Innovation has been the cornerstone of organizational success for centuries. As gender equality continues to make strides across industries, women inventors are increasingly stepping into the spotlight. Despite historical underrepresentation, women contribute fresh perspectives and pioneering advancements that reshape industries. From groundbreaking technologies to sustainable solutions, female innovators are challenging traditional norms, driving economic growth and fostering diversity in innovation.
Women accounted for about 10.9% of all U.S. patents in 2022, up from 7.2% in 2020. In the toy industry, women remain underrepresented among professional inventors. As of a recent conference, only about 13% of professional inventors were women, although participation in new inventor and student tracks is closer to fifty percent. Additionally, women make up approximately 7% of the total professional inventors in the industry. Initiatives like Hasbro’s Women Innovators of Play promote women’s leadership and creativity within the industry.
“Community matters, mentorship matters, exposure matters,” Kim Boyd, president of global brands & franchise management at Hasbro, states during a Zoom interview. “We are doing what we’re doing to encourage female innovators with their ideas. But if I go a little bit further back and think about young girls and how important it is for them to have similar exposure, if I think about one in three students enrolled in STEM-related fields of study globally are female, only one in three. It starts even at the youngest age.”
The toy conglomerate hosted a women’s inventor toy challenge and virtual event last year, which drew positive attention from the community. The company then broadened the event content this year, inviting participants to hear and learn from trailblazers in the toy and game industry, including leaders from other industries as well. The mission is to elevate Women Innovators of Play as the umbrella of a bigger vision to make Hasbro the destination for female-led creativity and innovation.
Boyd has spent her career in the toy industry. A few years ago, she took a role in a department where she was heavily involved with product innovation. She quickly recognized the scarcity of women inventors in the space. She felt it was her duty to help clear a path and elevate the community. Through that sense of responsibility, she worked with other leaders in the organization to build what is now Hasbro’s Women Innovators of Play.
Developing opportunities for female inventors goes beyond the toy industry; it’s taking steps to elevate and acknowledge women’s voices and ideas across all sectors. Today marks the event’s 2nd anniversary. Individuals from around the world will hear from key innovators such as Dr. Becky Kennedy, founder of Good Inside, Emma Worrollo, Play-Doh Imagination Coach, and Dr. Michelle Thaller Astronomer and Science Communicator, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.
The notion of self-doubt permeates all business areas, especially when women contemplate discussing an idea with colleagues.
Thaller began her career as a post-doctoral researcher at Caltech, studying massive stars’ lifecycles and working for the Spitzer mission at the Jet Propulsion laboratory. In 2009, she came to NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center as Assistant director of science, specializing in communications.
Today, she’s sharing how self-doubt stifles innovation in the workplace. She explains, “One of the big expressions that came down to me is that we only want to climb the mountain, not to have to carry it. The amount of energy that I’ve spent in my career overcoming self-doubt probably rivals the amount of energy I’ve spent trying to come up with great ideas are going to be. We need to be honest about that. There are people in the room that are fighting a tremendously draining battle just to get yourself up to the table and pretend like you belong there.”
Boyd emphasizes that raising the statistics on the number of women inventors means making the space accessible to everyone and as diverse as possible. Staying true to its mission, Hasbro’s innovation challenge offers the winners $10,000, a trip to Hasbro Headquarters and mentorship with a Hasbro senior woman leader.
Boyd and Thaller share how women can have their ideas heard:
- Be prepared for competition. You have to be able to handle feedback and criticism as a way to improve your idea.
- Encourage others. The more women support one another, no matter the industry or role, the more we succeed collectively.
- Incorporate play into your solutions; the more creative the strategy, the more innovative the outcome.
“It is so important that you have that representation and that everyone’s voices can be heard,” Boyd concludes. “The only other thing I would add, and just in terms of thinking about the next generation of innovators, is encouraging people to be loud and proud of their ideas.”
##
Updated October 2024: The event launched in 2023, not 2022.