broad coalition of Ameri-
cans working together.
In addition to the activ-
ists and advocates who are
already engaged on these
issues, we’ll need to enlist
new partners to turn up
the pressure on the institu-
tions that are enshrining
the status quo.
We’ll need to fast-track
women in high-impact sec-
tors like tech and ensure
that all women (not just
white women or women
from elite backgrounds)
are able to enter and ad-
vance in these fields.
We’ll also need to bring
down the barriers that
most women encounter at
some point in their careers,
like norms around care-
giving that mean they’re
expected to do more work
around the home and the
pervasive sexual harass-
ment and discrimination
they face in the workplace.
When I think about
what it means for a woman
to exercise power and
influence, I picture a CEO
setting new strategies for
her company, a fast-food
worker successfully taking
action against the boss
who harasses her—or any
woman, whether she works
outside the home or not,
sitting down with her part-
ner to divide the household
chores in a way that makes
sense for their family.
Those interactions,
multiplied every day across
millions of women, will
change everything.
MELINDA GATES is cochair
of the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation and founder of
Pivotal Ventures.MALALA
YOUSAFZAI
Investing in Girls’
Education Pays
Huge DividendsWHEN GIVEN opportu-
nities to learn and lead,
girls show us again and
again that they will.
But today almost 1 bil-
lion girls lack the skills
they need to succeed in
the modern workforce. As
technology continues to
change how our world op-
erates, girls in low-income
countries are falling
further behind. Experts
recommend that develop-
ing countries, where the
highest numbers of out-
of-school girls live, spend
6% of GDP on education—
but very few are meeting
this target today.
When girls go to school,
the future is brighter
for all of us. Last year,
Malala Fund and the World
Bank published research
showing that if all girls
completed 12 years of
school, they would add up
to $30 trillion to the global
economy, closing work-
force gaps and generating
new jobs. More educated
girls means more women
driving innovation, hold-
ing seats in government,
and running companies.
I want to help girls catch
up, so they can take us
forward.Showing Up Will Matter AgainBY GEOFF COLVIN
I
N THE 2020s people in developed economies will
rediscover the value of physical presence—engaging
with others face-to-face, eye-to-eye. The opposite
trend, social isolation, has been building for decades, described
chillingly in Robert Putnam’s 2000 bestseller, Bowling Alone.
Since then, as the world has become more digital, the trend has
accelerated. In a 2018 survey, U.S. teens said they prefer texting
to talking in person. Other research finds that compared with
previous generations at the same age, members of Gen Z are less
likely to get together with friends in person, go to parties, go out
with friends, or go on dates. Across age cohorts, our phones are
crowding out in-person interaction.
The bill for such behavior is coming due. “Loneliness kills,”
says Robert Waldinger of Harvard Medical School. “It’s as pow-
erful as smoking or alcoholism.” Researchers find that social
isolation increases the risk of heart disease by 29% and stroke
by 32%. The U.K. has appointed a minister for loneliness.
Now a countertrend is taking shape. WeWork may have been a
financial house of cards, but coworking spaces are a megatrend
in commercial real estate, attracting millions of people who
could work at home for free but instead pay to sit among fellow
humans. Companies are encouraging or requiring employees to
come back to the office because researchers find that creativity
and innovation are group activities built on trust, and “there is
no substitute for face-to-face interaction to build up this trust.”
The most thoughtful analyst of the trend away from and back
toward in-person interaction is MIT’s Sherry Turkle, author of
Alone Together and Reclaiming Conversation. Here’s what she
told Fortune: “I see a historic trend to introduce more friction, to
slow us down, to look up and talk to each other and to appreciate
what only we as humans can give each other. The trend for the
next decade: the embrace of what we don’t share with machines.
Empathy. Vulnerability. The human-specific joy of the friction-
filled life.”GEOFF COLVIN is an author and longtime editor at Fortune.MALALA YOUSAFZAI
is a student, cofounder
of Malala Fund, and the
youngest person
ever awarded the Nobel
ILLUSTRATION BY BENEDETTO CRISTOFANI Peace Prize.