Finding Purpose: Marga Fripp at TEDxBethesdaWomen

Marga Fripp, the Founder and President of Empowered Women International is a former broadcast journalist and an internationally recognized entrepreneur, who over the past two decades dedicated her life to empowering women and solving social problems through innovation, arts and entrepreneurship.

She has founded multiple nonprofit enterprises both in her native Romania and in the United States. Through entrepreneurship training, coaching and inspirational talks Marga gives voice to women around the world and empowers them to reach their full potential, lift themselves and their families women out of unemployment and isolation and create social change.

A passionate advocate for women's empowerment, Marga founded her first non-profit in Romania at the age of 23 to counteract domestic violence and sexual assault. Her service and advocacy efforts led to a Domestic Violence Bill signed into law by the Romanian Parliament in May 2003. Marga's organization was the first non-profit in the Eastern Europe to successfully draft, advocate and pass legislation against domestic violence.

In 2002, after immigrating to the United States due to a medical emergency with her newborn son, Marga founded Empowered Women International (EWI) to create jobs and economic opportunity for immigrant, refugee and low-income women in the Greater Washington DC Area.

Under her leadership EWI has developed from a volunteer service organization to a nationally recognized non-profit that has created jobs, businesses and leadership opportunities for more than 3,000 immigrant, refugee and low-income women and continues to transform women's lives. More at www.ewint.org

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)