Hasta La Gadget!

Getting astronauts safely to Mars is only the start of your problems when you’re trying to explore the red planet: then you have to give them somewhere to live. NASA has kick-started a competition to figure out just how to do that, challenging inventors to come up with a way to not only 3D print a habitat – preferably using … Continue reading

VATICAN CITY, May 17 (Reuters) – Pope Francis named two Palestinian women as saints on Sunday, in a ceremony in Saint Peter’s Square just days after the Vatican formalized its de facto recognition of the State of Palestine.

The canonisation of Sister Marie-Alphonsine Danil Ghattas, founder of the Sisters of the Most Holy Rosary of Jerusalem, and Maryam Baouardy, who founded a Carmelite convent in Bethlehem, was not directly connected with the Vatican’s Wednesday announcement of a new accord with the State of Palestine.

But the ceremony, attended by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and a delegation of senior clergy including the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Fouad Twal, highlighted Pope Francis’ drive to help embattled Christian communities in the Middle East.

Saint Peter’s Square was decked with portraits of the Palestinians and two other newly sanctified nuns – the French Jeanne-Emilie de Villeneuve and Italian Maria Cristina of the Immaculate Conception Brando.

In a statement as he departed for the Vatican last week, Twal said Ghattas and Baouardy, who entered religious orders as teenagers in the late 1800s and died in 1927 and 1878 respectively, were an example for Christians, Muslims and Jews.

“It is a sign of our modern time which suggests that we can talk about the three religions without any discrimination,” the patriarch’s statement said.

The canonizations of the two Palestinians were the first of their kind “since the days of the apostles,” Twal said.

Abbas, whom the pope called “an angel of peace” when the two met on Saturday, said in a statement the example of the two newly canonized saints “affirms our determination to build a sovereign, independent and free Palestine based on the principles of equal citizenship.”

He called on Palestinian Christians not to emigrate “but to stay with us and enjoy the rights of full and equal citizenship, and bear with us the difficulties of life until we achieve liberty, sovereignty and human dignity.”

Ghattas is credited with setting up the first local Arab religious congregation in her hometown, Jerusalem. Emile Munir Elias, who the Vatican said was healed through her intercession, attended the canonisation with his mother.

Sainthood is usually confirmed by the Catholic Church when two miracles – often the inexplicable healing of a sick person – are attributed to the intercession of a holy person who has died. (Reporting by James Mackenzie and Isla Binnie; Editing by Jon Boyle)

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Katie Shattuck Markov is co-founder and CEO of MoveMeFit, which aims to transform your fitness experience by optimizing workouts for you. Prior to starting MoveMeFit, Katie worked in product management at SCIenergy, an energy efficiency Software-as-a-Service solution for building systems. Earlier in her career, Katie worked in business development at Silver Spring Networks and in management consulting at The Parthenon Group in Boston and Mumbai. She is on the board of Reading Partners Bay Area. She holds a BA from Williams College and an MBA from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business.

After playing three varsity sports in college, Katie found that she fell into a fitness rut over the years of constantly repeating the same workouts, which was both ineffective physically and mentally tedious. A friend convinced her to try a series of new workouts which helped transform her body and her motivation to workout. This inspired her to help others optimize their workout time with MoveMeFit.

How has your life experience made you the leader you are today?
From the time I was little, my parents have always taught me that trust and respect are the most important values to share in relationships. The importance of trust and respect remain critically important to me both personally and in business. Both values are key to working in teams and accomplishing goals at work. I might disagree about an approach or decision, but as long as I trust and respect my teammates, I have confidence that they too are trying to get us to most effectively accomplish our goals.

Growing up, I was always into sports. I grew to love the dedication and commitment it takes to make and stay on a team. I played three varsity sports in college–squash, crew and golf. But I was never the best on any of these teams. It’s humbling to make a team but then have to continuously keep working harder to maintain that spot on it. I never wanted to let my teammates and coaches down on gameday, so I had to keep pushing myself in practice. This instilled in me a desire to continuously work hard and learn, which continues to help me daily in business. These experiences also taught me the importance of camaraderie and the importance of creating a collaborative culture at MoveMeFit.

How has your previous employment experience aided your tenure at MMF?
At each transition in my career, I’ve moved into different functional roles which has prepared me well to handle the many hats you have to wear early on at a startup. I started off in management consulting which exposed me early on to a variety of industries, challenges and potential solutions. After business school, I worked at two start-ups in marketing, business development and product management. These experiences allowed me to dive deep in various functional roles for technologies still establishing their product market fit. Through these roles, I also uncovered the areas that I’m not strong in or don’t have experience. This is why it’s critical to build and rely on an exceptional team. At MoveMeFit, the most relevant of these areas is development. Fortunately, I was introduced to my co-founder Justin Rhinesmith, who is a rock star at building across platforms and leading an engineering team. I’ve learned that it’s equally important to know your weaknesses, as it is your strengths.

What have the highlights and challenges been during your tenure at MMF?
By far the biggest highlights come when we hear from customers about how MoveMeFit has helped them reach their goals. We set out to positively improve peoples’ lives by making it easier to live a healthy lifestyle. So when we get unsolicited customer feedback that we are achieving this, it really fires us up! Fitness is a quickly evolving space and so we are continuously trying to not only meet our customer’s needs, but also develop exciting and convenient new tools to help them stay fit. Staying abreast of what is happening in the industry, what customers want and don’t even know they want, and deciding what to prioritize based on all of this is certainly one of our on-going challenges. We have so many ideas we want to bring to market, but only so many resources with which we can achieve this.

What advice can you offer to women who want to start their own business?
Now is the time! There will never be a completely perfect time in life to make the leap. It’s easy to always convince yourself that you should wait until the next promotion, equity to vest, your kids to be older or whatever the reason might be. But that truly perfect moment might not come, or the landscape for the potential company might change and no longer be relevant.

What is the most important lesson you’ve learned in your career to date?
People are what matter most. I started my career at The Parthenon Group. Parthenon’s main hiring criterion was that candidates are smart, nice and driven. I’ve carried this with me and use this to shape the team and culture at MoveMeFit. First, I want to make sure I am hiring A players that are smart to not only get the job done but also bring original thinking to the team. Next, nice is a key criteria of mine. Having colleagues that are nice fosters a collaborative and open work environment that people enjoy going to everyday. Lastly, working with a team that is intrinsically motived and driven helps foster a culture of innovation and learning.

How do you maintain a work/life balance?
Working out 5 times a week and spending time with my family have always been priorities for me. I’ve learned that to have a sharp mind and stay focused I need to prioritize these. It not only benefits me, but also my team at MoveMeFit. Everyone has a few things they need to prioritize in life to wake up feeling fresh and energized, whether its making time for dates during the week, seeing friends, or traveling. The key is to identify what really is most important, and make sure you are spending your time outside of work doing these things. I’ve also come to realize how important having the proper support in place is. As I am writing this, I have a 5 week-old baby. The MoveMeFit team has been incredibly supportive by helping prepare for my time away, taking on additional responsibilities and communicating clearly while I’m working from home in these early weeks. I’m also fortunate to have a supportive husband who is also willing to adjust his schedule to help me maintain my priorities.

What do you think is the biggest issue for women in the workplace?
I wish this weren’t even still a question. But the truth is that women still earn less than men in equal positions. In my experience, women are more timid to ask for what they believe they deserve and express contrarian opinions. Women, in general, are more attune to feelings and emotions of others so therefore don’t want to ripple the waters. The solution falls both to women feeling confident to speak their minds in the workplace and asking for what they want, and also to the senior management of organizations. Many women may not realize they are earning less than a male colleague, this is where it is important for colleagues, both male and female, to identify these gaps within their organization and proactively ensure that men and women are being equally heard and compensated.

How has mentorship made a difference in your professional and personal life?
I’ve been fortunate to have several great mentors. Not only have they been capable people that I respect, but they’ve also taken the time to help grow my skills. At work, they’ve gone out of their way to ensure my career objectives are being met and that I’m on a path to achieve my goals. These relationships have lasted beyond jobs and companies, and those people now serve as trusted sounding boards for my career decisions. Friends also serve as some of my most trusted mentors -I’m inspired by their accomplishments and respect the advice that they provide. I’d like to think that I have taken what I’ve garnered from these relationships and inspired others.

Which other female leaders do you admire and why?
Margaret Thatcher. She wasn’t afraid to drive forward efforts she believed in, even if they weren’t the most popular at the time. She was straightforward, spoke her mind and worked hard. Her accomplishments are all a reflection of her attitude. Early on in her career, she ran a couple of times for a parliamentary seat which she knew would be nearly impossible to win. She still put her best effort forward and ran. Despite these early loses, she pressed forward. I’ve also heard that Margaret Thatcher was more proud to be the first prime minister of Britain with a science degree than the first woman.

What do you want MMF to accomplish in the next year?
So much! We just launched our iOS app and we are thrilled to already see the impact it’s had on our users. We want to continue to expand and improve our features so we can continue to make it easier for people to live healthy lives by making fitness as easy as possible to incorporate into their daily routines. And we want to expand our business to new platforms to ensure that MoveMeFit is accessible and convenient to all.

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

As an Executive Creative Director at BBH, Laura Fegley has helped build a uniquely gender-balanced creative department. Laura oversees the Global Vaseline business and various brands under the Newell-Rubbermaid account, including Graco and Calphalon, as well as The Guardian in North America. Before coming to BBH, she worked in Creative Director roles at JWT and Cliff Freeman and Partners.

How has your life experience made you the leader you are today?
I was raised by a young, single mom who put herself through college, while working full-time. I’m not sure if I’m the greatest “leader,” but I learned the principle of setting a strong example from the best. She showed me that you can power through anything, no matter how daunting it may be.

How has your previous employment experience aided your tenure at BBH?
I’ve done periods of freelance between staff jobs, and it’s allowed me to get a peek into a wide range of agencies and make lots of mental notes about what’s working and what doesn’t. Hopefully I’ve been able to bring a “best of” approach with me to BBH.

What have the highlights and challenges been during your tenure at BBH?
Although women are represented fairly well in the industry overall, creative departments still skew very male. This year at BBH we hit a landmark point where our creative department became 50% women. We were officially not special any more – which is wildly special.

My biggest challenge has been finding the balance between managing and doing. We spend so many years “doing” that once you’re a manager and projects hit a tough point, it’s hard not to step in and do it yourself. I’m trying to get better at showing others how to power through challenges and find the solutions themselves.

What advice can you offer to women who want a career in your industry?
Be confident. At least, be confident that one day you’ll be confident. When you’re first starting out in any job, a lot of what you do will be wrong. And as a creative, a big part of your life (for your entire career) will be having people shoot down your ideas. This makes it hard to imagine that you will ever be ace at what you do. Maybe we lose a lot of women early in their careers because of that.

I think men tend to be better at convincing themselves that they’re awesome. Whereas women tend to be brutally realistic about our shortcomings. I don’t think we need to be more like men, but maybe we need to get better at ‘faking it until we make it’.

What is the most important lesson you’ve learned in your career to date?
Only work with people and for people you like and respect. Only work with and for people who like and respect you.

Clients can be tough. Ego strokes don’t come along frequently enough. But it’s incredible the amount of extra emotional mileage you’ll give to a job if you feel invested in the people you’re surrounded by. And if you feel like they have your back as well.

Money, title or prestige can feel great, but not as great as looking forward to going into the office everyday.

How do you maintain a work/life balance?
I’m not sure that anyone in advertising has figured that one out. There’s always time-consuming new business pitches, and clients expect responsiveness. I run a global piece of business, so add to that a lot of off-hours calls with Asia. Advertising people also often go on productions that take us away from home for extended periods.

Again, this is why working with people you like and respect is so important. If you’re waiting until you’re home to be surrounded by happy, you’re going to be resentful of anything that cuts into that. I prefer to shoot for a fluid flow between doing things I love, just in different locations.

Oh, and I’m trying not to answer emails after 11pm. Admittedly, it’s baby steps.

What do you think is the biggest issue for women in the workplace?
Children. When to have them (if you want them), and how to have them when you want, without feeling like you’re blowing up your career.

Your 30’s are such a make or break moment in a lot of industries. That’s also a great stage of life to have kids. It’s super daunting to think of stepping away from the game or even slowing it down a bit for a little while.

It’s only in the last couple years that I’ve had enough control over my schedule to even envision how I could make it work. My 30-year-old self couldn’t even imagine doing well in advertising and having a baby.

And that’s the problem. Most of the women who openly talk about making it work are very senior. There still aren’t enough good examples of women at younger levels who are loud and proud about being a mom while being great at what they do.

I knew a female creative who didn’t tell anyone that she had a baby when she started a new job over fear of how people would perceive her abilities at work. That’s kind of bonkers.

How has mentorship made a difference in your professional and personal life?
I went most of my career without a mentor. I think unfortunately that’s a common story for a lot of people.

Being a mentor isn’t convenient – it takes time commitment in an already busy life. To be a mentor, you really have to want to help another person have it be just a little bit easier than you did.

It wasn’t until relatively late in my game that I was fortunate enough to come and work at BBH at the same time that Emma Cookson was our Chairman. Emma’s that rare combination of super smart and totally approachable, so just in her presence, she was inspiring. And somehow in the midst of the craziness of running an agency, she made time for me. Helping me identify things that might be holding me back and how to navigate my way through problems she might have faced just a little quicker.

But honestly the most powerful part of having her mentor me was simply that I had been “seen” and deemed to have enough potential to be worth the time investment. That impact made me realize the weight that my own attention might in turn, have on other women.

Which other female leaders do you admire and why?
I’m also in awe of women who have not only started businesses but started or shaped brand new categories – like Anne Wojcicki of 23 and Me, Elizabeth Holmes of Theranos, and Sara Blakely of Spanx. Being brave enough to pioneer a new space is leading without a net.

What do you want BBH to accomplish in the next year?
In advertising, our brands become our adopted babies. To enjoy this job and really be good at it, you have to be able to fall in love with your brands. I’ve been fortunate to work on brands that have made this easy. So I want us to have creative ideas that really make a difference in our brand’s business – help them get noticed and engaged with in new ways. I want to make our brands famous for all the right reasons. I guess that makes me a marketing “stage mom.”

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Look, we know this sea turtle’s prosthetic beak has a tragic backstory, but it sure makes the reptile look like it has a future as a badass pizza-loving mutant. According to 3D Printing Industry, Turkish animal rescuers found it almost lifeless at se…