘Colour the World Pink’. This aims at promote entrepreneurship and leadership among girls with an attempt to bridge the ambition gap.