Inventions and innovations from Sweden

Творчі жінки

The sphere of inventions still remains the one for male creative potential’s realization. Only one name of a female inventor is widely known. It is Maria Sklodowska-Curie (1867-1934) who was a physicist and chemist famous for her pioneering research on radioactivity. Her achievements included a theory of radioactivity, techniques for isolating radioactive isotopes, and the discovery of two elements, polonium and radium. She was the only person honored with two Nobel Prizes — in physics and chemistry.

Sweden is a country known for its achievements in the field of equality between women and men, state support of women-innovators being one of them. There are 100 exhibits referring to inventions of women kept in the Swedish National Museum of Science and Technology.

In 2010 a unique exhibition “Creative women. Inventions and innovations from Sweden” was presented in Ukraine at the initiative of the Swedish Institute, the National Museum of Science and Technology in Stockholm, the Swedish Embassy in Ukraine.

To support women’s strive for inventiveness, creativity and technical innovation – that’s the goal set by its creators.

Among the exhibits there were about forty inventions made by Swedish women within recent decades. Through their inventions the women intended to improve not only their lives but also the world. Their inventions are solutions of everyday problems people face in their lives. Communicating with other women, their children, older people, they tried to solve some challenging problems in a new unusual way.

Unfortunately, only two Ukrainian cities, Lviv and Kharkiv, gave people chance of visiting the exhibition. In Kharkov the exhibition was organized in partnership with the NGO “Gender Informational-Analytical Center “Crona” and Kharkiv National University named after V.N.Karazin.

From now on all the inventions presented at the exhibition “Creative Women. Inventions and innovations from Sweden” can be seen by everyone.

Enormously grateful to the Embassy of Sweden in Ukraine and Tamara Martsenyuk, a sociologist specialized in gender research (Kyiv, Kyiv-Mohyla Academy), for the help in creating a virtual exhibition.спозиції.