WOW’s first ever Artist In Residence, singer-songwriter, Miss Baby Sol opens the day with an electrifying solo performance on the piano.

The Congolese-born British singer/songwriter has written music to help various Amnesty International campaigns including ‘Stop Violence Against Women’. Her WOW Sounds residency is supported by PRS For Music Foundation. Her sultry soul sound is influenced by artists such as Nina Simone, Eartha Kitt, Grace Jones, Billie Holliday and Sarah Vaughan.

WOW Founder, Jude Kelly opens the day with her reflections on the year and a snapshot of the current situation for women and girls in this opening Keynote speech.

Writer and broadcaster, Yassmin Abdel-Magied, turns WOW on its head as she takes up the mic to interview WOW Founder Jude Kelly for her year in review.

Come and have your mind blown with WOW Big Idea as five different speakers join us onstage to speak about the issues close to their heart:

• Artist and writer Selina Thompson gets her freak on and talks about how the Missy Elliott project - a project looking at Black liberation and Teenage Girlhood through the lens of Missy Elliott is helping her redefine her life and her art on her own terms

• Author and Journalist, Sophia Smith Galer on why we're living in a sex misinformation crisis – and how to stop it

• Theatre Director and Access Consultant Sarah Howard on how disabled women are having to fight for dignity, adequate access provision and empathy when attending essential cervical screenings

• Author and journalist Juno Dawson on writing YA and what her fictional characters have taught her

• Burnt Roti founder, Sharan Dhaliwal on being queer, brown and hairy and how her queer identity allowed her to break out of cis hetero normative ideals on beauty and begin to accept her body

Made possible through the British Council Gender Grant

Maslaha Muslim Girls Fence across the stage as award winning spoken word artist Rakaya Fetuga performs a selection of poems.

'Muslim Girls Fence' is a project collaboration between Maslaha and British Fencing which aims to facilitate spaces at a grassroot level for Muslim girls and women to challenge assumptions and narratives relating to their gender, racial, religious and other identities through both physical and creative methods and the power this has to create change across society.

Rakaya Fetuga is a poet, facilitator and events producer based in London. Rakaya is a former Resident Artist and 2018 Poetry Slam winner at the Roundhouse, as well as winning the 2020 Rooftop Rhythms Slam (Brooklyn x UAE) and Spread the Word's 2017 Poetry Prize. Rakaya's commissions and collaborations include work for the BBC, Apple, Rimmel London, Bloomberg Philanthropies with Vanity Fair and the UNFPA. In 2021 Rakaya produced and performed her monodrama, 'Unbraided', about growing up Black and Muslim in London and learning to canerow hair. Rakaya hosts the Rumi's Cave open mic and is currently working on her first novel.

Grab a bite to eat or head on down to the WOW Marketplace.

JudeKelly celebrates new beginnings with people who’ve been beacons of hope for others during the last year. She is joined on stage by Adwoa Aboah for a frank conversation about mental health, the turning points in their lives and their hopes for the future.

How do we move from powerlessness to power, when women’s attitudes to money have been extremely constricted by an idea that they shouldn’t really own it, use it, invest it or talk about it? Money is one of the last taboos for women and girls, and we all need to be talking about it. Jude Kelly leads this frank conversation on all things money. Speakers include: Rowan Harding, Financial Advisor from Path Financial; author of Black Girl Finance Selina Flavius; and Jennifer Rademaker, Executive Vice President of Global Customer Delivery for Mastercard.

This session is supported by Path Financial

From suffrage to BLM and the abortion ban march in Poland, women have always been at the forefront of resistance and change. But what does accountability look like if restrictions are put on our rights to publicly gather to protest?

From Resisting the Protest and Borders bill to the #SaveBrickLane campaign our panel of activists discuss some of the global issues we should all be aware of, what protest can achieve and why resistance will always be important for women and girls.

Speakers include: SaveBrickLane campaigner and academic, Fatima Rajina; political activist and UK Black Pride founder, Lady Phyll and Maymuna Osman from Migrants Organise.

Closing summary by Jude Kelly.